Motivational Quotes

Happiness

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

- Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

Best Quotes about Happiness

Call no man unhappy until he is married.

Socrates

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

Mill, John Stuart

Happiness includes chiefly the idea of satisfaction after full honest effort. No one can possibly be satisfied and no one can be happy who feels that in some paramount affairs he failed to take up the challenge of life.

Bennett, Arnold

Life at its noblest leaves mere happiness far behind; and indeed cannot endure it. Happiness is not the object of life: life has no object: it is an end in itself; and courage consists in the readiness to sacrifice happiness for an intenser quality of life.

Shaw, George Bernard

We cannot be contented because we are happy, and we cannot be happy because we are contented.

Landor, Walter Savage

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

Bono, Edward De

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

Happiness lies first of all in health.

Curtis, George William

Happiness is a by-product. You cannot pursue it by itself.

Levenson, Samuel

10.

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

William Cowper

11.

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

Prevert, Jacques

12.

The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

13.

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

Brande, Dorothea

14.

True happiness is the full use of your powers along lines of excellence in a life affording scope.

Kennedy, John F.

15.

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

16.

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

Abraham Lincoln

17.

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

18.

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

19.

If you want happiness for an hour -- take a nap. If you want happiness for a day -- go fishing. If you want happiness for a month -- get married. If you want happiness for a year -- inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime -- help someone else.

Proverb, Chinese

20.

Happiness is not pleasure, it is victory.

Ziglar, Zig

21.

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

22.

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

Spencer, Herbert

23.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

24.

Work and live to serve others, to leave the world a little better than you found it and garner for yourself as much peace of mind as you can. This is happiness.

Sarnoff, David

25.

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

26.

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

27.

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

Jonathan Haidt

28.

Happiness is the harvest of a quiet eye.

O'Malley, Austin

29.

Only one thing has to change for us to know happiness in our lives: where we focus our attention.

Anderson, Greg

30.

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

31.

I can say that I never knew what joy was like until I gave up pursuing happiness, or cared to live until I chose to die. For these two discoveries I am beholden to Jesus.

Muggeridge, Malcolm

32.

Happiness was not made to be boasted, but enjoyed. Therefore tho others count me miserable, I will not believe them if I know and feel myself to be happy; nor fear them.

Traherne, Thomas

33.

Happiness consists of three things; Someone to love, work to do, and a clear conscience.

34.

The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

35.

The happier the moment the shorter.

Pliny The Elder

36.

Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world.

Beckett, Samuel

37.

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

Roosevelt, Eleanor

38.

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

39.

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

40.

A person is never happy till their vague strivings has itself marked out its proper limitations.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

41.

I am more and more convinced that our happiness or our unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

42.

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

Palmer, Gretta Brooker

43.

Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in stranger's gardens.

Jerrold, Douglas William

44.

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

45.

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

Landor, Walter Savage

46.

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

47.

For who is pleased with himself.

Johnson, Samuel

48.

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

49.

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

50.

Shall I give you my recipe for happiness? I find everything useful and nothing indispensable. I find everything wonderful and nothing miraculous. I reverence the body. I avoid first causes like the plague.

Douglas, Norman