There is always more pain than pleasure, this is what we all have in common

Happiness consists in controlling desire and reducing pain

1. Where is man’s wisdom or true happiness? Properly speaking, it does not consist in diminishing our desires, for, if our desires are less than our abilities, some part of our faculties is idle and out of use, and we cannot fully enjoy our existence; nor does it consist in enlarging Our powers, for if our desires were likewise increased in a greater proportion, we would only be more miserable; the problem, therefore, is to reduce those desires which exceed our powers, to bring the full balance between power and will. balance.
2. There is always more pain than pleasure, and that is something we all have in common. In this world, people’s happiness can only be viewed negatively, and the standard of measurement is: people who suffer less should be considered happy people.

3. The nearer man is to his natural state, the less is the difference between his faculties and desires, and therefore his path to happiness is not so remote. It is only when he seems to have nothing that he suffers the least, for suffering is not caused by a lack of things but by a need for them. Except physical strength, health, and conscience, the happiness of life is different according to each person’s opinion; except physical pain and conscience, all our pains are imaginary.
4. How many kings lament the loss of lands they have never seen! How many merchants cry out in Paris because they only want a foot in India!

5. People! Limit your life to your abilities and you will have no more pain. Cling to the place that nature has placed for you in the order of all things, and no power can lift you out of that place.
6. The happiness of the natural man is as simple as his life: happiness is freedom from pain, that is to say, it consists of health, liberty, and the necessities of life.

7. Our natural desires are limited, they are the means by which we achieve freedom, they enable us to achieve the purpose of maintaining our existence. All those desires which enslave us and destroy us, are obtained elsewhere; Nature has not given us such desires, and we make them ours against her will.
8. It is always prejudice that keeps lust burning in our hearts. If a person only pays attention to what he has and only values what he really understands, his desire will not be impulsive. With wrong views, there will be strong desires.

9. Any desire is a good one if you can control it; it will be a bad desire if you let it rule you.
10. Any man who is in good health, and who is safe from hunger and cold, may be said to be quite a rich man, provided he casts away the wealth which he fancies. +The most valuable of all riches is not authority but freedom. A truly free person only wants what he can get, and only does what he likes to do.
Of the many riches that cover the earth, I shall seek what I like best and can best possess. To this end, my wealth will be used first to buy leisure and liberty, and secondly to buy health, if health can be bought with money.

11. In the vicissitudes of life, we should especially avoid that overcautious timidity of sacrificing the present for the future; which often sacrifices what can be obtained now for what will not be obtained in the future. We should let a man live a happy life at any age, lest after spending so much effort, he dies without living a happy life.
12. When we don’t know what we should do, the wisest way is to do nothing. Of all the maxims, this is the one that is most useful to man, and at the same time the one that is most difficult for people to live by. If you pursue happiness without knowing where it is, you will pursue it farther and farther, and you will encounter as many dangers as you go.
13. A person can be said to be happy only if he can resolutely abandon that status when his status changes, and stand upright in disregard of the fate. Praise him as you like, but I despise this ruined king who tries to struggle madly under a decaying kingship; I think he only lives by his crown, and if he is not a king, he he is worth nothing; but if he loses his throne and can live without a crown, he is far superior in taste to a king. He had risen from the status of king–a status that can be achieved by a coward, a rogue, or a madman–to the status of a man attained only by a very few. At this time, he defeated fate, dared to ignore fate, and relied on himself for everything.