Motivational Quotes

Happiness

We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.

- Koenig, Frederick

Best Quotes about Happiness

Happiness is like a sunbeam, which the least shadow intercepts, while adversity is often as the rain of spring.

Proverb, Chinese

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

Lao-Tzu

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

No thoroughly occupied man was ever yet very miserable.

Landon, Letitia Elizabeth

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

The happy think a lifetime short, but to the unhappy one night can be an eternity.

Lucian

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

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.

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

10.

Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism, selfishness, evil --or else an absolute ignorance.

Greene, Graham

11.

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

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

12.

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

Hesse, Hermann

13.

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

14.

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

Dumas, Alexandre

15.

It seldom happens that any felicity comes so pure as not to be tempered and allayed by some mixture of sorrow.

Cervantes, Miguel De

16.

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

Landor, Walter Savage

17.

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

Horton, Doug

18.

Personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a checklist of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications are not your life.

J.K. Rowling

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

Smith, Adam

22.

The only happiness a brave person ever troubles themselves in asking about, is happiness enough to get their work done.

Carlyle, Thomas

23.

It is not in the pursuit of happiness that we find fulfillment, it is in the happiness of pursuit.

Waitley, Denis

24.

We find greatest joy, not in getting, but in expressing what we are. Men do not really live for honors or for pay; their gladness is not the taking and holding, but in doing, the striving, the building, the living. It is a higher joy to teach than to be taught. It is good to get justice, but better to do it; fun to have things but more to make them. The happy man is he who lives the life of love, not for the honors it may bring, but for the life itself.

Baughan, R.J.

25.

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

26.

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

27.

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

Cloete, Stuart

28.

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

29.

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

30.

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

31.

Cherish all your happy moments: they make a fine cushion for old age.

Christopher Morley

32.

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

33.

Happiness is a small and unworthy goal for something as big and fancy as a whole lifetime, and should be taken in small doses.

Baker, Russell (Wayne)

34.

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

Confucius

35.

To describe happiness is to diminish it.

Stendhal, Henri B.

36.

A person will be just about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Lincoln, Abraham

37.

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

Lubbock, Sir John

38.

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

Horton, Doug

39.

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

Oppenheimer, Julius Robert

40.

The greatest joy of life is to love and be loved.

Clyde, R.D.

41.

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

Sivananda, Sri Swami

42.

We are made happy when reason can discover no occasion for it. The memory of some past moments is more persuasive than the experience of present ones. There have been visions of such breadth and brightness that these motes were invisible in their light.

Thoreau, Henry David

43.

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

44.

Happiness... is not a destination: it is a manner of traveling. Happiness is not an end in itself. It is a by-product of working, playing, loving and living.

Ginott, Haim

45.

Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.

Chuang Tzu

46.

Happiness is good for the body but sorrow strengthens the spirit.

47.

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

David Assael

48.

We are never so happy nor so unhappy as we imagine.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De