G. K. Chesterton on happiness

‘My country, right or wrong’ is a thing that no patriot would think of saying, except in a desperate case. It is like saying, ‘My mother, drunk or sober’.

The first two facts which a healthy boy or girl feels about sex are these: first that it is beautiful and then that it is dangerous.

The Declaration of Independence dogmatically bases all rights on the fact that God created all men equal; and it is right; for if they were not created equal, they were certainly evolved unequal. There is no basis for democracy except in a dogma about the divine origin of man.

Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.

Dr. Seuss1904–1991

It was when I was happiest that I longed most…The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing…to find the place where all the beauty came from.

C. S. Lewis1898–1963Till We Have Faces: A Myth Retold (1956), Pt. 1, VII (Psyche)

• Beauty

Think of all the beauty that’s still left in and around you, and be happy.

Anne Frank1929–1945

• Beauty