Motivational Quotes

Happiness

Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.

- Chuang Tzu

Best Quotes about Happiness

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

Happiness is an agreeable sensation, arising from contemplating the misery of others.

Bierce, Ambrose

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

Saroyan, William

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

Orwell, George

All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone.

La Bruyere, Jean De

Happiness is good for the body but sorrow strengthens the spirit.

It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and in creative action, that man finds his supreme joys.

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

The greatest joy of life is to love and be loved.

Clyde, R.D.

If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us so live as to deserve happiness.

Fichte, Johann G.

10.

We are happy when for everything inside us there is a corresponding something outside us.

Yeats, William Butler

11.

No man is happy; he is at best fortunate.

Solon

12.

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

13.

Happiness is a continuation of happenings which are not resisted.

Chopra, Deepak

14.

Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the color in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty and your animal spirits.

Hazlitt, William

15.

Holiness, not happiness, is the chief end of man.

Chambers, Oswald

16.

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

17.

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

Apollinaire, Guillaume

18.

To be happy is not the purpose of our being rather it is to deserve happiness.

Fichte, Johann G.

19.

For who is pleased with himself.

Johnson, Samuel

20.

To have joy one must share it. Happiness was born a twin.

Byron, Lord

21.

Happiness is not pleasure, it is victory.

Ziglar, Zig

22.

Happiness is like manna; it is to be gathered in grains, and enjoyed every day. It will not keep; it cannot be accumulated; nor have we got to go out of ourselves or into remote places to gather it, since it has rained down from a Heaven, at our very door

Edwards, Tryon

23.

Happiness consists in activity -- it is a running stream, not a stagnant pool.

Mason, John L.

24.

Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.

Bono, Edward De

25.

If you deliberately plan on being less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you'll be unhappy for the rest of your life.

Maslow, Abraham H.

26.

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

Nicole Kidman

27.

After what we can say you can be sure the happy heart will make the happy day.

28.

Happiness is the harvest of a quiet eye.

O'Malley, Austin

29.

No one is in control of your happiness but you; therefore, you have the power to change anything about yourself or your life that you want to change.

Angelis, Barbara De

30.

The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.

William Cowper

31.

Happiness is not in having being; it is in doing.

Watson, Lilian Eichler

32.

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

33.

The great end of all human industry is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, sciences cultivated, laws ordained, and societies modeled, by the most profound wisdom of patriots and legislators. Even the lonely savage, who lies exposed to the inclemency of the elements and the fury of wild beasts, forgets not, for a moment, this grand object of his being.

Hume, David

34.

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

35.

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

36.

The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

Russell, Bertrand

37.

We all want to be happy, and we're all going to die. You might say those are the only two unchallengeably true facts that apply to every human being on this planet.

Boyd, William

38.

The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp.

John Berry

39.

Happiness is unrepentant pleasure.

Socrates

40.

Man is the artificer of his own happiness.

Henry David Thoreau

41.

Happiness is not a reward -- it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment -- it is a result.

Ingersoll, Robert Green

42.

The secret of happiness is to make others believe they are the cause of it.

Al Batt

43.

Happiness is not a possession to be prized. It is a quality of thought, a state of mind.

Maurier, Daphne Du

44.

Remember that very little is needed to make a happy life.

Aurelius, Marcus

45.

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

46.

There is no greater joy than that of feeling oneself a creator. The triumph of life is expressed by creation.

Bergson, Henri L.

47.

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

Epicurus

48.

The really happy person is the one who can enjoy the scenery, even when they have to take a detour.

Jeans, Sir James

49.

Scarcely one person in a thousand is capable of tasting the happiness of others.

Fielding, Henry

50.

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.

Waitley, Denis