Motivational Quotes

Happiness

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

Best Quotes about Happiness

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

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

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

Lao-Tzu

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

Lubbock, Sir John

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

Dalai Lama

Happiness is not a horse, you cannot harness it.

Proverb, Russian

Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism, selfishness, evil --or else an absolute ignorance.

Greene, Graham

I can sympathize with people's pains, but not with their pleasures. There is something curiously boring about somebody else's happiness.

Huxley, Aldous

Happiness is not a state to arrive at, rather, a manner of traveling.

Johnson, Samuel

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.

Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.

Oscar Levant

12.

No man is happy; he is at best fortunate.

Solon

13.

In order to have great happiness, you have to have great pain and unhappiness-otherwise how would you know when you're happy?

Caron, Leslie

14.

Happiness is a sort of action.

Aristotle

15.

The smallest annoyances, disturb us the most.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

16.

Happiness is unrepentant pleasure.

Socrates

17.

Nothing is funnier than unhappiness, I grant you that. Yes, yes, it's the most comical thing in the world.

Beckett, Samuel

18.

Happiness held is the seed; Happiness shared is the flower-Author Unknown People need your love the most when they appear to deserve it the least.

Harrigan, John

19.

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

20.

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

21.

A person will be just about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Lincoln, Abraham

22.

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

Solon

23.

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

Buchan, John

24.

To be happy we must not be too concerned with others.

Camus, Albert

25.

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

Cloete, Stuart

26.

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

Baruch Spinoza

27.

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

Spencer, Herbert

28.

Man is the artificer of his own happiness.

Henry David Thoreau

29.

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

30.

Suspicion of happiness is in our blood.

Lucas, E. V.

31.

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

Nash, Ogden

32.

The secret of happiness is something to do.

Burroughs, John

33.

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

34.

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

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

35.

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

Confucius

36.

Scarcely one person in a thousand is capable of tasting the happiness of others.

Fielding, Henry

37.

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

Prazlin, Duchess

38.

Work and live to serve others, to leave the world a little better than you found it and garner for yourself as much peace of mind as you can. This is happiness.

Sarnoff, David

39.

We wish to be happier than other people; and this is difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.

Montesquieu, Charles De

40.

Happiness is a ball after which we run wherever it rolls, and we push it with our feet when it stops.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

41.

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

42.

The biggest lie on the planet: When I get what I want, I will be happy.

43.

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

44.

While we pursue happiness, we flee from contentment.

Proverb, Hasidic

45.

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

Abraham Lincoln

46.

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

John Berry

47.

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