HAPPINESS, PHILOSOPHY AND the MEANING OF LIFE
Happiness is the supreme goal of human beings. Or should be... The meaning of life depends on happiness. As George Santayana said:
Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.
Happiness - and the meaning of life - can be found in wisdom, in God, holiness and religion, and also in art, love and friendship. But since pain and cruelty are always around us, how lasting can happiness be?
Philosophy of happiness
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The purpose of life is to be happy
All beings are equal in both their desire for happiness and their right to obtain it.
What is the purpose of life? I believe that the purpose of life is to be happy. From the moment of birth, every human being wants happiness and does not want to suffer. From the very core of our being we simply desire contentment.
I don't know whether the universe, with its countless galaxies, stars, and planets, has a deeper meaning, but at the very least it is clear that we humans who live on this Earth face the task of making a happy life for ourselves.
Dalai Lama
Love and Friendship
Without love and friendship there is no happiness
Only the soul that loves is happy.
Johann Goethe, 1749-1831, German writer, Egmont
There is one only happiness in life: to love and be loved.
George Sand
Friendship dances around the world, proclaiming to us all to rouse ourselves to give thanks.
Epicurus, 341-270 a. C., Greek philosopher, Vatican Sayings
In Tibet we say that many illnesses can be cured by the one medicine of love and compassion. These qualities are the ultimate source of human happiness, and our need for them lies at the very core of our being.
Dalai Lama, Tibetan spiritual and political leader, Voices from the Heart
Even if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and have all faith, so as to remove mountains, if I don't have love, I’ll be not happy.
Bible, Corinthians
See also:
Life and Love
Life and friendship
Happiness and Wisdom
Happiness is deeply linked to our wisdom, and our philosophies of life. The Dalai Lama, and his philosophy of life, stresses it.
The key to a happier world is the growth of compassion. We do not need to become religious, nor do we need to believe in an ideology. All that is necessary is for each of us to develop our good human qualities.
We should devote our most serious efforts to bringing about mental peace. From my own limited experience, I have found that the greatest degree of inner tranquillity comes from the development of love and compassion.
The more we care for the happiness of others, the greater our own sense of well-being becomes. Cultivating a close, warm-hearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease.
Because we all share an identical need for love, it is possible to feel that anybody we meet, in whatever circumstances, is a brother or sister.
I try to treat whomever I meet as an old friend. This gives me a genuine feeling of happiness. It is the practice of compassion.
Dalai Lama, Tibetan spiritual and political leader, Voices from the Heart
Happiness Can Be Found in God and Holiness
The knowledge of man's misery without that of God causes despair.
Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662, French intellectual, Thoughts
There is no salvation outside the church.
Saint Augustine
Religion gives safety, confidence and hope to the human spirit; the spirit gains the certainty of a saving truth that repeals the corrosion of doubt.
E. Morin, French intellectual, Método V
Religious faith, as the faith in an idea, is a profound strength that helps to support against the cruelty of the world.
E. Morin, French intellectual, Método V
Music, Poetry and Art as Sources of Meaning
In a world so often cruel and uninteresting, music, poetry, and the arts in general, are a way of giving meaning to life.
Without poets and artists, men would rapidly succumb to the monotony of nature.
Guillaume Apollinaire
For people of feeling, the aim of the arts is to conjure away the burden of bitterness.
Gustav Flaubert, 1821-1880, French writer, in M. Nadeau Correspondence
Aesthetics, in a society such as ours, so separated from religion and magic, has a capital virtue: it allows us not only to appreciate the beauties of existence, it creates not only beauty, or else joy, but it also helps us to tolerate the unsupportable surplus of reality, and, simultaneously, to face the world’s cruelty.
E. Morin, French intelectual, Method V
The role of art is to make a world which can be inhabited.
William Saroyan, 1908-1981, American writer, in interview to The New York Times, 31/10/1983.
If music be the food of love, play on;
Give me excess of it, that, surfeiting,
The appetite may sicken, and so die.
William Shakespeare, 1564-1616, English writer, Twelfth Night
O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound
That breathes upon a bank of violets,
Stealing and giving odour!
William Shakespeare, 1564-1616, English writer, Twelfth Night
Is Happiness Lasting?
Happiness isn’t eternal or permanent. Pain and cruelty are always peeping into our lives. So, up to which point are we happy or not?
Man can climb to the highest summits, but he cannot dwell there long.
Bernard Shaw, 1856-1960, Irish writer, Candida
We are never as happy or unhappy as we imagine.
Rochefoucauld
The aptitude of man to suffer is comparable to his aptitude to enjoy, and his aptitude to misery is inseparable from his aptitude to happiness.
E. Morin, French intelectual, Método V
Man is the artificer of his own happiness.
Henry Thoreau, 1817-1862, American essayist, Journal
We cannot but desire truth and happiness, but we are incapable of certainty or happiness.
Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662, French intelectual, Thoughts
Men of ill judgement often ignore the good that lies within their hands.
Sophocles, 496-406 a. C, Greek poet, Antigone
As a rule, happiness dulls our intelligence, and it isn’t easy to keep our psychic balance when we are happy.
Ovid, 43 b. C. -17 a. C, Roman writer, The Art of Love
Philosophy of happiness: is authentic happiness possible or lasting?
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