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

Robert Louis Stevenson

Source
An Apology for Idlers
Date
1877
Attribution
Source identified
Meaning

What does this quote mean?

Stevenson argues that a person’s happiness can benefit others socially, so cheerfulness is not merely private pleasure in the essay’s deliberately provocative moral accounting.

Source context

Where does it come from?

“An Apology for Idlers,” first printed in the Cornhill Magazine in July 1877 and later collected in Virginibus Puerisque; represented through Project Gutenberg public-domain editions. The essay is polemical, not clinical advice about mood.

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Attribution

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This wording is connected with the named source shown above. Translations and editions can vary, so consult the source note when exact wording matters.

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