Motivational Quotes

Happiness

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

Best Quotes about Happiness

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

J.K. Rowling

To be happy in this world, especially when youth is past, it is necessary to feel oneself not merely an isolated individual whose day will soon be over, but part of the stream of life slowing on from the first germ to the remote and unknown future.

Russell, Bertrand

Happiness is good for the body but sorrow strengthens the spirit.

Talk happiness. The world is sad enough without your woe.

Marden, Orison Swett

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

It is wrong to assume that men of immense wealth are always happy.

Rockefeller, John D.

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

Rohn, Jim

Happiness and virtue rest upon each other; the best are not only the happiest, but the happiest are usually the best.

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G.

10.

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

11.

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

Stossel, John

12.

Depend not on another, but lean instead on thyself...True happiness is born of self-reliance.

The laws of Manu

13.

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

14.

Man is the artificer of his own happiness.

Henry David Thoreau

15.

The happier the moment the shorter.

Pliny The Elder

16.

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

17.

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.

18.

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.

Santayana, George

19.

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

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

20.

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

Proverb, Scottish

21.

The secret to happiness is not in doing what one likes to do, but in liking what one has to do.

22.

Happiness is a hard thing because it is achieved only by making others happy.

Cloete, Stuart

23.

Happiness seems made to be shared.

Corneille, Pierre

24.

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

Democritus

25.

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

26.

In order for people to be happy, sometimes they have to take risks. It's true these risks can put them in danger of being hurt.

Meg Cabot

27.

If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.

Epicurus

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.

Happy are those who dream dreams and are willing to pay the price to make them come true.

30.

In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it.

Kafka, Franz

31.

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Abraham Lincoln

32.

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

33.

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

Stein, Ben

34.

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

35.

Sir, that all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness.

Johnson, Samuel

36.

We all want to be happy, and we're all going to die. You might say those are the only two unchallengeably true facts that apply to every human being on this planet.

Boyd, William

37.

No man should desire to be happy who is not at the same time holy. He should spend his efforts in seeking to know and do the will of God, leaving to Christ the matter of how happy he should be.

Tozer, A. W.

38.

Happiness was not made to be boasted, but enjoyed. Therefore tho others count me miserable, I will not believe them if I know and feel myself to be happy; nor fear them.

Traherne, Thomas

39.

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

40.

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

Baruch Spinoza

41.

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

Freud, Sigmund

42.

We take greater pains to persuade others we are happy than in trying to think so ourselves.

Confucius

43.

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

44.

My happiness derives from knowing the people I love are happy.

Ketchel, Holly

45.

If frugality were established in the state, and if our expenses were laid out to meet needs rather than superfluities of life, there might be fewer wants, and even fewer pleasures, but infinitely more happiness.

Goldsmith, Oliver

46.

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

Hesse, Hermann

47.

If you pursue happiness you never find it.

Snow, C(harles) P(ercy)

48.

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.

Jung, Carl

49.

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

50.

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

Heywood, John