Motivational Quotes

Happiness

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

Best Quotes about Happiness

There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means -- either may do -- the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.

Franklin, Benjamin

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.

Jefferson, Thomas

Happiness is unrepentant pleasure.

Socrates

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

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

Bentham, Jeremy

Happiness is not in having being; it is in doing.

Watson, Lilian Eichler

Happiness lies first of all in health.

Curtis, George William

The great end of all human industry is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, sciences cultivated, laws ordained, and societies modeled, by the most profound wisdom of patriots and legislators. Even the lonely savage, who lies exposed to the inclemency of the elements and the fury of wild beasts, forgets not, for a moment, this grand object of his being.

Hume, David

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

Lubbock, Sir John

10.

That which you create in beauty and goodness and truth lives on for all time to come. Don't spend your life accumulating material objects that will only turn to dust and ashes.

Waitley, Denis

11.

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.

Kingsley, Charles

12.

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

Levenson, Samuel

13.

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

14.

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

15.

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

Anderson, Greg

16.

True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.

Addison, Joseph

17.

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

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

18.

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

19.

Where one is wise two are happy.

Proverb

20.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

21.

Happiness is the harvest of a quiet eye.

O'Malley, Austin

22.

Happiness is not a horse, you cannot harness it.

Proverb, Russian

23.

The creed of a true saint is to make the best of life, and to make the most of it.

Chapin, Edwin Hubbel

24.

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

25.

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

26.

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

Nicole Kidman

27.

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

James Oppenheim

28.

A great obstacle to happiness is to expect too much happiness.

Fontenelle, Bernard Le Bovier

29.

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

30.

The secret of happiness is to make others believe they are the cause of it.

Al Batt

31.

We all want to be happy, and we're all going to die. You might say those are the only two unchallengeably true facts that apply to every human being on this planet.

Boyd, William

32.

Happiness is activity.

Aristotle

33.

If you were happy every day of your life you wouldn't be a human being, you'd be a game show host.

Heatter, Gabriel

34.

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

Cloete, Stuart

35.

Happy is the son whose faith in his mother remains unchallenged.

Alcott, Louisa May

36.

If you pursue happiness you never find it.

Snow, C(harles) P(ercy)

37.

Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead.

Proverb, Scottish

38.

While we pursue happiness, we flee from contentment.

Proverb, Hasidic

39.

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

40.

It's not a question of happiness, it's a requirement. Consider the alternative.

Horton, Doug

41.

Act happy, feel happy, be happy, without a reason in the world. Then you can love, and do what you will.

Millman, Dan

42.

There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.

Dyer, Wayne

43.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

44.

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

Lao-tzu

45.

The happier the moment the shorter.

Pliny The Elder

46.

Happiness consists more in small conveniences of pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom to a man in the course of his life.

Franklin, Benjamin

47.

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

Ann Radcliffe

48.

It is not God's will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy

Kant, Immanuel

49.

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

50.

Happiness is an agreeable sensation, arising from contemplating the misery of others.