"The happiest people in this world are those who have the most interesting thoughts." -- William Lyon Phelps
William Lyon Phelps (2 January 1865 - 21 August 1943) was an American author, critic and scholar. Phelps gained a B.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University and an M.A. from Harvard University, where he went on to teach for just one year before returning to Yale to hold a position in the English department for 41 years, retiring in 1933. From 1941 to 1943 he was the director of the Hall of Fame for Great Americans.
"A bibliophile of little means is likely to suffer often. Books don't slip from his hands but fly past him through the air, high as birds, high as prices.""A cat pours his body on the floor like water. It is restful just to see him.""A student never forgets an encouraging private word, when it is given with sincere respect and admiration.""A well-ordered life is like climbing a tower; the view halfway up is better than the view from the base, and it steadily becomes finer as the horizon expands.""God speaks to me not through the thunder and the earthquake, nor through the ocean and the stars, but through the Son of Man, and speaks in a language adapted to my imperfect sight and hearing.""I divide all readers into two classes: those who read to remember and those who read to forget.""If at first you don't succeed, find out if the loser gets anything.""If happiness truly consisted in physical ease and freedom from care, then the happiest individual would not be either a man or a woman; it would be, I think, an American cow.""If I didn't start painting, I would have raised chickens.""If I were running the world I would have it rain only between 2 and 5 a.m. Anyone who was out then ought to get wet.""If you develop the absolute sense of certainty that powerful beliefs provide, then you can get yourself to accomplish virtually anything, including those things that other people are certain are impossible.""In a start-up company, you basically throw out all assumptions every three weeks.""Nature makes boys and girls lovely to look upon so they can be tolerated until they acquire some sense.""One of the secrets of life is to keep our intellectual curiosity acute.""The belief that youth is the happiest time of life is founded on a fallacy. The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts, and we grow happier as we grow older.""The fear of life is the favorite disease of the 20th century.""The final test of a gentleman is his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him.""There is a strange reluctance on the part of most people to admit they enjoy life.""This is the final test of a gentleman: his respect for those who can be of no possible service to him.""Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good plays, good company, good conversation - what are they? They are the happiest people in the world.""Whenever it is possible, a boy should choose some occupation which he should do even if he did not need the money.""You can be deprived of your money, your job and your home by someone else, but remember that no one can ever take away your honor.""You can learn more about human nature by reading the Bible than by living in New York."
Phelps was very athletic and played what was then the new game of baseball as well as golf and lawn tennis. In his first year as an instructor, he offered a course in modern novels. This got attention from the international press, which did not endear him to his tenured Yale peers. Agreeing to give up the course for a while, since the media attention was unwelcome, he taught it outside the official curriculum instead, by popular demand of his students. Once the attention had died down, he was appointed Lampson Professor of English Literature in 1901 and his courses became the most popular and well attended on campus. This was not just because of his engaging delivery but also personal involvement with his subject. Nor did he limit himself to literature in English. His essays cover European literature as well and contain accounts of his meetings with the leading writers of the turn of the century whom he had purposely sought out on visits to their countries.
Phelps could be an incandescent and inspirational orator, drawing large audiences wherever he spoke. In 1922 the pastor of the Huron City Methodist Episcopal Church asked him to preach there regularly during the summer and his Sunday afternoon services began to attract up to a thousand people at a time, so that the little church had to be expanded to accommodate them.
During his time as a Yale professor, Phelps was responsible for the creation of two of its enduring institutions: The Pundits and the Elizabethan Club. The Pundits were first convened by Phelps in 1884 as a collection of the Senior Class' most notable wits and minds, and would dine weekly at Mory's -- today the group regularly also lampoons the campus through elaborate pranks. The Elizabethan Club's founder, Alexander Smith Cochran, was a student of Phelps', and took his professor's suggestion that he use the Cochran family's extensive collection of Shakesperan folios and other rare books to endow a private Club for the arts and humanities, separate from the University.
"If you develop the absolute sense of certainty that powerful beliefs provide, then you can get yourself to accomplish virtually anything, including those things that other people are certain are impossible."
"The happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts. Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good company, good conversation, are the happiest people in the world. And they are not only happy in themselves, they are the cause of happiness in others."
"If at first you don't succeed, find out if the loser gets anything."
"This is the first test of a gentleman: his respect for those who can be of no possible value to him."
The professor asked his students to discuss the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins' "sprung rhythm" technique. One young man handed in his exam reading, "Only God knows the answer to your question. Merry Christmas." Professor Phelps returned the paper after Christmas with the note, "Happy New Year. God gets an A--you get an F."
