I wasn't handed college or graduate school or anything else on a silver platter. I had to work very hard, but I did it because I wanted to. That's the real key to happiness. I think unhappy people are those who feel that circumstances are forcing them into a pattern. Happy people are not slaves to the system.
Interpretation
True happiness comes from personal effort and freedom, not from external circumstances.
In this quote, Rosalyn Sussman Yalow emphasizes that happiness is achieved through personal hard work and the pursuit of one's desires rather than being dictated by circumstances. She contrasts unhappy individuals, who may feel trapped by their situations, with those who actively shape their paths and find joy in their efforts, suggesting that the essence of happiness lies in autonomy and intrinsic motivation.
In practice
In a motivational speech about achieving personal goals.
The only difference between men and women in science is that the women have the babies. This makes it more difficult for women in science but should not be seen as a barrier, for it is merely another challenge to be overcome.
We still live in a world in which a significant fraction of people, including women, believe that a woman belongs and wants to belong exclusively in the home.
We bequeath to you, the next generation, our knowledge but also our problems. While we still live, let us join hands, hearts and minds to work together for their solution so that your world will be better than ours and the world of your children even better.
The failure of women to have reached positions of leadership has been due in large part to social and professional discrimination.
I feel it is now my duty to speak to young women, to encourage them to have careers and, particularly, careers in science.
They told me that, as a woman, I'd never get into graduate school in physics, so they got me a job as a secretary at the College of Physicians and Surgeons and promised that, if I were a good girl, I would take courses there.
Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.
We must laugh before we are happy, for fear we die before we laugh at all.
Happiness cannot be attained by wanting to be happy - it must come as the unintended consequence of working for a goal greater than oneself.
Happiness is brief. It will not stay. God batters at its sails.
Man is the artificer of his own happiness.
We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life. All that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.
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