Happiness

“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.”

– Robert Louis Stevenson, An Apology for Idlers (1877)

What does it mean?

We think of happiness as a bonus, but Stevenson says being happy is something we owe to ourselves and others, and we forget how important it is.

Key vocabulary

underrate
think something is less important than it really is

Who said it?

Robert Louis Stevenson: Scottish novelist (1850–1894). Source: An Apology for Idlers (1877).