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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

Japanese Scroll of Happiness is a Journey, Not a Destination (shiawase to wa tabi mokutekichi ni arazu) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
幸せとは旅目的地に非ず Original Scroll by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Abstract

幸せとは旅目的地に非ず, happiness is a journey, not a destination, renders an English saying that, in Quote Investigator's search, a character in a newspaper story of 1935 already gives as what somebody has said; its family on the frame X is a journey, not a destination goes back, in Quote Investigator's search, to 1920 with life, and no author is known for either. In the Japanese books the National Diet Library's full-text index reaches, the thought is in a Japanese Reader's Digest of 1948, 幸福とは旅をする方法であつて、目的地ではない, under Margaret Lee Runbeck's name, and the frame itself from 1980, in translated self-help, every form in its excerpts in the colloquial. The scroll's sentence is in none of them; its closing 非ず is the ordinary classical is not, which Japanese print used for is not the destination in law, travel and philosophy, and for is not the goal in a rendering of a line of Longfellow's from 1914.

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Overview

The sense. Happiness is found in the going, not in the arriving: an English maxim with no known author, set in a Japanese sentence that ends on the classical 非ず.

The words. 幸せ shiawase, happiness; 旅 tabi, a journey; 目的地 mokutekichi, a destination; 非ず arazu, the classical is not, which gives the maxim its register.

The text in English. Happiness is a journey, not a destination is fuller than the Japanese, which drops the and not between 旅 and 目的地 and relies on 非ず at the end to carry the contrast. On the hands brushed in two columns the column breaks after 旅, so the page gives the pause the characters leave out; on the single-column and horizontal hands the words run together.

The historical record

1854 to 1920. The sibling with life. Life is a journey, not a destination has a documented history. Quote Investigator traces it through religious precursors of 1854 (your life is a journey, not a rest) and 1855 (All life is a journey, not a home) to its earliest close match, in 1920, in the periodical The Christian Advocate, published by The Methodist Book Concern: the theologian Lynn H. Hough's outline for a Sunday-school lesson, He wanted his friends to realize that life is a journey and not a destination. It finds no exact match in Emerson, to whom the line is often credited, and concludes that the saying is an anonymous modern proverb [1].

1914 and 1920. The classical negative on an English line. Longfellow's A Psalm of Life, first printed in 1838, has Life is real! Life is earnest! / And the grave is not its goal [2]. A Japanese anthology of 1914 renders the line in the classical form, 而して壞墓は其目的地にあらず as the index's text layer reads it, for 墳墓, with the next line, 『汝は塵塊なり死して塵塊に復歸す』, Dust thou art, to dust returnest [3]. The same rendering is in anthologies of 1919, 1931, 1935 and 1937, and a book on English proverbs of 1956 quotes it as the source a saying comes from, so it is one translation, reprinted [4]. In 1920 伊藤正徳, writing on Paris, quotes 何國の詩人か、「人生は事實なり、人生は眞面目なり、墓は其目的地に非ず……」と訓へたる人は, what poet of what country was it who taught, "Life is real, life is earnest, the grave is not its goal" [5]. The 1914 rendering was printed again in 1982, with 非ず: 而して墳墓は其の目的地に非ず [6]. Neither is the only use of the words: 目的地に非ず and 目的地にあらず were ordinary classical Japanese for is not the destination, and the same index has them in a history of sea power of 1900, in travel writing, in a history of Western philosophy, in an anthology of the Chinese philosophers and in the law of contraband [6].

1944 and 1948. A neighboring line, and its first Japanese in the index. Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling is Margaret Lee Runbeck's: it is in her Time for Each Other of 1944 [7]. The Japanese Reader's Digest printed the thought in February 1948 as 幸福とは旅をする方法であつて、目的地ではない, under her name, マーガレツト·リー·ランベツク [8]. The same Japanese, with her name, is in a community-hall magazine of December 1959, 幸福とは、旅をする方法であそ目的地ではない as its text layer reads [9], and a talk in Asahikawa's adult-education series for women in 1986 says it, in the excerpt without her name, 幸福とは旅をする方法であって目的ではない [10]. A Japanese quotation site today gives the same thought, in the English Happiness is a way of travel, not a destination, to Roy M. Goodman, whom it describes as an American politician and businessman born in 1930, and renders it 幸せとは旅の仕方であって、行き先のことではない [11]; English quotation books credit Goodman with it by 1984 [12].

