QuoteProject
It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself.
Thomas Paine
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Personal happiness requires mental integrity and honesty with oneself.

In this quote, Thomas Paine emphasizes the importance of being true to one's own beliefs and thoughts as a foundation for achieving genuine happiness. Mental fidelity to oneself involves an unwavering commitment to one's values, principles, and internal truths, suggesting that only by aligning one's outer life with inner convictions can true happiness be attained.

Themes

HappinessSelfTruthIntegrityMental Fidelity

In practice

Example use cases

During a motivational speech about personal growth, one might reference this quote.

More from Thomas Paine

A long habit of not thinking a thing wrong gives it a superficial appearance of being right.
Thomas PaineRead
That God cannot lie, is no advantage to your argument, because it is no proof that priests can not, or that the Bible does not.
Thomas PaineRead
I consider the war of America against Britain as the country's war, the public's war, or the war of the people in their own behalf, for the security of their natural rights, and the protection of their own property.
Thomas PaineRead
Had the news of salvation by Jesus Christ been inscribed on the face of the sun and the moon, in characters that all nations would have understood, the whole earth had known it in twenty-four hours, and all nations would have believed it; whereas, though it is now almost two thousand years since, as they tell us, Christ came upon earth, not a twentieth part of the people of the earth know anything of it, and among those who do, the wiser part do not believe it.
Thomas PaineRead
The end of all political associations is the preservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man; and these rights are liberty, property, security, and resistance of oppression.
Thomas PaineRead
To reason with goverments, as they have existed for ages, is to argue with brutes. It is only from the nations themselves that reforms can be expected
Thomas PaineRead

Similar quotes

Only the highway of useful service leads to the city of happiness.
Napoleon HillRead
Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.
Robert Green IngersollRead
a man possessed with peace is always smiling
Milan KunderaRead
A good laugh heals a lot of hurts.
Madeleine L'EngleRead
The happiness consists in realizing that it is all a great strange dream.
Jack KerouacRead
I heard a definition once: Happiness is health and a short memory! I wish I'd invented it, because it is very true.
Audrey HepburnRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.