“People exaggerate both happiness and unhappiness; we are never so fortunate nor so unfortunate as people say we are.”— Honoré de Balzac, Modeste Mignon (1844), trans. Katharine Prescott Wormeley, ch. XXIVShare
“Marriage must incessantly contend with a monster which devours everything, that is, familiarity.”— Honoré de BalzacShare
“They who know the truth are not equal to those who love it, and they who love it are not equal to those who delight in it.”— ConfuciusShare
“Knowledge, that tendeth but to satisfaction, is but as a courtesan, which is for pleasure, and not for fruit or generation.”— Francis BaconShare
“If a man will begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties.”— Francis BaconShare
“That which is most excellent, and is most to be desired by all happy, honest and healthy-minded men, is dignified leisure.”— CiceroShare
“The consciousness of life is higher than life, the knowledge of the laws of happiness is higher than happiness.”— Fyodor DostoevskyShare
“Knowledge is not happiness, and science but an exchange of ignorance for that which is another kind of ignorance.”— Lord ByronShare
