The Great Divorce – C. S. Lewis (1952)
The first thing that struck me about that sentence was that it could only refer to the bigger things in life, because no matter how bad things are going there is often some kind of humour or small pleasures to be found. It seems to me that there is an innate need within humans to make the best of most situations that they find themselves in, and have the ability to find some good when reflecting on devastating events.
As I see it though out history there has only been a minority of people that have caused bad things to happen on a grand scale and even then, in the face of it all some remarkable things happened within those living through it. Book after book has been written about the miracles that came out of adversity but there were many more smaller, everyday events that had just as much of an influence to ordinary people.
To me, these are the tales that are passed down through generations. These are the things that demonstrate that the misery makers of this world will never totally destroy the notion of happiness.