hanging see also CATCHING’S before hanging; there are more WAYS of killing a dog
than hanging it.
ha’porth see do not spoil the SHIP for a ha’porth of tar.happen see ACCIDENTS will happen (in the best-regulated families); the UNEXPECTED
always happens.
happiness see MONEY can’t buy happiness.If you would be HAPPY for a week take a wife; if you would be happy for a month kill
a pig; but if you would be happy all your life plant a garden
There are almost endless possibilities for variation on this theme, but marriage is generally
included as one of the more ephemeral sources of content.
a 1661 T. FULLER Worthies Wales 6 I say the Italian-humor, who have a merry
Proverb, Let him that would be happy for a Day, go to the Barber; for a Week, marry a
Wife; for a Month, buy him a New-horse; for a Year, build him a New-house; for all his
Life-time, be an Honest man. 1809 S. PEGGE Anonymiana II. xix. If you would live well
for a week, kill a hog; if you would live well for a month, marry; if you would live well
all your life, turn priest. .. Turning priest .. alludes to the celibacy of the Romish Clergy,
and has a pungent sense, as much as to say, do not marry at all. 1973 New Earth Catalog
55 If you would be happy for a week take a wife; If you would be happy for a month kill a
pig; But if you would be happy all your life plant a garden. 1996 National Review 25 Nov.
6 For those of a philosophical turn of mind, I pass on something that the distinguished
economist Peter Bauer said last week: ‘If you want to be happy for a day, get drunk; for a
month, get married; for a lifetime, take up gardening.’ happinessCall no man HAPPY till he diesThe story alluded to in quot. 1545 is narrated in Herodotus’ Histories I. xxxii: when the
great Athenian lawgiver Solon visited Croesus, the fabulously wealthy king of Lydia, the latter
asked Solon who was the happiest man he had ever seen—expecting the answer to be himself.
C f. SOPHOCLES Oedipus Rex 1. 1529
deem no man happy, until