Motivational Quotes

Happiness

Happiness is something that comes into our lives through doors we don't even remember leaving open.

- Lane, Rose Wilder

Best Quotes about Happiness

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

Fontenelle, Bernard Le Bovier

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

Apollinaire, Guillaume

He felt the loyalty we feel to unhappiness -- the sense that is where we really belong.

Greene, Graham

To be happy we must not be too concerned with others.

Camus, Albert

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

Fountain., John

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

Kennedy, John F.

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

The secret of happiness is something to do.

Burroughs, John

Celebrate the happiness that friends are always giving, make every day a holiday and celebrate just living!

Bradley, Amanda

10.

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

Anderson, Greg

11.

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

12.

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

13.

In order for people to be happy, sometimes they have to take risks. It's true these risks can put them in danger of being hurt.

Meg Cabot

14.

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

15.

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

Aristotle

16.

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

Yeats, William Butler

17.

I cannot believe that the inscrutable universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty of the world must somewhere rest on pure joy!

Louise Bogan

18.

While we pursue happiness, we flee from contentment.

Proverb, Hasidic

19.

It is pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed.

Kin Hubbard

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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)

23.

What makes people happy is activity; changing evil itself into good by power, working in a God like manner.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

24.

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

Prutz

25.

If you optimize everything, you will always be unhappy.

Knuth, Don

26.

Happiness is never stopping to think if you are.

Sondreal, Palmer

27.

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

28.

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

Christopher Morley

29.

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

Bierce, Ambrose

30.

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

Dumas, Alexandre

31.

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

Mason, John L.

32.

The really happy man never laughs -- seldom -- though he may smile. He does not need to laugh, for laughter, like weeping is a relief of mental tension -- and the happy are not over strung.

Aveling, Prof. F. A. P.

33.

A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity.

Jefferson, Thomas

34.

Human happiness seems to consist in three ingredients; action, pleasure and indolence. And though these ingredients ought to be mixed in different proportions, according to the disposition of the person, yet no one ingredient can be entirely wanting without destroying in some measure the relish of the whole composition. composition.

Hume, David

35.

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

36.

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

Ann Radcliffe

37.

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

Sivananda, Sri Swami

38.

Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.

Democritus

39.

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

40.

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

Oprah Winfrey

41.

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

42.

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.

Robert Frost

43.

Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.

Chuang Tzu

44.

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

45.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

46.

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

Peterson, Wilferd A.

47.

Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self. To be damned is for one's ordinary everyday mode of consciousness to be unremitting agonizing preoccupation with self.

Murdoch, Iris

48.

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

49.

The world will never be long without some good reason to hate the unhappy; their real faults are immediately detected, and if those are not sufficient to sink them into infamy, an additional weight of calumny will be super added.

Johnson, Samuel

50.

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