The fiction of happiness is propagated by every tongue and confirmed by every look till at last all profess the joy which they do not feel and consent to yield to the general delusion.

Nothing is more idle than to inquire after happiness, which nature has kindly placed within our reach.

None are happy but by anticipation of change.

The world will never be long without some good reason to hate the unhappy; their real faults are immediately detected; and if those are not sufficient to sink them into infamy, an individual weight of calumny will be super-added.

Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.

It is better that some should be unhappy rather than that none should be happy, which would be the case in a general state of equality.

That all who are happy are equally happy is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. A small drinking glass and a large one may be equally full, but the large one holds more than the small.

To hear complaints is wearisome alike to the wretched and the happy.

The disturbers of happiness are our desires, our griefs, and our fears.