Motivational Quotes

Happiness

Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.

- Oscar Levant

Best Quotes about Happiness

False happiness renders men stern and proud, and that happiness is never communicated. True happiness renders them kind and sensible, and that happiness is always shared.

Montesquieu, Charles De

What a man really wants is creative challenge with sufficient skills to bring him within the reach of success so that he may have the expanding joy of achievement.

Nash, Fay B.

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

Lane, Rose Wilder

Happiness is activity.

Aristotle

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found; and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

Johnson, Samuel

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

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

Lincoln, Abraham

Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination.

Goodman, Roy

10.

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

11.

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

Mill, John Stuart

12.

Happiness comes from... some curious adjustment to life.

Walpole, Sir Hugh

13.

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

14.

While we pursue happiness, we flee from contentment.

Proverb, Hasidic

15.

Happiness is experienced when your life gives you what you are willing to accept.

Keyes Jr., Ken

16.

Call no man unhappy until he is married.

Socrates

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 when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

Mahatma Gandhi

19.

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

David Assael

20.

Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.

Chuang Tzu

21.

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

Lucian

22.

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

23.

Happiness depends more on how life strikes you than on what happens.

Rooney, Andy

24.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

25.

The human spirit needs to accomplish, to achieve, to triumph to be happy.

Stein, Ben

26.

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

Robert Frost

27.

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

28.

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.

Epicurus

29.

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

Roosevelt, Eleanor

30.

No man is happy who does not think himself so.

Publilius Syrus

31.

Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition.

Rubinstein, Arthur

32.

Happiness requires problems

Hollingworth, H. L.

33.

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.

34.

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

35.

The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.

Saroyan, William

36.

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.

37.

In order to have great happiness, you have to have great pain and unhappiness-otherwise how would you know when you're happy?

Caron, Leslie

38.

The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy; I mean that if you are happy you will be good.

Russell, Bertrand

39.

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

Addison, Joseph

40.

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

41.

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

42.

One feels inclined to say that the intention that man should be happy is not included in the plan of Creation.

Freud, Sigmund

43.

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

Millman, Dan

44.

Where one is wise two are happy.

Proverb

45.

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

Lubbock, Sir John

46.

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

47.

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

Prutz

48.

If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence.

Aristotle

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.

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