Motivational Quotes

Happiness

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

- Richter, Jean Paul

Best Quotes about Happiness

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

Suspicion of happiness is in our blood.

Lucas, E. V.

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

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

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

Some of us might find happiness if we quit struggling so desperately for it.

Feather, William

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

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

Roosevelt, Eleanor

10.

Happiness is like manna; it is to be gathered in grains, and enjoyed every day. It will not keep; it cannot be accumulated; nor have we got to go out of ourselves or into remote places to gather it, since it has rained down from a Heaven, at our very door

Edwards, Tryon

11.

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

12.

Farms and in castles, in homes, studies, and cloisters -- where sensible people manage to live relatively lusty and decent lives, as moral as they must be, as free as they may be, and as masterly as they can be. If we only knew it, this elusive arrangement is happiness.

Erikson, Erik H.

13.

People who never achieve happiness are the ones who complain whenever they're awake, and whenever they're asleep, they are thinking about what to complain about tomorrow.

Zimbler, Adam

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.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

16.

The pursuit of happiness is the chase of a life time.

17.

I'm fulfilled in what I do... I never thought that a lot of money or fine clothes -- the finer things of life -- would make you happy. My concept of happiness is to be filled in a spiritual sense.

King, Coretta Scott

18.

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

Kennedy, John F.

19.

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)

20.

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

Greene, Graham

21.

There's a hope for every woe, and a balm for every pain, but the first joys of our heart come never back again!

Gilfillan, Robert

22.

Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.

Bono, Edward De

23.

There is no happiness; there are only moments of happiness.

Proverb, Spanish

24.

Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook and a good digestion.

Jean Jacques Rousseau

25.

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.

26.

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

27.

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

Walpole, Sir Hugh

28.

Those who seek happiness miss it, and those who discuss it, lack it.

Jackson, Holbrook

29.

We think a happy life consists in tranquility of mind.

Cicero, Marcus T.

30.

Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed. which give happiness. Thomas Jefferson We never enjoy perfect happiness; our most fortunate successes are mingled with sadness; some anxieties always perplex the reality of our satisfaction.

James, William

31.

Men expect that religion should cost them no pains, that happiness should drop into their laps without any design and endeavor on their part, and that, after they have done what they please while they live, God should snatch them up to heaven when they die. But though the commandments of God be not grievous, yet it is fit to let men know that they are not thus easy.

Tillotson, John

32.

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

33.

The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.

34.

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

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

35.

If you optimize everything, you will always be unhappy.

Knuth, Don

36.

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.

Jefferson, Thomas

37.

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

Levenson, Samuel

38.

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

Camus, Albert

39.

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

40.

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

Byron, Lord

41.

Be it jewel or toy, not the prize gives the joy, but the striving to win the prize.

Meredith, Owen

42.

Call no man unhappy until he is married.

Socrates

43.

True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The great blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.

Seneca

44.

Success is getting and achieving what you want. Happiness is wanting and being content with what you get.

Meltzer, Bernard

45.

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

Saroyan, William

46.

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

47.

Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.

Chuang Tzu

48.

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

49.

Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.

Jonathan Haidt

50.

The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.

Anthelme Brillat-Savarin