لطالما فضّلتُ البشاشةَ على المرح. فالمرح فعلٌ عابر قصير، أما البشاشة فهي طبعٌ في النفس، ثابتةٌ دائمة.

“I have always preferred cheerfulness to mirth. The latter I consider as an act, the former as a habit of mind. Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent.”Joseph Addison — Essays, Moral and Humorous: Also Essays on Imagination and Taste (1839)