On Life:
Life is a struggle, but not a warfare.
A man’s life may stagnate as literally as water may stagnate, and just as motion and direction are the remedy for one, so purpose and activity are the remedy for the other.
I see on a immense scale, and as clearly as in a demonstration in a laboratory, that good comes out of evil that the impartiality of the Nature Providence is best that we are made strong by what we overcome that man is man because he is as free to do evil as to do good that life is as free to develop hostile forms as to develop friendly that power waits upon him who earns it that disease, wars, the unloosened, devastating elemental forces have each and all played their part in developing and hardening man and giving him the heroic fiber.
On Happiness:
The secret of happiness is something to do.
What is the best thing for a stream It is to keep moving. If it stops, it stagnates. So the best thing for a man is that which keeps the currents going the physical, the moral, and the intellectual currents. Hence the secret of happiness is something.
The secret of happiness is having something meaningful to do, seeking purpose