Motivational Quotes

Happiness

The great end of all human industry is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, sciences cultivated, laws ordained, and societies modeled, by the most profound wisdom of patriots and legislators. Even the lonely savage, who lies exposed to the inclemency of the elements and the fury of wild beasts, forgets not, for a moment, this grand object of his being.

- Hume, David

Best Quotes about Happiness

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

Proverb, Spanish

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

Epictetus

Where there is joy there is creation. Where there is no joy there is no creation: know the nature of joy.

Upanishads, Veda

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

J.K. Rowling

When we recall the past, we usually find that it is the simplest things -- not the great occasions -- that in retrospect give off the greatest glow of happiness.

Hope, Bob

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

Nash, Ogden

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

Lane, Rose Wilder

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

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

10.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

11.

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

Epicurus

12.

The secret of happiness is something to do.

Burroughs, John

13.

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

14.

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

Proust, Marcel

15.

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

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

16.

Happiness arises in a state of peace, not of tumult.

Ann Radcliffe

17.

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

Barrie, Sir James M.

18.

Enjoy your happiness while you have it, and while, you have it do not too closely scrutinize its foundation.

Farrall, Joseph

19.

After what we can say you can be sure the happy heart will make the happy day.

20.

Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.

Jonathan Haidt

21.

Happiness is like a cat, If you try to coax it or call it, it will avoid you; it will never come. But if you pay not attention to it and go about your business, you'll find it rubbing against your legs and jumping into your lap.

Bennett, William John

22.

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

Chambers, Oswald

23.

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

24.

Suspicion of happiness is in our blood.

Lucas, E. V.

25.

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

Fichte, Johann G.

26.

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

27.

Call no man unhappy until he is married.

Socrates

28.

Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in stranger's gardens.

Jerrold, Douglas William

29.

All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse, and a good wife.

Boone, Daniel

30.

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

31.

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.

32.

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

Jean Houston

33.

Happiness adds and multiplies, as we divide it with others.

Nielsen, A.

34.

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

35.

All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone.

La Bruyere, Jean De

36.

The really happy person is the one who can enjoy the scenery, even when they have to take a detour.

Jeans, Sir James

37.

Cherish all your happy moments: they make a fine cushion for old age.

Christopher Morley

38.

Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the color in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty and your animal spirits.

Hazlitt, William

39.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

40.

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

41.

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

Stossel, John

42.

I define joy as a sustained sense of well-being and internal peace - a connection to what matters.

Oprah Winfrey

43.

The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.

Schweitzer, Albert

44.

Happiness is not so much in having or sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

Macewan, Norman

45.

Life at its noblest leaves mere happiness far behind; and indeed cannot endure it. Happiness is not the object of life: life has no object: it is an end in itself; and courage consists in the readiness to sacrifice happiness for an intenser quality of life.

Shaw, George Bernard

46.

Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meandering, but leads none of us by the same route

Colton, Charles Caleb

47.

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

Johnson, Samuel

48.

Where one is wise two are happy.

Proverb

49.

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

50.

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