See the Additional Resources for Topics for Critical Thinking and Writing and reading comprehension quizzes for this chapter.
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What Is Happiness?
Thoughts about Happiness, Ancient and Modern
Here are some brief comments about happiness, from ancient times to the present. Read them, think about them, and then write on one of the two topics that appear after the last quotation.
Happiness is prosperity combined with virtue.
— ARISTOTLE (384–322 b.c.)
Pleasure is the beginning and the end of living happily. . . . It is impossible to live pleasurably without living wisely, well, and justly, and impossible to live wisely, well, and justly without living pleasurably.
— EPICURUS (341–270 b.c.)
Very little is needed to make a happy life.
— MARCUS AURELIUS (121–180)
Society can only be happy and free in proportion as it is virtuous.
— MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT SHELLEY (1759–1797)
The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved.
— VICTOR HUGO (1802–1885)
Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.
— JOHN STUART MILL (1806–1873)
A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.
— GEORGE BERNARD SHAW (1856–1950)
We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.
— GEORGE BERNARD SHAW (1856–1950)
If only we’d stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time.
— EDITH WHARTON (1862–1937)
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Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.
— ROBERT FROST (1874–1963)
Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism, selfishness, evil — or else an absolute ignorance
— GRAHAM GREENE (1904–1991)
Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention.
— SIMONE WEIL (1909–1943)
Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.
— ROBERTSON DAVIES (1913–1995)
If any one of these passages especially appeals to you, make it the thesis of an essay of about 500 words.
Take two of these passages — perhaps one that you especially like and one that you think is wrong-headed — and write a dialogue of about 500 words in which the two authors converse. They may each try to convince the other, or they may find that to some degree they share views and they may then work out a statement that both can accept. If you do take the position that one writer is on the correct track but the other is utterly mistaken, try to be fair to the view that you think is mistaken. (As an experiment in critical thinking, imagine that you accept it, and make the best case for it that you possibly can.)