The first and indispensable requisite of happiness is a clear conscience.
Interpretation
Happiness stems from having a clear conscience and being at peace with oneself.
In this quote, Edward Gibbon emphasizes that the foundation of true happiness lies in maintaining a clear conscience. When one acts with integrity and honesty, free of guilt or moral dilemmas, they achieve a state of emotional and mental clarity that allows for genuine happiness. This suggests that our inner moral state significantly impacts our overall sense of well-being.
In practice
In a speech about personal values, one might say, 'As Edward Gibbon stated, the first and indispensable requisite of happiness is a clear conscience.'
It was Rome, on the fifteenth of October, 1764, as I sat musing amidst the ruins of the Capitol, while the barefooted friars were singing vespers in the Temple of Jupiter, that the idea of writing the decline and fall of the city first started to my mind.
I will not dissemble the first emotions of joy on the recovery of my freedom, and, perhaps, the establishment of my fame. But my pride was soon humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mind, by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that whatsoever might be the future date of my History, the life of the historian must be short and precarious.
And the winds and the waves are always on the side of the ablest navigators.
In discussing Barbarism and Christianity I have actually been discussing the Fall of Rome.
Many a sober Christian would rather admit that a wafer is God than that God is a cruel and capricious tyrant.
The theologian may indulge the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed on the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption which she contracted in a long residence upon Earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings.
I've survived quite a few generations. That's because I never lost my enthusiasm. I wake up every morning like on Christmas Day, waiting for the gifts.
Gratitude is a dialysis of sorts... it flushes the self-pity out of our systems.
If you want to change the world, then be your own focus for a celebration of life. Really, fundamentally, at the very core of your being, be thankful you are alive, that you've got this opportunity, with these molecules, at this moment. Be thankful! Be a celebrant! Be thankful that you are alive and then look around to see who else is at the party!
I don't feel any pressure from fans. But I'm always in some kind of state of emotional turmoil. I would not describe myself as happy-go-lucky. That's not to say that I'm not happy.
To eke out the most happiness from an experience, we must anticipate it, savor it as it unfolds, express happiness, and recall a happy memory.
I've never been lonely. I like myself. I'm the best form of entertainment I have. Let's drink more wine!
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