“A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.” – Albert Einstein
For a piece of hotel stationery with that sage advice scrawled in German and predicted by auction house experts to land its seller upwards of $8,000 (U.S.), the now-former owner of Albert Einstein’s hand-written ‘theory of happiness’ must be grinning from ear-to-ear with its winning bid: $1.56 million (U.S.). Given to a messenger in a Japanese hotel in November of 1922, the circumstances as to why Einstein wrote down the sentence are uncertain. Some think the Nobel prize-winning physicist did not have money on him to offer cash, while others suggest the individual was gifted the note after following Japanese etiquette of politely declining a monetary tip.
