Quotes from William Lyon Phelps

Why is it so many people are afraid to admit they are happy?

The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts.

The kind of happiness that stays with you is the happiness that springs from inward thoughts and emotions.

Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good company, good conversation, are the happiest people in the world.

Honesty is not necessarily the best policy. The best policy would be to acquire a reputation for honesty and then to cheat at the psychological moment.

Being educated means to prefer the best not only to the worst but to the second best.

I believe a knowledge of the Bible without a college course is more valuable than a college course without a Bible.

The belief that youth is the happiest time of life is founded on fallacy. The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts, and we grow happier as we grow older.

One of the secrets of life is to keep our intellectual curiosity acute.

There is a strange reluctance on the part of most people to admit that they enjoy life.

If I were running the world I would have it rain only between 2 and 5 a.m. Anyone who was out then ought to get wet.

A well-ordered life is like climbing a tower; the view halfway up is better than the view from the base, and it steadily becomes finer as the horizon expands.

The final test of a gentleman is his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him.

One appreciates that daily life is really good when one wakes from a horrible dream, or when one takes the first outing after a sickness. Why not realize it now?

Life, with all it's sorrows, cares, perplexities and heart-breaks, is more interesting than bovine placidity, hence more desirable. The more interesting it is, the happier it is.

Every time you acquire a new interest, even more, a new accomplishment, you increase your power of life.

A cat pours his body on the floor like water. It is restful just to see him.

The belief that youth is the happiest time of life is founded on a fallacy. The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts, and we grow happier as we grow older.

If happiness truly consisted in physical ease and freedom from care, then the happiest individual would not be either a man or a woman; it would be, I think, an American cow.

The fear of life is the favorite disease of the twentieth century.

Why is it that so many people are afraid to admit that they are happy?

If happiness truly consisted in physical ease and freedom from care, then the happiest individual... would be, I think, an American cow.

This is the final test of a gentleman: his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him.

Whenever it is possible, a boy should choose some occupation which he should do even if he did not need the money.