The government of a woman has been a rare thing at all times; felicity in such government a rarer thing still; felicityand long continuance together the rarest thing of all.

-Bacon, Francis,Viscount St Albans
Quoted in  J E Neale The Age of Catherine de Medici and Essays in Elizabethan History (1963), p.217.

Certainly there is no happiness within this circle of flesh, nor is it in the optics of these eyes to behold felicity; the first day of our Jubilee is death.

-Browne, SirThomas
^5  Religio Medici (published1643), pt.1, section 44.

Since every man who lives is born to die, And none can boast sincere felicity, With equal mind, what happens, let us bear, Nor joy nor grieve too much for things beyond our care. Like pilgrims to th'appointed place we tend; The world's an inn, and death the journey's end.

-Dryden,John
  Palamon and  Arcite, bk.3, l.883^8.

Nature that framed us of four elements, Warring within our breasts for regiment, Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds: Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend The wondrous architecture of the world, And measure every wandering planet's course, Still climbing after knowledge infinite, And always moving as the restless spheres, Wills us to wear ourselves, and never rest, Until we reach the ripest fruit of all, That perfect bliss and sole felicity, The sweet fruition of an earthly crown.

-Marlowe, Christopher
  Tamburlaine the Great (published1590), pt.1, act 2, sc.7.

There is more felicity on the far side of baldness than young men can possibly imagine.

-Smith, Logan Pearsall
Afterthoughts,'Age and Death'.