Motivational Quotes

Happiness

You traverse the world in search of happiness, which is within the reach of every man. A contented mind confers it on all.

- Horace

Best Quotes about Happiness

Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.

Storm Jameson

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

Lubbock, Sir John

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

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

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

There is something ridiculous and even quite indecent in an individual claiming to be happy. Still more a people or a nation making such a claim. The pursuit of happiness... is without any question the most fatuous which could possibly be undertaken. This lamentable phrase the pursuit of happiness is responsible for a good part of the ills and miseries of the modern world.

Muggeridge, Malcolm

What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?

Smith, Adam

Our happiness depends on the habit of mind we cultivate. So practice happy thinking every day. Cultivate the merry heart, develop the happiness habit, and life will become a continual feast.

Peale, Norman Vincent

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

Fichte, Johann G.

10.

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

11.

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

12.

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

Bergson, Henri L.

13.

The secret of happiness and prosperity in this world, as in the world to come, lies in thinking of the welfare of others first, and not taking one's self too seriously.

Kindleberger, J.

14.

Happiness ain't a thing in itself --it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant. And so, as soon as the novelty is over and the force of the contrast dulled, it ain't happiness any longer, and you have to get something fresh.

Twain, Mark

15.

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

Forbes, Malcolm S.

16.

Happiness comes when we test our skills towards some meaningful purpose.

Stossel, John

17.

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

18.

Happiness is not pleasure, it is victory.

Ziglar, Zig

19.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

20.

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

Maurier, Daphne Du

21.

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

22.

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

Cloete, Stuart

23.

When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him; and you are torn by the thought of the unhappiness and night you cast, by the mere fact of living, in the hearts you encounter.

Camus, Albert

24.

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

Yeats, William Butler

25.

Be open to your happiness and sadness as they arise.

Thomas, John M.

26.

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

Levenson, Samuel

27.

The smallest annoyances, disturb us the most.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

28.

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

Byron, Lord

29.

In order to be truly happy, you must live along with, and you must stand for something larger than yourself.

Oprah Winfrey

30.

Happy were men if they but understood There is no safety but in doing good

Fountain., John

31.

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

Landor, Walter Savage

32.

It is wrong to assume that men of immense wealth are always happy.

Rockefeller, John D.

33.

We take greater pains to persuade others we are happy than in trying to think so ourselves.

Confucius

34.

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

Mason, John L.

35.

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

36.

To buy happiness is to sell soul.

Horton, Doug

37.

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

George Burns

38.

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

William Cowper

39.

Gaiety --a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.

Diderot, Denis

40.

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

41.

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

42.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

43.

Happiness arises in a state of peace, not of tumult.

Ann Radcliffe

44.

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

Roosevelt, Eleanor

45.

True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

46.

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

Kennedy, John F.

47.

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

48.

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

49.

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.

50.

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

Oppenheimer, Julius Robert