Motivational Quotes

Happiness

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

- Forbes, Malcolm S.

Best Quotes about Happiness

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

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

Alfred Lord Tennyson

The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase; if you pursue happiness you'll never find it.

C. P. Snow

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

Nicole Kidman

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

Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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

Happiness includes chiefly the idea of satisfaction after full honest effort. No one can possibly be satisfied and no one can be happy who feels that in some paramount affairs he failed to take up the challenge of life.

Bennett, Arnold

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

Richter, Jean Paul

Be open to your happiness and sadness as they arise.

Thomas, John M.

10.

The world will never be long without some good reason to hate the unhappy; their real faults are immediately detected, and if those are not sufficient to sink them into infamy, an additional weight of calumny will be super added.

Johnson, Samuel

11.

Our happiness depends on the habit of mind we cultivate. So practice happy thinking every day. Cultivate the merry heart, develop the happiness habit, and life will become a continual feast.

Peale, Norman Vincent

12.

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

Dalai Lama

13.

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)

14.

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

15.

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

16.

Let no man be called happy before his death. Till then, he is not happy, only lucky.

Solon

17.

If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence.

Aristotle

18.

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.

19.

Remember, happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have, it depends solely upon what you think.

Carnegie, Dale

20.

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

Confucius

21.

True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

22.

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

Mason, John L.

23.

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

Garrison, Theodosia

24.

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

Billings, Josh

25.

But the whim we have of happiness is somewhat thus. By certain valuations, and averages, of our own striking, we come upon some sort of average terrestrial lot; this we fancy belongs to us by nature, and of indefeasible rights. It is simple payment of our wages, of our deserts; requires neither thanks nor complaint. Foolish soul! What act of legislature was there that thou shouldst be happy? A little while ago thou hadst no right to be at all.

Carlyle, Thomas

26.

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

Nash, Ogden

27.

Happiness is never stopping to think if you are.

Sondreal, Palmer

28.

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

Roosevelt, Eleanor

29.

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

30.

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

31.

If you pursue happiness you never find it.

Snow, C(harles) P(ercy)

32.

The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

33.

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

Bergson, Henri L.

34.

Anything you're good at contributes to happiness.

Russell, Bertrand

35.

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.

Wilde, Oscar

36.

The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

Russell, Bertrand

37.

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

38.

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

Epicurus

39.

Happiness is not in having being; it is in doing.

Watson, Lilian Eichler

40.

Gaiety --a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.

Diderot, Denis

41.

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

42.

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

Kennedy, John F.

43.

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

44.

I can say that I never knew what joy was like until I gave up pursuing happiness, or cared to live until I chose to die. For these two discoveries I am beholden to Jesus.

Muggeridge, Malcolm

45.

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.

James Oppenheim

46.

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.

47.

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

Storm Jameson

48.

It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and in creative action, that man finds his supreme joys.

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

49.

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

50.

Our happiness in this world depends on the affections we are able to inspire.

Prazlin, Duchess