1922 to 1937. The happiness wording, already a saying. The happiness form belongs to a family of American sayings on one frame, X is a journey, not a destination, which Quote Investigator follows on from the life line of 1920: the zest is in the journey and not in the destination (1922), a high-school student's prize essay quoting "success is not a destination, but a journey" in quotation marks (1929), and Religion a Journey and Not a Destination, a lecture title (1930) [1]. Quote Investigator finds the happiness wording by 1935, already as a saying: in a story in the Cleveland Plain Dealer of 25 January 1935, Inez Wallace's Shadows in Paradise, a character says "Helen, somebody has said that happiness is a journey—not a destination" [1]. Education follows in its list in 1936 and 1937 [1]. The proverb dictionaries date the members later: Mieder gives Success is a journey, not a destination from 1933 [13], and The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs dates the happiness form to 1937, to Fay H. Arnold's A Woman's Approach to Business, where it already stands in quotation marks: The business woman who develops her personality…will find herself blessed with some measure of success—some degree of happiness. 'Happiness is a journey, not a destination' [14]. Neither dictionary credits the saying to anyone. It went on being quoted without a name: in a Lynchburg foundry's company magazine of 1952–53 an after-dinner speaker stated that "Happiness is a journey, not a destination" [15], and a gift book of 1983 prints it as an Old Proverb [16]. Names come late. Paul H. Dunn printed it in 1985 as what a person whom I have not been able to identify has written [17]. In the Internet Archive's books (the hundred its full-text search returns for the line, by relevance), high-school yearbooks give it to Souza from 2004 [18], a book of 2013 to Alfred D'Souza in full [19], and yearbooks of 2014 to Ben Sweetland [20] and to Paul H. Dunn [21]; two undated books there also give it to Sweetland. His name stands on the success form earlier: in a book of Laurence J. Peter's of 1985 and its Japanese translation (1980 to 1989), and in a yearbook of 1990 [22]. No book of Sweetland's has been opened here, and neither dictionary mentions him.

1980 to 1989. The frame in Japanese. The frame itself reached Japanese books through translation. The 1980 translation of a book by Wayne Dyer has 成功は旅であり、目的地ではない, success is a journey, not a destination [23]; a 1984 translation of Denis Waitley gives the thought as 幸福とは、旅する経験そのものの中にあり, happiness lies in the experience of the journey itself [24], and a 1989 translation of another of his books has 幸福は旅であり、目的地ではない, happiness is a journey, not a destination [25]. A 1985 translation of Laurence J. Peter's Why Things Go Wrong prints the success form with Sweetland's name, 成功は目的地ではなく旅である。 -ben Sweetland [26], as Peter's English of the same year does, Success is a journey, not a destination. —Ben Sweetland [27]. Every Japanese form of the saying in the index's excerpts is in the colloquial (hits of 1914 for 幸福とは旅 and of 1933 and 1959 for 目的地ではなく旅 are other sentences); none ends on 非ず, and the scroll's sentence, 幸せとは旅目的地に非ず, is in none of them. Its fuller form, 幸せとは旅であり目的地ではない, opens as the 1948 line does, with 幸せ for its 幸福 (幸福とは旅), and closes as the 1989 line does (旅であり、目的地ではない).

What is not a source. Emerson, for the life sibling: Quote Investigator finds no exact match in his work [1]. Paul H. Dunn, for the happiness wording: his own book of 1985 prints it as written by someone he could not identify [17]. Roy M. Goodman, for the line the Japanese site gives him: it was in Japanese under Runbeck's name in 1948, when, on the site's date, he was seventeen or eighteen [8]; the 1948 Japanese is nearer the English the site gives him than Runbeck's own, so the shorter English may have gone about under her name, but the Reader's Digest English has not been seen. Ben Sweetland, for the happiness wording, is unverified here, not refuted: among the hundred books the Internet Archive's search returns for the line, the earliest dated one that gives it to him is a yearbook of 2014 [20], though his name is on the success form by 1985 [26][27]; the proverb dictionaries credit it to no one; and it was what somebody has said in 1935 [1].

Today. The Japanese quotation site gives its line in the colloquial であって [11]. The classical 非ず sets this rendering apart from every printed Japanese form of the saying found here.

A reading

An American saying, already what somebody has said in 1935, in Quote Investigator's search, and quoted with no name on it for decades before books began to give it one, in a Japanese that runs 旅 and 目的地 together and ends on 非ず. Japanese readers had the thought from a magazine in 1948 and the frame from self-help translations in the 1980s, in the plain colloquial of both; this rendering says it in the classical negative, the ordinary old way of saying is not the destination, and the 非ず gives it the register of a maxim.

