Motivational Quotes

Happiness

Happiness is a hard thing because it is achieved only by making others happy.

- Cloete, Stuart

Best Quotes about Happiness

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

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

Democritus

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Abraham Lincoln

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.

When what we are is what we want to be, that's happiness.

Forbes, Malcolm S.

The highest happiness of man is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere what is unknowable.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

Happiness is unrepentant pleasure.

Socrates

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.

Santayana, George

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

Mahatma Gandhi

10.

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

11.

And isn't that, at it's core, what the princess fantasy is about for all of us? "Princess" is how we tell little girls that they are special, precious. "Princess" is the wish that we could protect them from pain, that they would never know sorrow, that they will live happily ever after ensconces in lace and innocence.

Peggy Orenstein

12.

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

13.

The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.

14.

Happiness is a thing to be practiced, like the violin.

Lubbock, Sir John

15.

Happiness is something that comes into our lives through doors we don't even remember leaving open.

Lane, Rose Wilder

16.

He felt the loyalty we feel to unhappiness -- the sense that is where we really belong.

Greene, Graham

17.

Happiness is not so much in having or sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

Macewan, Norman

18.

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.

19.

Happiness depends more on how life strikes you than on what happens.

Rooney, Andy

20.

I've grown to realize the joy that comes from little victories is preferable to the fun that comes from ease and the pursuit of pleasure.

Lawana Blackwell

21.

Joy descends gently upon us like the evening dew, and does not patter down like a hailstorm.

Richter, Jean Paul

22.

If you ever find happiness by hunting for it, you will find it as the old woman did her lost spectacles. Safe on her own nose all the time.

Billings, Josh

23.

We are never so happy nor so unhappy as we imagine.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

24.

To be happy in this world, especially when youth is past, it is necessary to feel oneself not merely an isolated individual whose day will soon be over, but part of the stream of life slowing on from the first germ to the remote and unknown future.

Russell, Bertrand

25.

Many people have the wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

Keller, Helen

26.

Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.

Jonathan Haidt

27.

A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity.

Jefferson, Thomas

28.

I define joy as a sustained sense of well-being and internal peace - a connection to what matters.

Oprah Winfrey

29.

Like swimming, riding, writing, or playing golf, happiness can be learned.

Sokoloff, Boris

30.

The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.

Hoffer, Eric

31.

But the whim we have of happiness is somewhat thus. By certain valuations, and averages, of our own striking, we come upon some sort of average terrestrial lot; this we fancy belongs to us by nature, and of indefeasible rights. It is simple payment of our wages, of our deserts; requires neither thanks nor complaint. Foolish soul! What act of legislature was there that thou shouldst be happy? A little while ago thou hadst no right to be at all.

Carlyle, Thomas

32.

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

Epicurus

33.

The attitude of unhappiness is not only painful, it is mean and ugly. What can be more base and unworthy than the pining, puling, mumping mood, no matter by what outward ills it may have been engendered? What is more injurious to others? What less helpful as a way out of the difficulty? It but fastens and perpetuates the trouble which occasioned it, and increases the total evil of the situation. At all costs, then, we ought to reduce the sway of that mood; we ought to scout it in ourselves and others, and never show it tolerance.

James, William

34.

The smallest annoyances, disturb us the most.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

38.

What a man really wants is creative challenge with sufficient skills to bring him within the reach of success so that he may have the expanding joy of achievement.

Nash, Fay B.

39.

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

40.

I'm fulfilled in what I do... I never thought that a lot of money or fine clothes -- the finer things of life -- would make you happy. My concept of happiness is to be filled in a spiritual sense.

King, Coretta Scott

41.

Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition.

Rubinstein, Arthur

42.

The pursuit of happiness is the chase of a life time.

43.

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

Jackson, Holbrook

44.

Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it.

Prevert, Jacques

45.

The really happy man never laughs -- seldom -- though he may smile. He does not need to laugh, for laughter, like weeping is a relief of mental tension -- and the happy are not over strung.

Aveling, Prof. F. A. P.

46.

Objects we ardently pursue bring little happiness when gained; most of our pleasures come from unexpected sources.

Spencer, Herbert

47.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

48.

Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.

Rubin, Theodore I.

49.

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.

Wilde, Oscar

50.

Happiness is a journey not a destination.

Sweetland, Ben