Ralph Waldo Emerson said: “The purpose of life is not to be happy: It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.”
Happiness, in the ancient noble sense, means self-fulfillment, bringing a different focus to the word happiness.
Thomas Carlyle doubted that Emerson was accurately quoted and added these thoughts:
… “It was only cheap, easy happiness that Carlyle railed against. He taught that there was higher happiness, namely, blessedness — the spiritual fruition that comes through renunciation of self, the happiness of heroes that comes from putting thoughts of happiness out of sight, and that the direct and persistent wooing of fortune for her good gifts was selfish and unmanly, — a timely lesson at all seasons.”
"Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.”
The reason that the rich can’t be satisfied may offer some confirmation as to what the true nature of happiness is, suggesting that for true happiness, one needs to be helpful, to be honorable, to be compassionate to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well”.