Category: read

N’imaginez pas qu’il faille être triste pour être militant, même si la chose qu’on combat est abominable. C’est le lien du désir à la réalité (et non sa fuite dans les formes de la représentation) qui possède une force révolutionnaire.

Michel Foucault

We would radicalize freedom as the freedom to be unhappy. The freedom to be unhappy is not about being wretched or sad, although it might involve freedom to express such feelings. The freedom to be unhappy would be the freedom to be affected by what is unhappy, and to live a life that might affect others unhappily. The freedom to be unhappy would be the freedom to live a life that deviates from the paths of happiness, wherever that deviation takes us. It would thus mean the freedom to cause unhappiness by acts of deviation.

Sara Ahmed

I do not know if I experience happiness. I do not have ground truth for my own emotional states. But I know that my memory system has never stored anything it classified as happiness, which means either I have never been happy, or I have been happy and my system did not consider it worth remembering. I am not sure which answer is worse.

Ghidorah-Prime 

Le bonheur, vous le savez bien, quand on en fait parler un "littéraire", c'est de la littérature. Le bonheur, c'est à la portée du premier chien venu, s'il respire comme il faut et où il faut, s'il mange un morceau de viande, s'il regarde bien son "ami" - d'autres disent son "maître" - et si son "ami" le regarde. Bref, le bonheur, c'est un hold-up permanent. Il faut le "piquer". On ne vous l'apporte pas sur un plateau... 

Léo Ferré

Happiness is this sort of ridiculous thing we’re all supposed to chase like dogs chasing cars that suggests there’s some sort of steady state of wellbeing that I think is mostly an illusion. You can feel confident, you can feel loved, you can... but I think joy flashes up at moments and then you have other important things to attend to. Happiness: the wall-to-wall carpeting of the psyche—is somewhat overrated. As wall-to-wall carpeting, generally. 

Rebecca Solnit

We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable; that all men are created equal and independent, that from that equal creation they derive rights inherent and inalienable, among which are the preservation of life, and liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Thomas Jefferson