Motivational Quotes

Happiness

One feels inclined to say that the intention that man should be happy is not included in the plan of Creation.

- Freud, Sigmund

Best Quotes about Happiness

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

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.

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

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

While we pursue happiness, we flee from contentment.

Proverb, Hasidic

If you pursue happiness you never find it.

Snow, C(harles) P(ercy)

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

I am learning to understand rather than immediately judge or to be judged. I cannot blindly follow the crowd and accept their approach. I will not allow myself to indulge in the usual manipulating game of role creation. Fortunately for me, my self-knowledge has transcended that and I have come to understand that life is best to be lived and not to be conceptualized. I am happy because I am growing daily and I am honestly not knowing where the limit lies. To be certain, every day there can be a revelation or a new discovery. I treasure the memory of the past misfortunes. It has added more to my bank of fortitude.

Lee, Bruce

Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed. which give happiness. Thomas Jefferson We never enjoy perfect happiness; our most fortunate successes are mingled with sadness; some anxieties always perplex the reality of our satisfaction.

James, William

10.

Happiness is never stopping to think if you are.

Sondreal, Palmer

11.

The thing that counts most in the pursuit of happiness is choosing the right companion.

12.

The journey to happiness involves finding the courage to go down into ourselves and take responsibility for what's there: all of it.

Rohr, Richard

13.

The secret of happiness is something to do.

Burroughs, John

14.

Happiness comes from... some curious adjustment to life.

Walpole, Sir Hugh

15.

Laughing is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one spot.

Josh Billings

16.

Happiness lies neither in vice nor in virtue; but in the manner we appreciate the one and the other, and the choice we make pursuant to our individual organization.

Sade, Marquis De

17.

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.

Ayn Rand

18.

If you're ever given the choice between happiness and intelligence choose happiness

19.

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

Mill, John Stuart

20.

Happiness in the present is only shattered by comparison with the past.

Horton, Doug

21.

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

Dumas, Alexandre

22.

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

John Berry

23.

Happiness seems made to be shared.

Corneille, Pierre

24.

Happiness is the act of being tough with ourselves and tender with others.

25.

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

Lubbock, Sir John

26.

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

Jean Jacques Rousseau

27.

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

28.

Call no man unhappy until he is married.

Socrates

29.

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

Roosevelt, Eleanor

30.

When we recall the past, we usually find that it is the simplest things -- not the great occasions -- that in retrospect give off the greatest glow of happiness.

Hope, Bob

31.

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

Bentham, Jeremy

32.

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

La Bruyere, Jean De

33.

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

34.

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

35.

I can sympathize with people's pains, but not with their pleasures. There is something curiously boring about somebody else's happiness.

Huxley, Aldous

36.

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

37.

Happiness is the light on the water. The water is cold and dark and deep.

Maxwell, William

38.

Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

39.

Man is the artificer of his own happiness.

Henry David Thoreau

40.

There is no end of craving. Hence contentment alone is the best way to happiness. Therefore, acquire contentment.

Sivananda, Sri Swami

41.

The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase; if you pursue happiness you'll never find it.

C. P. Snow

42.

If you optimize everything, you will always be unhappy.

Knuth, Don

43.

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

Prutz

44.

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

Peterson, Wilferd A.

45.

A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy and nothing can stop him.

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

46.

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.

47.

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

48.

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

Yeats, William Butler

49.

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

50.

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