Motivational Quotes

Happiness

The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.

- Dostoevsky, Fyodor

Best Quotes about Happiness

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

Be it jewel or toy, not the prize gives the joy, but the striving to win the prize.

Meredith, Owen

In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it.

Kafka, Franz

Seek not happiness too greedily, and be not fearful of happiness.

Lao-tzu

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.

Santayana, George

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

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

Fielding, Henry

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

Wilde, Oscar

Very little is needed to make a happy life.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

10.

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

11.

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

12.

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.

13.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

14.

A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.

Downs, Hugh

15.

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

16.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

Aurelius, Marcus

17.

Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.

Schachtel, Rabbi H.

18.

The happier the moment the shorter.

Pliny The Elder

19.

Depend not on another, but lean instead on thyself...True happiness is born of self-reliance.

The laws of Manu

20.

Happiness is never stopping to think if you are.

Sondreal, Palmer

21.

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

Nicole Kidman

22.

Never believe straight off in a man's unhappiness. Ask him if he can still sleep. If the answer's yes, all's well. That is enough.

Celine, Louis-Ferdinand

23.

Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self. To be damned is for one's ordinary everyday mode of consciousness to be unremitting agonizing preoccupation with self.

Murdoch, Iris

24.

Happiness is a how, not a what: a talent, not an object

Hesse, Hermann

25.

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

Mill, John Stuart

26.

No man is happy who does not think himself so.

Publilius Syrus

27.

The man who is born with a talent which he was meant to use finds his greatest happiness in using it.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

28.

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

James Oppenheim

29.

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

30.

If you pursue happiness you never find it.

Snow, C(harles) P(ercy)

31.

What ever our wandering our happiness will always be found within a narrow compass, and in the middle of the objects more immediately within our reach.

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G.

32.

Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.

Dumas, Alexandre

33.

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

Roy M. Goodman

34.

Sometimes it's hard to avoid the happiness of others.

David Assael

35.

Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.

Eddie Cantor

36.

Men expect that religion should cost them no pains, that happiness should drop into their laps without any design and endeavor on their part, and that, after they have done what they please while they live, God should snatch them up to heaven when they die. But though the commandments of God be not grievous, yet it is fit to let men know that they are not thus easy.

Tillotson, John

37.

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

38.

Let no man be called happy before his death. Till then, he is not happy, only lucky.

Solon

39.

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

Nielsen, A.

40.

There are seeds of self-destruction in all of us that will bear only unhappiness if allowed to grow.

Brande, Dorothea

41.

If you cannot renounce the world the genius of happiness will never salute you.

Prutz

42.

Content makes poor men rich; discontentment makes rich men poor.

Benjamin Franklin

43.

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

44.

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

Bono, Edward De

45.

The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy; I mean that if you are happy you will be good.

Russell, Bertrand

46.

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

47.

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

48.

Happiness doesn't come from doing what we like to do but from liking what we have to do.

Peterson, Wilferd A.

49.

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

50.

The world's literature and folklore are full of stories that point out how futile it can be to seek happiness. Rather, happiness is a blessing that comes to you as you go along; a treasure that you incidentally find.

Binstock, Louis