Search
Happiness
Posted by ESC on June 09, 2007
In Reply to: Happiness posted by Han Meng on June 08, 2007
: "If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help somebody." Many Google sources claim this is a Chinese proverb (and some also include marriage as providing happiness for a month). It doesn't sound at all Chinese to me, but I'd like to know where it comes from.
Doesn't sound Chinese to me either. Here is what one reference says under the Proverbs section (sans commas for some reason):
If you would be happy for a week take a wife;
if you would be happy for a month kill a pig;
but if you would be happy all your life plant a garden.
mid seventh century.
"Oxford Dictionary of Quotations," Fifth Edition, edited by Elizabeth Knowles (Oxford University Press, Oxford and New York, 2001). Page 603.
