Skip to content
quotesby

About this quote

What does it mean?
Stevenson claims that being happy is a duty that people often neglect.
In plain terms
We often forget that we have a duty to be happy.
What can you take from it?
Treat happiness as a responsibility.

Where it applies

  • mental health
  • self-improvement
  • philosophical inquiry

Putting it to work

  • prioritize happiness
  • cultivate joy
  • reflect on duties

Questions to consider

  • Why is happiness seen as optional?
  • How do you fulfill your duty to be happy?

Another view

Forcing happiness can lead to toxic positivity.

More from Robert Louis Stevenson

  1. There is certainly some chill and arid knowledge to be found upon the summits of formal and laborious science; but it is all round about you, and for the troub…

    Permalink to quote #37
  2. A happy man or woman is a better thing to find than a five-pound note. He or she is a radiating focus of goodwill; and their entrance into a room is as though …

    Permalink to quote #39
  3. Perpetual devotion to what a man calls his business, is only to be sustained by perpetual neglect of many other things.

    Permalink to quote #36

Related quotes

  1. Once we are destined to live out our lives in the prison of our mind, our one duty is to furnish it well.

    Peter UstinovPeter Ustinov quote #4
  2. Laughter is by definition healthy.

    Doris LessingDoris Lessing quote #6
  3. I love people who make me laugh. I honestly think it's the thing I like most, to laugh. It cures a multitude of ills. It's probably the most important thing in…

    Audrey HepburnAudrey Hepburn quote #19