"Instinct teaches us to look for happiness..." - Quote by Blaise Pascal
Instinct teaches us to look for happiness outside ourselves.
More by Blaise Pascal
“Who confers reputation? who gives respect and veneration to persons, to books, to great men? Who but Opinion? How utterly insufficient are all the riches of the world without her approbation!”
“The sweetness of glory is so great that, join it to what we will, even to death, we love it.”
“Our true dignity consists — in thought. Thence we must derive our elevation, not from space or duration. Let us endeavor then to think well; this is the principle of morals.”
More on Happiness
“There is joy in work.”
“If by happiness you mean instead an ordinary contentment, then yes - I'm fairly contented. Not satisfied - contented.”
“The more adept we become at cultivating an altruistic attitude, the happier we will feel and the more comfortable will be the atmosphere around us. But if our emotions fluctuate wildly and we easily give in to hatred and jealousy, even our friends will avoid us. So even for people with no spiritual beliefs, it is important to have a peaceful mind.”
More on Instinct
“People listen to music with cavemen ears: Is it a bird song or the call of a lion? The audience at a musical is dancing in their hearts.”
“A little cooling down of animal excitability and instinct, a little loss of animal toughness, a little irritable weakness and descent of the pain-threshold, will bring the worm at the core of all our usual springs of delight into full view, and turn us into melancholy metaphysicians.”
“The smoothest curled courtier in the boudoirs of a palace has an animal nature, rude and aboriginal as a white bear.”