...anticipation of happiness can sometimes be as gratifying as its consummation.

Such is the state of life, that none are happy but by the anticipation of change: the change itself is nothing; when we have made it, the next wish is to change again. The world is not yet exhausted; let me see something tomorrow which I never saw be

Remember the botched brothel-visit in L’Education sentimentale and remember its lesson. Do not participate: happiness lies in the imagination, not the act. Pleasure is found first in anticipation, later in memory.

'Twas a jolly old pedagogue, long ago, Tall and slender, and sallow and dry; His form was bent, and his gait was slow, His long thin hair was white as snow, But a wonderful twinkle shone in his eye. And he sang every night as he went to bed, "Let us be happy down here below: The living should live, though the dead be dead." Said the jolly old pedagogue long ago.

To have the sense of creative activity is the great happiness and the great proof of being alive

We cannot feel good about an imaginary future when we are busy feeling bad about an actual present.