Motivational Quotes

Happiness

Happiness is like a cat, If you try to coax it or call it, it will avoid you; it will never come. But if you pay not attention to it and go about your business, you'll find it rubbing against your legs and jumping into your lap.

- Bennett, William John

Best Quotes about Happiness

Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response.

Barthel, Mildred

Joy comes from using your potential.

Schultz, Will

It is wrong to assume that men of immense wealth are always happy.

Rockefeller, John D.

Bennett, William John

Not only is there a right to be happy, there is a duty to be happy. So much sadness exists in the world that we are all under obligation to contribute as much joy as lies within our powers.

Bonnell, John S.

The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.

Saroyan, William

If you pursue happiness you never find it.

Snow, C(harles) P(ercy)

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier.

Young, Margaret

If you want to be happy for a year, plant a garden; If you want to be happy for life, plant a tree.

Proverb, English

10.

He wanted to live life in such a way that if a photograph were taken at random it would be a cool photograph. Things should look right. Fun; there should be a lot of fun and no more sadness than absolutely necessary.

David Nicholls

11.

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; The wise grows it under his feet.

Oppenheimer, Julius Robert

12.

True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The great blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.

Seneca

13.

Happiness... she loves, to see men at work. She loves sweat, weariness, self sacrifice. She will be found not in places but lurking in cornfields and factories; and hovering over littered desks; she crowns the unconscious head of the busy child.

Grayson, David

14.

Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.

Democritus

15.

Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism, selfishness, evil --or else an absolute ignorance.

Greene, Graham

16.

Happiness comes when we test our skills towards some meaningful purpose.

Stossel, John

17.

Happiness is the harvest of a quiet eye.

O'Malley, Austin

18.

Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.

Storm Jameson

19.

Happiness consumes itself like a flame. It cannot burn for ever, it must go out, and the presentiment of its end destroys it at its very peak.

Strindberg, J. August

20.

Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.

Chuang Tzu

21.

Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly often attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.

Szasz, Thomas

22.

The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

23.

If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing Double Dahlias in his garden.

Wolfe, W, Beran

24.

Enjoy your happiness while you have it, and while, you have it do not too closely scrutinize its foundation.

Farrall, Joseph

25.

The final moment of success is often no more thrilling than taking off a heavy backpack at the end of a long hike. If you went on the hike only to feel that pleasure, you are a fool. Yet people sometimes do just this. They work hard at a task and expect some special euphoria at the end. But when they achieve success and find only moderate and short-lived pleasure, they ask is that all there is? They devalue their accomplishments as a striving after wind. We can call this the progress principle: Pleasure comes more from making progress toward goals than from achieving them.

Jonathan Haidt

26.

Not what you have, but what you see; Not what you see, but what you choose; Not what seems fair, but what is true; Not what you dream, but what you do; Not what you take, but what you give; Not as you pray, but as you live. These are the things that mar or bless The sum of human happiness.

27.

A person is never happy till their vague strivings has itself marked out its proper limitations.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

28.

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness

Orwell, George

29.

Happiness is not a brilliant climax to years of grim struggle and anxiety. It is a long succession of little decisions simply to be happy in the moment.

Walters, J. Donald

30.

In order to be truly happy, you must live along with, and you must stand for something larger than yourself.

Oprah Winfrey

31.

Unhappiness is not knowing what we want, and killing ourselves to get it.

Herold, Don

32.

You traverse the world in search of happiness, which is within the reach of every man. A contented mind confers it on all.

Horace

33.

True happiness is the full use of your powers along lines of excellence in a life affording scope.

Kennedy, John F.

34.

Those who seek happiness miss it, and those who discuss it, lack it.

Jackson, Holbrook

35.

Happiness is a wine of the rarest vintage, and seems insipid to a vulgar taste.

Smith, Logan Pearsall

36.

Happiness lies first of all in health.

Curtis, George William

37.

We are no longer happy as soon as we wish to be happier.

Landor, Walter Savage

38.

Let no one till his death be called unhappy. Measure not the work until the day's out and the labor done.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

39.

Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product.

Roosevelt, Eleanor

40.

Happiness arises in a state of peace, not of tumult.

Ann Radcliffe

41.

If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.

Epicurus

42.

The secret of happiness is something to do.

Burroughs, John

43.

Happiness is understanding that friendship is more precious than mere things, more precious than getting your own way, more precious than being in situations where true principles are not at stake.

Walters, J. Donald

44.

Such happiness as life is capable of comes from the full participation of all our powers in the endeavor to wrest from each changing situations of experience its own full and unique meaning.

Dewey, John

45.

Happiness is a sunbeam which may pass through a thousand bosoms without losing a particle of its original ray; nay, when it strikes on a kindred heart, like the converged light on a mirror, it reflects itself with redoubled brightness. It is not perfected till it is shared.

Porter, Jane

46.

Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.

Oscar Levant

47.

Most of us experience happiness when we are enjoying life and feeling free, enjoying the process and products of our creative and intellectual processes, enjoying the ecstasy of transcendent oneness with the universe.

Muriel, James

48.

We find greatest joy, not in getting, but in expressing what we are. Men do not really live for honors or for pay; their gladness is not the taking and holding, but in doing, the striving, the building, the living. It is a higher joy to teach than to be taught. It is good to get justice, but better to do it; fun to have things but more to make them. The happy man is he who lives the life of love, not for the honors it may bring, but for the life itself.

Baughan, R.J.

49.

All sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones are moving easily under the flesh.

Doris Lessing

50.

Happiness is a journey not a destination.

Sweetland, Ben