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Happiness

Posted by Han Meng on June 13, 2007

In Reply to: Happiness posted by ESC on June 09, 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.

Thanks, but that's mid seventeenth century, right?

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