Motivational Quotes

Happiness

Life at its noblest leaves mere happiness far behind; and indeed cannot endure it. Happiness is not the object of life: life has no object: it is an end in itself; and courage consists in the readiness to sacrifice happiness for an intenser quality of life.

- Shaw, George Bernard

Best Quotes about Happiness

When what we are is what we want to be, that's happiness.

Forbes, Malcolm S.

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

J.K. Rowling

The happier the moment the shorter.

Pliny The Elder

If you deliberately plan on being less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you'll be unhappy for the rest of your life.

Maslow, Abraham H.

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

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

Baruch Spinoza

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

The thing that counts most in the pursuit of happiness is choosing the right companion.

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

Clyde, R.D.

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 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

12.

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

Freud, Sigmund

13.

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

Jackson, Holbrook

14.

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

15.

Unhappiness is not knowing what we want, and killing ourselves to get it.

Herold, Don

16.

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

Levenson, Samuel

17.

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness

Orwell, George

18.

The hardest habit of all to break is the terrible habit of happiness.

Garrison, Theodosia

19.

If you optimize everything, you will always be unhappy.

Knuth, Don

20.

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

21.

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

Roy M. Goodman

22.

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

23.

Happiness requires problems

Hollingworth, H. L.

24.

Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than to wash your hands when they are dirty; the only thing that counts is the love of duty; when love and duty are one, then grace is in you and you will enjoy a happiness which passes all understanding.

W. Somerset Maugham

25.

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

26.

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

Kin Hubbard

27.

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

Democritus

28.

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

29.

There is no greater joy than that of feeling oneself a creator. The triumph of life is expressed by creation.

Bergson, Henri L.

30.

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

31.

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

Greene, Graham

32.

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

Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

33.

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

34.

Enjoy your happiness while you have it, and while, you have it do not too closely scrutinize its foundation.

Farrall, Joseph

35.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

36.

If you pursue happiness you never find it.

Snow, C(harles) P(ercy)

37.

A person is never happy till their vague strivings has itself marked out its proper limitations.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

38.

Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response.

Barthel, Mildred

39.

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

Nicole Kidman

40.

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

41.

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

42.

The really happy person is the one who can enjoy the scenery, even when they have to take a detour.

Jeans, Sir James

43.

Where there is joy there is creation. Where there is no joy there is no creation: know the nature of joy.

Upanishads, Veda

44.

Do you want my one-word secret of happiness -- It's growth -- mental, financial, you name it.

Geneen, Harold S.

45.

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

46.

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

Jonathan Haidt

47.

Such happiness as life is capable of comes from the full participation of all our powers in the endeavor to wrest from each changing situations of experience its own full and unique meaning.

Dewey, John

48.

Never believe straight off in a man's unhappiness. Ask him if he can still sleep. If the answer's yes, all's well. That is enough.

Celine, Louis-Ferdinand

49.

IÆve decided that the key to happiness is low expectations.

Laura Moncur

50.

All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone.

La Bruyere, Jean De