Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
American society often views personal happiness with suspicion or as a sign of moral failing.
In plain terms
Being happy in America makes people think you are doing something wrong.
What can you take from it?
Success and joy are often viewed with suspicion in some cultures.

Where it applies

  • discussing work culture
  • analyzing societal values

Putting it to work

  • promoting mental health
  • challenging toxic productivity

Questions to consider

  • Why do some societies distrust success?
  • How does culture affect our view of happiness?

Another view

Many people strive hard for happiness without wrongdoing.

More from Clarence Darrow

  1. I don't like spinach, and I'm glad I don't, because if I liked it I'd eat it, and I just hate it.

    Permalink to quote #57
  2. If you lose the power to laugh, you lose the power to think.

    Permalink to quote #59
  3. I am a friend of the working man, and I would rather be his friend, than be one.

    Permalink to quote #56

Related quotes

  1. I have experienced as violence the emergence of the culture of compulsory industrialised joy, which is the companion of consumerism.

    Jeremy SeabrookJeremy Seabrook quote #1
  2. Whoever wants to know the heart and mind of America had better learn baseball, the rules and realities of the game - and do it by watching first some high scho…

    Jacques BarzunJacques Barzun quote #6
  3. 'The three great American vices seem to be efficiency, punctuality, and the desire for achievement and success. They are the things that make the Americans so …

    Lin YutangLin Yutang quote #8