Everybody must be managed. Queens must be managed. Kings must be managed, for men want managing almost as much as women, and that's saying a good deal.
Thomas HardyRead
Happiness is but a mere episode in the general drama of pain.
Interpretation
Happiness is a temporary state that exists amidst more persistent struggles.
This quote by Thomas Hardy suggests that happiness is not a constant or enduring condition but rather a fleeting moment that occurs in contrast to the more significant experiences of suffering and pain in life. It reflects the idea that life's challenges often overshadow brief episodes of joy, highlighting the complexity of human emotions and experiences.
In practice
During a therapy session discussing life's ups and downs.
Everybody must be managed. Queens must be managed. Kings must be managed, for men want managing almost as much as women, and that's saying a good deal.
Because what's the use of learning that I am one of a long row only - finding out that there is set down in some old book somebody just like me, and to know that I shall only act her part; making me sad, that's all. The best is not to remember your nature and your past doings have been just like thousands' and thousands', and that your coming life and doings'll be like thousands' and thousands'.
But nothing is more insidious than the evolution of wishes from mere fancies, and of wants from mere wishes.
I wish I had never been born--there or anywhere else.
Her affection for him was now the breath and life of Tess's being; it enveloped her as a photosphere, irradiated her into forgetfulness of her past sorrows, keeping back the gloomy spectres that would persist in their attempts to touch her—doubt, fear, moodiness, care, shame. She knew that they were waiting like wolves just outside the circumscribing light, but she had long spells of power to keep them in hungry subjection there.
The trees have inquisitive eyes, haven't they? -that is, seem as if they had. And the river says,-'Why do ye trouble me with your looks?' And you seem to see numbers of to-morrows just all in a line, the first of them the biggest and clearest, the others getting smaller and smaller as they stand further away; but they all seem very fierce and cruel and as if they said, 'I'm coming! Beware of me! Beware of me!
Summer is the time when one sheds one's tensions with one's clothes, and the right kind of day is jeweled balm for the battered spirit. A few of those days and you can become drunk with the belief that all's right with the world.
I wake up some mornings and sit and have my coffee and look out at my beautiful garden, and I go, 'Remember how good this is. Because you can lose it.'
Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, or worn. It is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace & gratitude.
There’s a difference between thinking you deserve to be happy and knowing that you are worthy of being happy. Your being alive makes worthiness your birthright. You alone are enough.
When we live in the spirit of gratitude, there will be much happiness in our life. The one who is grateful is the one who has much happiness while the one who is ungrateful will not be able to have happiness.
I am also convinced that one gains the purest joy from spirited things only when they are not tied in with earning one's livelihood.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.