Life, with all it's sorrows, cares, perplexities and heart-breaks, is more interesting than bovine placidity, hence more desirable. The more interesting it is, the happier it is.
Interpretation
Life's challenges and struggles make it more worthwhile and engaging than a peaceful but uninspiring existence.
William Lyon Phelps suggests that the complexities and difficulties of life, despite their burdens, contribute to its richness and desirability. He argues that the essence of happiness lies in the depth of our experiences and challenges, as they provide a more intriguing and fulfilling life compared to a dull, uneventful existence.
In practice
During a motivational speech about resilience, one might say, 'As William Lyon Phelps wisely noted, life is more interesting with its challenges.'
Real happiness is not dependent on external things. The pond is fed from within. The kind of happiness that stays with you is the happiness that springs from inward thoughts and emotions. You must cultivate your mind if you wish to achieve enduring happiness.
I divide all readers into two classes: those who read to remember and those who read to forget.
The final test of a gentleman is his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him.
The belief that youth is the happiest time of life is founded on fallacy. The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts, and we grow happier as we grow older.
Whenever it is possible, a boy should choose some occupation which he should do even if he did not need the money.
You can be deprived of your money, your job and your home by someone else, but remember that no one can ever take away your honor.
I never got the chance to meet Linda Brown; there were several times we were supposed to meet or be on the same stage together, but life gets in the way, and it never happened.
Then the children went to bed, or at least went upstairs, and the men joined the women for a cigarette on the porch, absently picking ticks engorged like grapes off the sleeping dogs. And when the men kissed the women good night, and their weekend whiskers scratched the women's cheeks, the women did not think shave, they thought stay.
Life was what happened when all the what-ifβs didnβt, when what you dreamed or hoped or β in this case β feared might come to pass passed by instead.
I never want to lose the story-loving child within me, or the adolescent, or the young woman, or the middle-aged one, because all together they help me to be fully alive on this journey, and show me that I must be willing to go where it takes me, even through the valley of the shadow.
I knew medicine only by its absence - specifically, the absence of a father growing up: one who went to work before dawn and returned in the dark to a plate of reheated dinner.
Adoption was such a positive alternative to abortion, a way to save one life and brighten two more: those of the adoptive parents.
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