The Happiness Project: A quotation from Leonardo da Vinci.

THE HAPPINESS PROJECT is the memoir of the year I spent test-driving the wisdom of the ages, current scientific studies, and lessons from popular culture about how to be happier – happily, it was a #1 New York Times bestseller. As one of the hundreds of experiments I've conducted, I started this blog. Here, I recount my daily adventures in pursuit of happiness. –

Gretchen Rubin

Twelve Personal Commandments

Four Splendid Truths

First: To be happier, you have to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.
Second: One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy; One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
Third: The days are long, but the years are short. (click the link to see my one-minute movie)
Fourth: You’re not happy unless you think you’re happy.

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What Started Me Thinking

"The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer somebody else up." Mark Twain
“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.” Robert Louis Stevenson
"Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." Luke 10:41-42
“Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.” Simone Weil
“What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.” Colette
“It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.” G. K. Chesterton
“A man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart.” Joseph Addison
“Best is good. Better is best.” Lisa Grunwald
“Order is Heaven’s first law.” Alexander Pope

Happiness Theories I Reject

Flaubert: "To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness; though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless."
Vauvenargues: “There are men who are happy without knowing it.”
Eric Hoffer: “The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.”
Sartre: "Hell is other people."
Willa Cather: “One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them…”
Alexander Smith: “We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once.”
John Stuart Mill: “Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.”

A quotation from Leonardo da Vinci.

I just discovered something fascinating.

For years, I've been haunted by an illuminating observation by Leonardo da Vinci: “Intellectual passion drives our sensuality.”

Well, in checking the quotation for this post, I discovered that all these years, I've been pondering something I mis-typed years ago. The actual quotation is "Intellectual passion drives out sensuality." Exactly the opposite meaning.

Ah, I think my version is far superior. I've improved on Leonardo.

Posted January 20, 2007

Comments

I'm not US people, can you explain clearly the meaning of this quotation :)

Thanks much ;)

Posted by: Nxqd3051990 | January 20, 2007 at 10:33 PM

How about this - I think you're both right. Just using different definitions.

In DaVinci's time, "sensuality" had more of the meaning of "a life being ruled by base passions" or, more succinctly, "a complete lack of self-control".

I'm pretty sure that's not what you meant...

Dan

Posted by: Daniel R. Sweet | January 21, 2007 at 08:32 AM

HA! That is SO funny! It's always weird to discover when one is mistaken as so.

Both quotations are quite good and very true, it just depends on the person. I think that yours is better, though, because is applies more to the interesting among us. Whilst Leo's means basically that being smart is a turn off. Pretty much that, if we are devoted to our work/studies, we cannot be the romantic type.

Smart Is Sexy,
--->Cathryn

Posted by: Cathryn | January 21, 2007 at 10:06 AM

I like the original:

all (intellectual, mental, cognitive, ) work and no play makes John and Jill dull folks...i.e, reduced libido and sensuality...in our culture today, many folks spend so much time in their heads, in intellectually, mentally, exhausting, and tiring pursuits, they find less time for matters sensual.
As intellectual passion occurs from the neck up..folks begin to move further and further away from being in touch with their heart, their emotions, their sensuality...more's the pity.
Thus it's no surprise to hear the lament, "Where's the man/woman I married?!!!" Hmmmmm.

Posted by: peter vajda | January 21, 2007 at 11:50 AM

This is funny, and interesting. Makes me wonder how much we hear or interpret something as we want or need to.
Also reminds me of lots of people who heard Creedence Clearwater Revival singing "There's a bathroom on the right" instead of "There's a bad moon on the rise"!

Posted by: Sharyn | January 21, 2007 at 01:36 PM

Hi
Nice post. Some intersting comments as well ;-)

Sham
http://enhancelifethinktank.blogspot.com

Posted by: Sham | January 22, 2007 at 04:52 AM

Leonardo doesn't look very happy. Maybe he got it wrong for once.

Posted by: rupert | January 29, 2007 at 02:53 AM

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Gretchen Rubin is the best-selling writer whose book, The Happiness Project, is the account of the year she spent test-driving studies and theories about how to be happier. Here, she shares her insights to help you create your own happiness project.