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‹Better GutenbergThe Pursuit of HappinessPart V — The Consolations of Affliction · 6 of 29Contents›

The Pursuit of Happiness

by Daniel G. Brinton

6 of 29 · Contents · Download EPUB

Part V The Consolations of Affliction

I. The Removal of Unhappiness.

Suffering is Unavoidable.—​Where to Look for Consolation.—​Two Consoling Reflections.—​Advantage of a Multitude of Miseries.—​The Habit of Unhappiness.—​Some Require Ill Fortune.—​Two Popular Methods of Consolation.—​Talk It Over, and Why.—​Our Strange Claim for Happiness.—​The Tolerance of Suffering.—​The Universal Panacea.—​Look Before and After.—​Deal Justly by Yourself.—​How to Regard Incivility and Ingratitude.—​Success Arising from Failures.—​Resignation, Sympathy.—​Remember Your Advantages.—​Thoughts About Time and Death.

Strowingspp. 248-280

II. The Inseparable Connection of Pleasure and Pain.

Pleasure Requires Pain, and Joy Sorrow.—​The Words of Socrates.—​Physiological Relations of Pleasure and Pain.—​Their Analogy to Joy and Sorrow.—​The Oneness of the Pleasure-Pain Sensation.—​The Rhythm of Sensations and Emotions.—​Pleasure Derived from Pain, Joy from Sorrow.—​Quotation from Leigh Hunt.—​Quotation from Sir Richard Steele.—​Sadness the Best Preparative for Gladness.—​Influence of Time on Pleasures and Pains.

Strowingspp. 263-272

III. The Education of Suffering.

What is Suffering?—​The Human Passion of Sorrow.—​Sorrow as the Initiation into the Mysteries of Life.—​The Noblest Prizes Won Only by Suffering.—​It is the Highest Inspiration of Religion and Art.—​It Alone Teaches the Elder Truths.—​The Ministry of Grief.—​The Sweetness of Departed Joys.—​The Compensations of Loves that are Lost.—​The Despair that is Divine.

Strowingspp. 273-280

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