Motivational Quotes

Happiness

Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.

- Thomas Szasz

Best Quotes about Happiness

To buy happiness is to sell soul.

Horton, Doug

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

We cannot be contented because we are happy, and we cannot be happy because we are contented.

Landor, Walter Savage

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

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

Robert Frost

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.

We are never so happy nor so unhappy as we imagine.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

Seek not happiness too greedily, and be not fearful of happiness.

Lao-tzu

Holiness, not happiness, is the chief end of man.

Chambers, Oswald

10.

Happiness is unrepentant pleasure.

Socrates

11.

Happiness is not best achieved by those who seek it directly.

Russell, Bertrand

12.

And isn't that, at it's core, what the princess fantasy is about for all of us? "Princess" is how we tell little girls that they are special, precious. "Princess" is the wish that we could protect them from pain, that they would never know sorrow, that they will live happily ever after ensconces in lace and innocence.

Peggy Orenstein

13.

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

Bradley, Amanda

14.

Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.

Thomas Szasz

15.

Where one is wise two are happy.

Proverb

16.

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

Fontenelle, Bernard Le Bovier

17.

At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities.

Jean Houston

18.

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

Anderson, Greg

19.

Remember that very little is needed to make a happy life.

Aurelius, Marcus

20.

If you optimize everything, you will always be unhappy.

Knuth, Don

21.

Happiness comes when we test our skills towards some meaningful purpose.

Stossel, John

22.

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

Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

23.

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

Jean Jacques Rousseau

24.

The loss of wealth is loss of dirt, as sages in all times assert; The happy man's without a shirt.

Heywood, John

25.

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

26.

Happiness is perfume, you can't pour it on somebody else without getting a few drops on yourself

Zee, James Van Der

27.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

28.

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

Nash, Ogden

29.

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

30.

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

Proverb, Scottish

31.

The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.

William Cowper

32.

What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?

Smith, Adam

33.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

34.

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

Geneen, Harold S.

35.

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

36.

Happiness is not pleasure, it is victory.

Ziglar, Zig

37.

Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible.

Proust, Marcel

38.

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

39.

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

Lubbock, Sir John

40.

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier.

Young, Margaret

41.

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

42.

Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.

Rohn, Jim

43.

Happiness is not a horse, you cannot harness it.

Proverb, Russian

44.

A good way I know to find happiness, is to not bore a hole to fit the plug.

Billings, Josh

45.

No man is happy who does not think himself so.

Publilius Syrus

46.

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

Proverb, Spanish

47.

Happiness is a journey not a destination.

Sweetland, Ben

48.

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

Rubinstein, Arthur

49.

Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.

Robertson Davies

50.

Happiness comes more from loving than being loved; and often when our affection seems wounded it is only our vanity bleeding. To love, and to be hurt often, and to love again -- this is the brave and happy life.

Buckrose, J.E