We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.

“We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.” Thus spoke Walter Savage Landor, the English poet and philosopher whose words carry the quiet thunder of timeless truth. In this single, piercing line, he reveals the delicate nature of happiness—a state that vanishes the moment we begin to chase it. Landor tells us that contentment, once disturbed by longing, dissolves into unrest. The instant we say, “I could be happier,” we lose the very joy we sought to measure. For true happiness lives not in desire, but in presence—in the calm acceptance of what is, rather than the fevered pursuit of what might be.

Landor, who lived between the 18th and 19th centuries, was no stranger to the paradoxes of life. A man of fierce passion and restless intellect, he tasted success and exile, praise and scorn. Yet amid the turbulence of his own existence, he discerned a wisdom often forgotten in the noise of ambition: that the soul cannot rest while it hungers for “more.” He saw that desire, though it can inspire greatness, is also the thief of peace. Like a river that never stops flowing, the human heart, once taught to crave, can no longer be still. And in that ceaseless motion, happiness—which is quiet and subtle—slips away unseen.

To wish to be happier is, in truth, to confess that one is not content. It is to take the warm bread of joy from one’s hands and cast it aside, chasing after a feast that may never come. The wise have always warned us against this illusion. The Stoics, such as Epictetus and Seneca, taught that happiness does not depend on what we have, but on how we regard it. “He is a wise man,” Seneca wrote, “who is content with what he has, not desiring what he has not.” Landor echoes this ancient voice across the centuries, reminding us that the seed of unhappiness is planted the moment we call our joy insufficient.

Consider the life of Princess Diana, a woman beloved by millions, surrounded by splendor and adoration. Yet within her palaces, she often felt a quiet despair—the ache of one who had everything the world could give, yet still longed for something more. Her story is not one of greed, but of human longing—the yearning for deeper meaning, deeper love, deeper peace. And this longing, though natural, carried sorrow with it. For the wish to be happier can blind us to the grace of the present. It makes us compare, measure, and yearn—until all the gifts in our hands seem too small to satisfy the boundless hunger of the heart.

But the opposite is also true: when one ceases to wish, happiness returns like sunlight after a storm. Think of a child playing by the sea, lost in the rhythm of waves and laughter. The child does not ask, “Could I be happier?”—and that is why he is. In his unselfconscious joy, there is no striving, no measuring, no desire to possess or improve the moment. He simply is, and therefore, he is content. The adult, grown proud in wisdom yet poor in peace, forgets this simple secret. He measures his joy against others’, and in doing so, loses it entirely.

Landor’s words are thus not only a warning but a call to awakening. He bids us to hold fast to contentment as one would hold a fragile flame. To wish for greater happiness is to blow upon it, and in our impatience, extinguish its light. Happiness, like the dawn, cannot be forced to rise faster—it appears of its own accord to those who wait in stillness. It grows quietly in hearts that practice gratitude, humility, and presence.

So let this wisdom be passed on, as from elder to child: Do not chase happiness, but guard it. When contentment visits you, welcome it like an honored guest, and do not ask it to stay longer or shine brighter. Learn to say, “This is enough.” Each time you do, the soul grows richer. Cultivate gratitude, for it is the soil in which happiness takes root. And remember, as Landor teaches, that the one who always seeks to be happier has already lost what he possessed, while the one who rests content has already found all he needs. For true joy does not live in desire—it lives in peace, and peace is born of the heart that whispers, “I have enough.”