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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

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: an English saying, followed here into print and into Japanese.

Japanese Scroll of Happiness is a Journey, Not a Destination (shiawase to wa tabi mokutekichi ni arazu) — Calligraphy by Eri Takase
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

Original art by Master Calligrapher Eri Takase

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Abstract

幸せとは旅目的地に非ず, happiness is a journey, not a destination, renders an English saying that 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 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 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 goal in law, travel and philosophy, and in a rendering of a line of Longfellow's from 1914.

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 Methodist periodical The Christian Advocate: 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 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 in tracing a saying to the poem, 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 was it who taught, "Life is real, life is earnest, the grave is not its goal" [5]. 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 goal, and the same index has them in a history of sea power of 1900, in travel writing, in a history of Western philosophy, in a commentary on the 荘子 and in the law of contraband [6].

1944 and 1948. A neighboring line, and its first Japanese. 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 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]. The happiness wording is there 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 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 names an author. It went on being quoted without one: 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: in the Internet Archive's books, a book of 2013 gives it to Alfred D'Souza [17], and high-school yearbooks of 2014 give it to Ben Sweetland [18] and to Paul H. Dunn [19]. 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 [20]; 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 [21], 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, in its front matter [22]. Every Japanese form the index finds is in the colloquial; 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 (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 match in his work [1]. 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: the books that give it to him are of 2014 and later [18], the proverb dictionaries name no author for it, 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 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 goal, and the 非ず gives it the register of a maxim.

Sources not seen

The 1914 anthology and the 1956 book on English proverbs, the 1948 Reader's Digest, the 1959 magazine, the 1986 talk, and the Dyer and Waitley translations of 1980, 1984 and 1989. 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 and the 2013 and 2014 attributions are quoted from the Internet Archive's full-text search; the gift book is 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 (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. 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
  18. Aurora, high-school yearbook, 2014, at the Internet Archive (found by its full-text search). https://archive.org/details/aurora2014unse
  19. Corric, Sacred Heart High School yearbook, Kingston, Massachusetts, 2014, at the Internet Archive (found by its full-text search). https://archive.org/details/corricsacredhear2014sacr
  20. 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
  21. 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
  22. 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

Authors

Tim Jackowski (Systems Architect, Takase Studios, LLC) · 典 Ten (Anthropic Claude Fable 5.1, 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

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.