Happiness is when a person has arrived, pulls in his oar and says: I've arrived, I'm not going any further.
He who is not his own lamp: he walks in darkness. As for happiness: you can only be happy if you are free. And only the truth can set him free. And the truth is that we are all our own lanterns.
If you want to get to know a person, don't look at what he says, what he wants, what he longs for - but what is the concrete step he takes, because this is always the direction in which he guesses his happiness. This is what gives his spiritual dynamics the greatest strength. You can believe, say, hope for many things, but when you come to a crossroads and have to make a decision, everyone, without exception, goes in the direction where they believe their greatest happiness!
A humble man wading through the flood waters with his bat or backpack is a sad sight, but not so revealing: it seems that he has always lived close to trouble, even if the flood has taken everything away, sooner or later he will get back up somehow. But when the false happiness collapses, there is always something revealing about it: as if the scenery of a fairy-tale world were blown away by a hurricane or washed away by an indifferent sea tide.
What should I be happy about? you ask. That you live, that you are, that you are immortal. To enjoy fresh water, bread, rain and warm sun. And the snow, and the ice, and the fact that you are strong, and if tomorrow everything is washed away by the river, you will still be able to pull yourself together. If necessary, from scratch. That the endless sky is above your head - and beyond what you can no longer see with your eyes, there is your country.
I suspect that there are as many shades of happiness as there are people on earth.
Man is happiest where he lives closest to love.
Notice how time flies when you're happy. "Hey, it's evening!" And if you are very happy, then time not only "flies", but also stops. There isn't. You are in a dimension where there are no clocks. There is no tomorrow. Not yesterday either. There is no "now" either - because once you know that there is "now", you immediately start to fear that it will all pass.
When I'm in good shape, I live like a drunkard. Invisible to the eye and undetectable by instruments, but I float a little above the ground. I love to exist.
Expecting others to make us happy is as foolish as expecting others to grow up, learn, suffer, rejoice, and live instead of us.