Motivational Quotes

Happiness

It is the paradox of life that the way to miss pleasure is to seek it first. The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self.

- Black, Hugo

Best Quotes about Happiness

We are made happy when reason can discover no occasion for it. The memory of some past moments is more persuasive than the experience of present ones. There have been visions of such breadth and brightness that these motes were invisible in their light.

Thoreau, Henry David

No man is happy; he is at best fortunate.

Solon

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found; and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

Johnson, Samuel

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

Thomas Szasz

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

Orwell, George

The best advice on the art of being happy is about as easy to follow as advice to be well when one is sick.

Swetchine, Anne Sophie

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.

Epicurus

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world. Someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.

Chalmers, Allan K.

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.

10.

When you relinquish the desire to control your future, you can have more happiness.

Nicole Kidman

11.

The biggest lie on the planet: When I get what I want, I will be happy.

12.

Happiness is a by product of an effort to make someone else happy.

Palmer, Gretta Brooker

13.

If frugality were established in the state, and if our expenses were laid out to meet needs rather than superfluities of life, there might be fewer wants, and even fewer pleasures, but infinitely more happiness.

Goldsmith, Oliver

14.

Happiness is the longing for repetition.

Kundera, Milan

15.

There's a hope for every woe, and a balm for every pain, but the first joys of our heart come never back again!

Gilfillan, Robert

16.

The mintage of wisdom is to know that rest is rust, and that real life is love, laughter, and work.

Hubbard, Elbert

17.

Call no man unhappy until he is married.

Socrates

18.

Remember that happiness is a way of travel - not a destination.

Roy M. Goodman

19.

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.

Kingsley, Charles

20.

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

Herold, Don

21.

Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.

Ingersoll, Robert Green

22.

Whoever is happy will make others happy too.

Frank, Anne

23.

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

Landor, Walter Savage

24.

It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.

Bentham, Jeremy

25.

Happiness adds and multiplies, as we divide it with others.

Nielsen, A.

26.

Very little is needed to make a happy life.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

27.

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

28.

Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel

29.

True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

30.

The secret of happiness is something to do.

Burroughs, John

31.

Happiness must be cultivated. It is like character. It is not a thing to be safely let alone for a moment, or it will run to weeds.

Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart

32.

Happiness ain't a thing in itself --it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant. And so, as soon as the novelty is over and the force of the contrast dulled, it ain't happiness any longer, and you have to get something fresh.

Twain, Mark

33.

Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meandering, but leads none of us by the same route

Colton, Charles Caleb

34.

Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.

Chuang Tzu

35.

Happiness is a journey not a destination.

Sweetland, Ben

36.

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

Ann Radcliffe

37.

In order for people to be happy, sometimes they have to take risks. It's true these risks can put them in danger of being hurt.

Meg Cabot

38.

A person will be just about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Lincoln, Abraham

39.

Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than to wash your hands when they are dirty; the only thing that counts is the love of duty; when love and duty are one, then grace is in you and you will enjoy a happiness which passes all understanding.

W. Somerset Maugham

40.

Remember, happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have, it depends solely upon what you think.

Carnegie, Dale

41.

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.

Jefferson, Thomas

42.

Farms and in castles, in homes, studies, and cloisters -- where sensible people manage to live relatively lusty and decent lives, as moral as they must be, as free as they may be, and as masterly as they can be. If we only knew it, this elusive arrangement is happiness.

Erikson, Erik H.

43.

Happy is the son whose faith in his mother remains unchallenged.

Alcott, Louisa May

44.

Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook and a good digestion.

Jean Jacques Rousseau

45.

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

46.

While we pursue happiness, we flee from contentment.

Proverb, Hasidic

47.

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

James Oppenheim

48.

Happiness is a continuation of happenings which are not resisted.

Chopra, Deepak

49.

Happiness lies in being privileged to work hard for long hours in doing whatever you think is worth doing. One man may find happiness in supporting a wife and children. Another may find it in robbing banks. Still another may labor mightily for years in pursuing pure research with no discernible result. Note the individual and subjective nature of each case. No two are alike and there is no reason to expect them to be. Each man or woman must find for himself or herself that occupation in which hard work and long hours make him or her happy. Contrariwise, if you are looking for shorter hours and longer vacations and early retirement, you are in the wrong job. Perhaps you need to take up bank robbing. Or geeking in a sideshow. Or even politics.

Heinlein, Robert

50.

What makes people happy is activity; changing evil itself into good by power, working in a God like manner.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von