How is it possible to expect that mankind will take advice when they will not so much as take warning.
Jonathan SwiftRead
For, if we take an examination of what is generally understood by happiness, as it has respect either to the understanding or the senses, we shall find all its properties and adjuncts will herd under this short definition: that it is a perpetual possession of being well deceived.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Happiness can be viewed as the state of being content through self-deception or positive belief about one's circumstances.
Jonathan Swift suggests that happiness is often linked to the idea of being well deceived, meaning that our perceptions and beliefs about our circumstances can create a sense of contentment. Rather than relying solely on external factors, it implies that our understanding and interpretation of life play a crucial role in our happiness, often allowing us to overlook or disarm harsh realities through a favorable lens.
Themes
HappinessDeceptionContentmentPerceptionBelief
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about finding joy in everyday life, one might quote Swift to emphasize the power of perception.
More from Jonathan Swift
All quotes →What vexes me most is, that my female friends, who could bear me very well a dozen years ago, have now forsaken me, although I am not so old in proportion to them as I formerly was: which I can prove by arithmetic, for then I was double their age, which now I am not. Letter to Alexander Pope. 7 Feb. 1736.
Jonathan SwiftRead
This is every cook's opinion - _x000D_ no savory dish without an onion, _x000D_ but lest your kissing should be spoiled _x000D_ your onions must be fully boiled.
Jonathan SwiftRead
The bulk of mankind is as well equipped for flying as thinking.
Jonathan SwiftRead
This single Stick, which you now behold ingloriously lying in that neglected Corner, I once knew in a flourishing State in a Forest: It was full of Sap, full of Leaves, and full of Boughs: But now, in vain does the busy Art of Man pretend to vie with Nature, by tying that withered Bundle of Twigs to its sapless Trunk: It is at best but the Reverse of what it was; a Tree turned upside down, the Branches on the Earth, and the Root in the Air.
Jonathan SwiftRead
I'm as old as my tongue and a little older than my teeth.
Jonathan SwiftRead
Similar quotes
The happiness that is genuinely satisfying is accompanied by the fullest exercise of our faculties and the fullest realization of the world in which we live.
Bertrand RussellRead
[Happiness is] a ghost, it’s a shadow. You can’t really chase it. It’s a by-product, a very pleasant side effect to a life lived well.
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Happiness does not consist in amusement. In fact, it would be strange if our end were amusement, and if we were to labor and suffer hardships all our life long merely to amuse ourselves.... The happy life is regarded as a life in conformity with virtue. It is a life which involves effort and is not spent in amusement.
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This is true happiness: to have no ambition and to work like a horse as if you had every ambition. To live far from men, not to need them and yet to love them. To have the stars above, the land to your left and the sea to your right and to realize of a sudden that in your heart, life has accomplished its final miracle: it has become a fairy tale.
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Lead the life that will make you kindly and friendly to everyone about you, and you will be surprised what a happy life you will lead.
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The unthankful heart... discovers no mercies; but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and, as the magnet finds the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings!
Henry Ward BeecherRead