Thanks to The Declaration of Independence most people reading HappierDaily enjoy the rights to Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness… But what exactly does that mean?
A little background…
When the Declaration was written, the definition of happiness was closely aligned with prosperity and well-being. There is continued debate about what happiness meant back when the Declaration was written, but Benjamin Franklin, a founding father, most likely drew inspiration from his Epicurean background.
Franklin’s philosophy was centered around seeking simple pleasures in life to essentially make life simpler, easier, and happier.
More on the Founding Fathers’ take on the “pursuit of happiness”
The U. S. Constitution doesn’t guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.
– Benjamin Franklin
Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one.
– Benjamin Franklin
It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man.
– Benjamin Franklin
Happiness consists more in small conveniences of pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom to a man in the course of his life.
– Benjamin Franklin
There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means – either may do – the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.
– Benjamin Franklin
