If you look around at the men and women whom you can call happy, you will see that they all have certain things in common. The most important of these things is an activity which at most gradually builds up something that you are glad to see coming into existence. Women who take an instinctive pleasure in their children can get this kind of satisfaction out of bringing up a family. Artists and authors and men of science get happiness in this way if their own work seems good to them. But there are many humbler forms of the same kind of pleasure. Many men who spend their working life in the city devote their weekends to voluntary and unremunerated toil in their gardens, and when the spring comes, they experience all the joys of having created beauty.
The whole subject of happiness has, in my opinion, been treated too solemnly. It had been thought that man cannot be happy without a theory of life or a religion. Perhaps those who have been rendered unhappy by a bad theory may need a better theory to help them to recovery, just as you may need a tonic when you have been ill. But when things are normal a man should be healthy without a tonic and happy without a theory. It is the simple things that really matter. If a man delights in his wife and children, has success in work, and finds pleasure in the alternation of day and night, spring and autumn, he will be happy whatever his philosophy may be. If, on the other hand, he finds his wife fateful, his children’s noise unendurable, and the office a nightmare; if in the daytime he longs for night, and at night sighs for the light of day, then what he needs is not a new philosophy but a new regimen—a different diet, or more exercise, or what not.
道德家们常说：幸福难求。唯有不明智地追寻，幸福才会遥不可及。蒙特卡洛城的赌徒们追求财富，而多数人却输掉钱财；但有人以另外的途径获得财富。追求幸福亦如此。如果你想沉醉于酒精，以获得幸福感，只能暂时忘记烦恼。伊壁鸠鲁仅和同道者一起生活，且只吃干面包（奶酪，唯有节日才加点），也是他追求幸福的途径。在这方面，他是成功的，但这导致他体弱多病。而多数人需要旺盛的精力，这样追求快乐过于抽象，且操作性不强。但是，我想，除传奇之人和英雄人物外，无论你以何种准则来生活，都不应与幸福背道而驰。
很多人有着健康的身体和丰厚的收入，这固然是幸福。然而，幸福却与他们无缘。就这一点来讲，似乎是生活原则出了问题。从某种意义上讲，任何有关生活的理论都不容佐证。动物和人类迥然相反。动物因本能而活，它们的快乐建立在客观条件是否得以满足的基础上。假如你养了只猫，它只要有东西吃，有温暖的地方睡，晚上可以时不时出去就很幸福了。人的需求也是以本能的满足为基础，但比起猫来，要复杂得多。处于文明社会，特别是讲英语的人们极其容易忘记这一点。人们定一个最高的目标，然后克制住所有与实现此目标相背驰的冲动。生意人过于急切赚大钱，可以牺牲健康和爱情。等到他腰缠万贯，除了奋斗历程可让他人效法，幸福并没有如期而至。很多贵妇人，尽管自身并不倾心于文学或艺术，却故作高雅，浪费时间去学习如何讲述流行的新书。而这些书的目的不是让人附庸风雅，而是带来读书的乐趣。
试着观察身边那些所谓的幸福男女，就会发现他们的相似之处。其中一点尤为重要：在多数情况下，生活本身是一种乐趣，借此可达成愿望。那些天生喜爱孩子的女人，能从相夫教子中得到快乐。艺术家、作家和科学家能够从工作的成就中获得快感。不过，还有很多低层次的幸福。诸如，在城里工作的许多人，到了周末，就在自家庭院里劳动，春天来临之时，就可全身心地享受劳动带来的如画风景。
在我看来，过去人们把幸福过于严肃化了。以往，人们认为，要想拥有幸福，就必须拥有自己的生活原则或者宗教信仰。那些人认为自己的不快乐是源于低级理论，觉得唯有拥有一种较好的生活理论，他们的生活才会重焕生机，就像生病需要吃药一样。但是，正常情况下，健康人不应以吃补药为生，不应把拥有理论作为生活幸福与否的标准。真正的幸福是微不足道的小事。假如一个事业有成的男人体贴妻子，爱护儿女，并时时刻刻满脸微笑，即使他们的生活原则糟糕透顶，他也是个快乐之人。相反，假如厌烦妻子，厌恶孩子的吵闹，怯于工作，整天巴望着日子快快溜走，那他就需要一种新的生活方式——改变饮食习惯、多运动等等，而不是新的生活理论。
1. There a great many people who have all the material conditions of , i.e. health and a sufficient income, and , nevertheless, are profoundly unhappy. In such it would seem as if the fault must lie with a theory as to how to live.
2. Many rich ladies, although has not endowed them with any spontaneous pleasure in literature or , decide to be thought cultured, and spend boring ______ learning the right thing to say about fashionable new that are written to give delight, to afford opportunities for dusty snobbism.
1. 如果你想沉醉于酒精，以获得幸福感，只能暂时忘记烦恼。
2. 试着观察身边那些所谓的幸福男女，就会发现他们的相似之处。
3. 真正的幸福是微不足道的小事。
1. If you pursue it by means of drink, you are forgetting the hangover.
by means of：用……的方法；依靠；借助于
2. If you look around at the men and women whom you can call happy, you will see that they all have certain things in common.
have sth. in common：在……有共同之处
