To crave for happiness in this world is simply to be possessed by a spirit of revolt. What right have we to happiness?

The remark frames “happiness” not as an entitlement but as a demand that implicitly challenges the world’s moral order. By calling the craving for happiness a “spirit of revolt,” the speaker suggests that to insist on personal fulfillment is to rebel against necessity, suffering, duty, or the limits imposed by society and fate. The follow-up—“What right have we to happiness?”—pushes the thought into ethical territory: rights may attach to justice, dignity, or freedom, but happiness is contingent and cannot be claimed as a moral due. Read this way, the line expresses a severe, almost ascetic worldview that distrusts comfort and treats discontent as the engine of moral seriousness.