Quotations and Literature Forum

I noticed that people in the USA rarely admit that they are experiencing difficulties in their lives. I wondered why so many times. I thought they do not trust me enough therefore they hide their real problems. But later I learnt that they consider it inappropriate and are afraid to be annoying. To me sharing joy and grief with someone I trust is the best way to experience friendship. Now I am reading Lev Shestov and he is saying:

"It is better to be an unhappy man, than a happy pig." The utilitarians hoped by this golden bridge to get over the chasm which separates them from the promised land of the ideal. But psychology stepped in and rudely interrupted: There are no unhappy people, the unhappy ones are all pigs.

Dostoevsky's philosopher of the underworld, Raskolnikov, also Hamlet, and suchlike, are not simply unhappy men whose fate might be esteemed, or even preferred before some happy fates; they are simply unhappy swine. And they themselves are principally aware of it... He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

Show me a man who is not thankful and I will show you a man who is not content. (?)

(This is a jewel of a quote that I memorized a long time ago but I cannot recollect who was credited for saying it.)

The hours that make us happy make us wise. (?)

Happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest.

--R.G. Ingersoll, A Tribute to Eben Ingersoll

So how am I doing Fat & Happy? I am fixing to buy a new Yamaha, Bear Tracker 250, ATV.

If life is like an ATV then happiness is a Bear Tracker 250.

The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things.
~Henry David Thoreau
WALDEN & ON THE DUTY OF CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE, From section 1, Economy

Just before he died, Thoreau made what was considered his most pure yet subtly humorous religious utterance. When asked if he had made his peace with God, he replied, "I was not aware we had quarreled."
http://www.awerty.com/walden2.html

At the end of every night theres always DAY-It doesn't matter how a man starts a race what really matters is how he ends it,,,

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It's good to be good