Is it not clear, however, that bliss and envy are the numerator and denominator of the fraction called happiness?
Interpretation
Happiness is a balance between bliss and envy.
In this quote, Yevgeny Zamyatin suggests that happiness is a complex interplay between positive and negative emotions, where bliss represents the joy we experience and envy represents the discontent or longing for what others have. He implies that our sense of happiness is determined by how we manage these opposing feelings within us.
In practice
In a motivational speech about mental health.
The knife is the most durable, immortal, the most genius thing that man created. The knife was the guillotine; the knife is the universal means of solving all knots; and along the blade of a knife lies the path of paradox - the single most worthy path of the fearless mind.
Accentuated plainness and accentuated vice ought to bring about harmony. Beauty lies in harmony, in style, whether it be the harmony of ugliness or beauty, vice or virtue.
The world is kept alive only by heretics: the heretic Christ, the heretic Copernicus, the heretic Tolstoy. Our symbol of faith is heresy...
The lilac branches are bowed under the weight of the flowers: blooming is hard, and the most important thing is - to bloom. (βA Story About The Most Important Thingβ)
A man is like a novel: until the very last page you don't know how it will end. Otherwise it wouldn't be worth reading.
Knowledge, absolutely sure of its infallibility, is faith.
Judge nothing, you will be happy. Forgive everything, you will be happier. Love everything, you will be happiest.
Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.
Out of moderation a pure happiness springs.
There can be no peace for us, only misery, and the greatest happiness.
When things go wrong and will not come right, Though you do the best you can, When life looks black as the hour of night, A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.
Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.
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