Mirth is short and transient, cheerfulness fixed and permanent† Mirth is like a flash of lightning that breaks through a gloom of clouds, and glitters for a moment: cheerfulness keeps up a kind of day-light in the mind, and fills it with a steady and perpetual serenity.

-Addison,Joseph
  In The Spectator, no.381,17 May.

   A commonplace young man, A matter-of-fact young man, A steady and stolid-y, jolly Bank-Holiday Every-day young man!

-Gilbert, Sir W(illiam) S(chwenck)
Bunthorne and Grosvenor's duet, Patience, act 2.

I come from a state where gun control is just how steady you hold your weapon.

-Simpson, Alan (Kooi)
  In Fortune, 30 Dec.