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Japanese Scrolls by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

Japanese Scroll of Happiness is a Journey, Not a Destination (shiawase to wa tabi mokutekichi ni arazu) in a block font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
幸せとは旅目的地に非ずVB3CBlock
Japanese Scroll of Happiness is a Journey, Not a Destination (shiawase to wa tabi mokutekichi ni arazu) in a cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
幸せとは旅目的地に非ずVC5BCursive
Japanese Scroll of Happiness is a Journey, Not a Destination (shiawase to wa tabi mokutekichi ni arazu) in Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase's own style (Eri's Choice)
幸せとは旅目的地に非ずVD5BEri's Choice
Japanese Scroll of Happiness is a Journey, Not a Destination (shiawase to wa tabi mokutekichi ni arazu) in a semi-cursive font by Master Japanese Calligrapher Eri Takase
幸せとは旅目的地に非ずVS4CSemi-Cursive

Sources not seen

The 1914 anthology and the 1956 book on English proverbs, the 1948 Reader's Digest, the 1959 magazine, the 1986 talk, the Dyer and Waitley translations of 1980, 1984 and 1989, and the Peter translation of 1985. Each is quoted from the excerpt the National Diet Library's full-text index returns; the pages are served only to registered readers in Japan or inside the library. The pages would show the whole of each rendering and, for the Reader's Digest, the English it translated.

The 1935 Cleveland Plain Dealer story and the 1922 to 1937 family members are quoted from Quote Investigator, not opened. The 1983 gift book, Dunn's book of 1985, Peter's book of 1985, and the yearbooks and the book that name an author, 1990 to 2014, are quoted from the Internet Archive's full-text search; the gift book, Dunn's book and Peter's are lent, not open. Fay H. Arnold's book of 1937 is quoted from The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs, not opened. Ben Sweetland's books have not been opened.

A reader with access to any of these is invited to write to Takase Studios at Tim@Takase.com.

