The Ingredients of Happiness

“One is happy as a result of one’s own efforts, once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness: simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self-denial to a point, love of work, and, above all, a clear conscience. Happiness is no vague dream, of that I now feel certain. By the proper use of experience and thought one can draw much from oneself, by determination and patience once can even restore one’s health… so let us live life as it is, and not be ungrateful.”       

–George Sand (a.k.a. Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin, Baroness Dudevant, French Writer, 1804-1876)