Motivational Quotes

Happiness

Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.

- Storm Jameson

Best Quotes about Happiness

If you're ever given the choice between happiness and intelligence choose happiness

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

No thoroughly occupied man was ever yet very miserable.

Landon, Letitia Elizabeth

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

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

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)

It is not God's will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy

Kant, Immanuel

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

It is kind of happiness to know to what extent we may be unhappy.

10.

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

Apollinaire, Guillaume

11.

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

Hesse, Hermann

12.

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

Stein, Ben

13.

What would you call the highest happiness? Wratislaw was ask. The sense of competence, was the answer, given without hesitation.

Buchan, John

14.

Content makes poor men rich; discontentment makes rich men poor.

Benjamin Franklin

15.

Objects we ardently pursue bring little happiness when gained; most of our pleasures come from unexpected sources.

Spencer, Herbert

16.

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

Yeats, William Butler

17.

Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it.

Prevert, Jacques

18.

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

Dumas, Alexandre

19.

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

George Burns

20.

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

Byron, Lord

21.

This is the best kind of voyeurism, hearing joy from your neighbors.

Chuck Sigars

22.

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.

23.

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

Meredith, Owen

24.

If you were happy every day of your life you wouldn't be a human being, you'd be a game show host.

Heatter, Gabriel

25.

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

Walpole, Sir Hugh

26.

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

27.

Not what you have, but what you see; Not what you see, but what you choose; Not what seems fair, but what is true; Not what you dream, but what you do; Not what you take, but what you give; Not as you pray, but as you live. These are the things that mar or bless The sum of human happiness.

28.

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

29.

The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

30.

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

31.

Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel

32.

The happier the moment the shorter.

Pliny The Elder

33.

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

Forbes, Malcolm S.

34.

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

35.

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

36.

Happiness is like a cat, If you try to coax it or call it, it will avoid you; it will never come. But if you pay not attention to it and go about your business, you'll find it rubbing against your legs and jumping into your lap.

Bennett, William John

37.

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

Proverb, Spanish

38.

I am learning to understand rather than immediately judge or to be judged. I cannot blindly follow the crowd and accept their approach. I will not allow myself to indulge in the usual manipulating game of role creation. Fortunately for me, my self-knowledge has transcended that and I have come to understand that life is best to be lived and not to be conceptualized. I am happy because I am growing daily and I am honestly not knowing where the limit lies. To be certain, every day there can be a revelation or a new discovery. I treasure the memory of the past misfortunes. It has added more to my bank of fortitude.

Lee, Bruce

39.

Laughing is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one spot.

Josh Billings

40.

There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.

Dyer, Wayne

41.

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

Fountain., John

42.

If you pursue happiness you never find it.

Snow, C(harles) P(ercy)

43.

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

44.

Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead.

Proverb, Scottish

45.

The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp.

John Berry

46.

The most exciting happiness is the happiness generated by forces beyond your control.

Nash, Ogden

47.

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