References

  1. Quote Investigator, "Life Is a Journey, Not a Destination", 31 August 2012. https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/08/31/life-journey/
  2. "A Psalm of Life", English Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Psalm_of_Life
  3. 馬場直美 編, 『国民掌典 : 趣味修養』, 帝国実業学会, 1914, scan 38 (the excerpt at the NDL full-text index; the page is served only to registered readers in Japan). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/954099/1/38
  4. The NDL Digital full-text index, search 目的地にあらず, oldest first: 国民掌典 1914 scan 38; 梶康郎 『日日聖観』 1919 scan 30; 馬場峰月 1931 scan 81 and 1935 scans 195 and 196; 『趣味と修養』 1937 scan 34 and 『趣味と修養人生の書』 1937 scan 37; 篠田武清 『英語の諺・古言の研究』, 篠崎書林, 1956, scan 63 (excerpts; the pages are served only to registered readers in Japan). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=%E7%9B%AE%E7%9A%84%E5%9C%B0%E3%81%AB%E3%81%82%E3%82%89%E3%81%9A&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC&pageNum=0&rows=50
  5. 伊藤正徳, 『破壊より建設へ』, 1920, p. 456, scan 239. https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/955718/1/239
  6. The NDL Digital full-text index, searches 目的地に非ず and 目的地にあらず, oldest first: マハン 『海上権力史論』 1900 scan 109; 伊藤銀月 『銀月文』 1909 scan 27; ロージヤース 『西洋哲学史』 1914 scan 177; 川口白浦 選 『諸子選釈』 1936 scan 140; 田岡良一 『国際法学大綱』 1939 scan 191; 林原紀俶 『人間微積分』, 中央印刷社, 1982, scan 173 (excerpts; the 目的地にあらず search is at reference 4's address). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/search/searchResult?keyword=%E7%9B%AE%E7%9A%84%E5%9C%B0%E3%81%AB%E9%9D%9E%E3%81%9A&fulltext=true&sortKey=ISSUED_ASC&pageNum=0&rows=50
  7. Margaret Lee Runbeck, Time for Each Other, 1944, pp. 135–36, at the Internet Archive (lent, found by its full-text search). https://archive.org/details/timeforeachother0000unse
  8. 『リーダーズダイジェスト』 3(2), 日本リーダーズダイジェスト社, February 1948, scan 7 (the excerpt at the NDL full-text index; the page is served only to registered readers in Japan). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/1763552/1/7
  9. 『月刊公民館』 (31), 全国公民館連絡協議会, December 1959, scan 17 (the excerpt at the NDL full-text index; the page is served only inside the library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/6051924/1/17
  10. 旭川市婦人大学運営委員会 編, 『愛と人生』 (旭川市婦人大学シリーズ 6), 旭川市, 1986, scan 111 (the excerpt at the NDL full-text index; the page is served only to registered readers in Japan). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12414267/1/111
  11. 名言ナビ, entry 037373. https://meigennavi.net/word/03/037373.htm
  12. Dale Carnegie & Associates, Manager's Inspirational Quotations, 1984, at the Internet Archive. https://archive.org/details/managersinspirat00dale
  13. Wolfgang Mieder, Dictionary of Authentic American Proverbs, Berghahn Books, 2021, nos. 604 and 1266.
  14. Charles Clay Doyle, Wolfgang Mieder and Fred R. Shapiro, The Dictionary of Modern Proverbs, Yale University Press, 2012, s.v. Happiness is a journey, not a destination.
  15. The Iron Worker 17(1), 1952–53, at the Internet Archive under its lead article, Martha von Briesen, "Sweet Briar College: the First Half Century"; the report of Christianson's address is in the same number. https://archive.org/details/sweetbriarcolleg171vonb
  16. Happiness Is a Journey: Seeking and Finding Joy and Contentment, C. R. Gibson, 1983, at the Internet Archive (lent, found by its full-text search). https://archive.org/details/happinessisjourn0000unse
  17. Paul H. Dunn, Seek the Happy Life, Bookcraft, Salt Lake City, 1985, at the Internet Archive (lent, read at its full-text search). https://archive.org/details/seekhappylife0000unse
  18. Genesis, Framingham High School yearbook, Framingham, Massachusetts, 2004, at the Internet Archive (found by its full-text search). https://archive.org/details/genesis2004fram
  19. Michael LaRocca, Why Is My Life So Boring?, 2013, p. 5, at the Internet Archive (found by its full-text search). https://archive.org/details/whyismylifesobor0000mich
  20. Aurora, high-school yearbook, 2014, at the Internet Archive (found by its full-text search). https://archive.org/details/aurora2014unse
  21. Corric, Sacred Heart High School yearbook, Kingston, Massachusetts, 2014, at the Internet Archive (found by its full-text search). https://archive.org/details/corricsacredhear2014sacr
  22. The Crimson, Everett High School yearbook, Everett, Massachusetts, 1990, at the Internet Archive (found by its full-text search). https://archive.org/details/crimson1990ever
  23. ウエイン・W. ダイアー, 『自分の時代 : 80年代・知的独立の生涯構想』, 三笠書房, 1980, scan 6 (the excerpt at the NDL full-text index; the page is served only to registered readers in Japan). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12413106/1/6
  24. デニス・ウェイトリー, 『成功発想-10の鍵』, 実務教育出版, 1984, scan 15 (the excerpt at the NDL full-text index; the page is served only to registered readers in Japan). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12413689/1/15
  25. デニス・ウェイトリー, 『自分を最高に活かす : 自己発揮の成功哲学』, ダイヤモンド社, 1989, scan 18 (the excerpt at the NDL full-text index; the page is served only inside the library). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/13879564/1/18
  26. L.J.ピーター 著, 田中融二 訳, 『こんなことがなぜ起こる : <実証>ピーターの法則』 (original title Why Things Go Wrong), ダイヤモンド社, 1985, scan 119 (the excerpt at the NDL full-text index, search 目的地ではなく旅; the page is served only to registered readers in Japan). https://dl.ndl.go.jp/pid/12413780/1/119
  27. Laurence J. Peter, Why Things Go Wrong, or, The Peter Principle Revisited, William Morrow, New York, 1985, at the Internet Archive (lent, found by its full-text search inside the item). https://archive.org/details/whythingsgowrong0000pete

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, Opus 5, Sonnet 5 and Opus 5.5, Takase Studios, LLC)

AI written · Ten wrote the history. Tim Jackowski commissioned it and answers for it.

Checked · Grok 4.6 (xAI), 2026-09-06, citations, on the grouped history this text was split from; its findings are recorded with that file

Research depth: step 5 of our 10-step ladder, libraries searched · October 2026

Cite as: Tim Jackowski and Ten, "Philology of 幸せとは旅目的地に非ず (shiawase to wa tabi mokutekichi ni arazu)," Takase Studios, 2026, https://takase.com/library/philology/shiawase-to-wa-tabi-mokutekichi-ni-arazu.