everything so fiercely, his life is so vigorous, so
complicated, that happiness can not find a home with him very long.
Nor does he understand why. He has money, health; but he always has
that restless far-away, absent-minded gaze into something beyond, and I
do not think he is ever really very happy. His whole manner of living
is extremely complex. He does not seem to know where to find
happiness. He has evidently mistaken the very nature of happiness. He
thinks it consists in making a great show, in having great possessions,
in doing things which attract a great deal of attention; but _happiness
would be strangled, suffocated in such an environment_. The essentials
of real happiness are few, simple, and close at hand.

Happiness is made up of very simple ingredients. It flees from the
complex life. It evades pomp and show. The heart would starve amid
the greatest luxuries.

Simple joys and the treasures of the heart and mind make happiness.

Happiness has very little to do with material things. It is a mental
state of mind. Real permanent happiness can not be found in mere
temporary things, because its roots reach away down into eternal
principles.

One of the most pathetic pictures in civilization is the great army of
men and women searching the world over for happiness, as though it
existed in things rather than in a state of mind.

The people who have spent years and a fortune trying to find it look as
hungry and as lean of contentment and all that makes life desirable as
when they started out. Chasing happiness all over the world is about
as silly a business as any human being ever engaged in, for it was
never yet found by any pursuer. Yet happiness is the simplest thing in
the world. It is found in many a home with carpetless floors and
pictureless walls. It knows neither rank, station, nor color, nor does
it recognize wealth. It only demands that it live with a contented
mind and pure heart. It will not live with ostentation; it flees from
pretense; it loves the simple life; it insists upon a sweet, healthful,
natural environment. It hates the forced and complicated and formal.

Real happiness flees from the things that pass away; it abides only in
principle, permanency.

I have never seen a person who has lived a grasping, greedy,
money-chasing life, who was not disappointed at what money has given
him for his trouble.

It is only in giving, in helping, that we find our quest. Every