Never let your zeal outrun your charity. The former is but human, the latter is divine.
Hosea BallouRead
Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.
Interpretation
True happiness is easy to attain, but people often sacrifice too much for false happiness.
In this quote, Hosea Ballou suggests that genuine happiness is not complicated or costly, yet humans tend to invest significantly in seeking illusions of happiness that do not fulfill them. This highlights the irony of how we often prioritize superficial pleasures, neglecting the simple joys that lead to real contentment.
In practice
In a motivational speech about finding joy in simple things.
Man is never always happy, and very often only a brief period of happiness is granted him in this world; so why escape from this dream which cannot last long?
I'm fulfilled in what I do. I never thought that a lot of money or fine clothes - the finer things of life - would make you happy. My concept of happiness is to be filled in a spiritual sense.
Joy is a sign of generosity. When you are full of joy, you move faster and you want to go about doing good to everyone.
Once we truly understand that God's will is that we be happy, we no longer feel the need to ask for anything other than that God's will be done.
Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.
I have been happy, though in a dream. I have been happy-and I love the theme: Dreams! in their vivid colouring of life As in that fleeting, shadowy, misty strife
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