Happiness is a Journey, Not a Destination

幸せとは旅目的地に非ず (shiawase to wa tabi mokutekichi ni arazu): happiness is a journey, not a destination. 幸せ shiawase is happiness; とは to wa sets it up for definition, as for what happiness is; 旅 tabi is a journey; 目的地 mokutekichi is a destination; 非ず arazu is the classical is not, and that old form is what makes the line a maxim rather than a remark. The design compresses the saying: 旅 and 目的地 stand side by side with nothing between them, and the 非ず at the end carries the contrast for both, so the fuller sentence a reader supplies is 幸せとは旅であり目的地ではない, happiness is a journey and is not a destination. The English is a modern proverb with more than one claimed author and no settled one; its sibling, life is a journey, not a destination, is traced to a 1920 Sunday-school outline, and the attribution to Emerson has no match in his work.