The life and liberty and property and happiness of the common man throughout the world are at the absolute mercy of a few persons whom he has never seen, involved in complicated quarrels that he has never heard of. Gilbert Murray
The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depends upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily. This is the man of moderation, the man of manly character and of wisdom.
The older I get, the more I see that there really aren't huge zeniths of happiness or a huge abyss of darkness as much as there used to be. I tend to walk a middle ground. Paula Cole
The one happiness is to shut one's door upon a little room, with a table before one, and to create; to create life in that isolation from life. Eleanora Duse
The only thing that could spoil a day was people. People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself. Ernest Hemingway
The principle we call self-love never seeks anything external for the sake of the thing, but only as a means of happiness or good: particular affections rest in the external things themselves. Joseph Butler