Quote
By Robert Louis Stevenson
There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy, we sow anonymous benefits upon the world, which remain unknown even to ourselves, or when they are disclosed, surprise nobody so much as the benefactor.
- Source
- Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (first edition), 1881 · "An Apology for Idlers", pp. 131 to 132 (printed page numbers seen on the page images; the passage runs over the page break)
- Read at
- Internet Archive (scan of the first edition, London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1881)
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About this quote
From "An Apology for Idlers", an essay in Robert Louis Stevenson's Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (London: C. Kegan Paul & Co., 1881). The essayist speaks.