Motivational Quotes

Happiness

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

- Hesse, Hermann

Best Quotes about Happiness

Happiness is something that comes into our lives through doors we don't even remember leaving open.

Lane, Rose Wilder

The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.

Hoffer, Eric

If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us so live as to deserve happiness.

Fichte, Johann G.

The secret of happiness is to make others believe they are the cause of it.

Al Batt

It is not in the pursuit of happiness that we find fulfillment, it is in the happiness of pursuit.

Waitley, Denis

When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him; and you are torn by the thought of the unhappiness and night you cast, by the mere fact of living, in the hearts you encounter.

Camus, Albert

We find greatest joy, not in getting, but in expressing what we are. Men do not really live for honors or for pay; their gladness is not the taking and holding, but in doing, the striving, the building, the living. It is a higher joy to teach than to be taught. It is good to get justice, but better to do it; fun to have things but more to make them. The happy man is he who lives the life of love, not for the honors it may bring, but for the life itself.

Baughan, R.J.

Happiness is never stopping to think if you are.

Sondreal, Palmer

Those who seek happiness miss it, and those who discuss it, lack it.

Jackson, Holbrook

10.

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

Proust, Marcel

11.

The final moment of success is often no more thrilling than taking off a heavy backpack at the end of a long hike. If you went on the hike only to feel that pleasure, you are a fool. Yet people sometimes do just this. They work hard at a task and expect some special euphoria at the end. But when they achieve success and find only moderate and short-lived pleasure, they ask is that all there is? They devalue their accomplishments as a striving after wind. We can call this the progress principle: Pleasure comes more from making progress toward goals than from achieving them.

Jonathan Haidt

12.

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

Fountain., John

13.

The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

14.

Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.

Rubin, Theodore I.

15.

Happiness seems made to be shared.

Corneille, Pierre

16.

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

Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

17.

Success is getting and achieving what you want. Happiness is wanting and being content with what you get.

Meltzer, Bernard

18.

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

Democritus

19.

Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.

Ingersoll, Robert Green

20.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

21.

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

22.

The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.

Barrie, Sir James M.

23.

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

Kennedy, John F.

24.

All sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones are moving easily under the flesh.

Doris Lessing

25.

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

Mahatma Gandhi

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

Nash, Ogden

29.

True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The great blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.

Seneca

30.

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

Kant, Immanuel

31.

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.

Jefferson, Thomas

32.

Man is the artificer of his own happiness.

Henry David Thoreau

33.

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.

Jefferson, Thomas

34.

Remember that happiness is a way of travel - not a destination.

Roy M. Goodman

35.

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

Lubbock, Sir John

36.

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

37.

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

38.

Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth, is unhappy, though he be master of the world.

Epictetus

39.

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

40.

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

William Cowper

41.

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)

42.

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

Lao-tzu

43.

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

Rockefeller, John D.

44.

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

C. P. Snow

45.

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

Addison, Joseph

46.

A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity.

Jefferson, Thomas

47.

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

Meredith, Owen

48.

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.

49.

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

50.

Happiness is not a horse, you cannot harness it.

Proverb, Russian