Daily Inspiration Quote by James Van Der Zee

Happiness here isn’t a private stash; it’s an atmosphere you create around yourself. Van Der Zee’s line turns joy into something tactile and social, not a mood you hoard but a substance you handle. Perfume is chosen with intent, applied deliberately, meant to be sensed by others - and it never lands only where you aim it. The cleverness is in the physics of generosity: the act of giving off something pleasing inevitably marks the giver. You can’t perform warmth, care, or celebration without being changed by the performance.

That metaphor carries a quiet moral argument without sounding preachy. It suggests altruism isn’t pure self-sacrifice; it’s also self-exposure. When you try to brighten someone else’s day, you step into a role - host, encourager, witness - and that role has rewards. The “few drops” implies modesty too: you won’t be drenched in bliss, but you will be affected. It’s a rebuke to the fantasy that emotional labor must be grim or that kindness is always depletion.

Coming from Van Der Zee, a Harlem Renaissance photographer known for dignified portraits and communal pageantry, the line feels like an artist’s ethic. Portraiture is its own kind of perfume: you frame people at their best, you offer them a version of themselves worth believing in, and you don’t walk away untouched. In a world eager to reduce Black life to hardship, his work insisted on elegance, ceremony, and aspiration. The quote’s subtext is almost strategic: happiness can be cultivated, shared, and used as a counterforce - and the sharer, inevitably, gets some of it back.