December 28, 1997. We are never so happy nor so unhappy as we imagine.
Happiness is a clear conscience, unsullied by the reproach or remembrance of an unworthy action.
Nothing is more idle, than to enquire after happiness, which nature has kindly placed within our reach. The way to be happy is to live according to nature, in obedience to that universal and unalterable law with which every heart is originally impressed which is not written on it by precept, but engraven by destiny, not instilled by education, but infused at our nativity. Throw away the encumbrance of precepts, which they who utter them with so much pride and pomp do not understand, and carry with us this simple and intelligible maxim. That deviation from nature is deviation from Happiness. I hear you laugh at me for being happy in the country, and upon this I have a few words to say.