Motivational Quotes

Happiness

Many people have the wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

- Keller, Helen

Best Quotes about Happiness

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

Jean Houston

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

We are made happy when reason can discover no occasion for it. The memory of some past moments is more persuasive than the experience of present ones. There have been visions of such breadth and brightness that these motes were invisible in their light.

Thoreau, Henry David

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

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

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 isn't necessary to be rich and famous to be happy. It's only necessary to be rich.

Alda, Alan

There is no end of craving. Hence contentment alone is the best way to happiness. Therefore, acquire contentment.

Sivananda, Sri Swami

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

Oppenheimer, Julius Robert

10.

If you ever find happiness by hunting for it, you will find it as the old woman did her lost spectacles. Safe on her own nose all the time.

Billings, Josh

11.

Happiness is the light on the water. The water is cold and dark and deep.

Maxwell, William

12.

Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.

Eddie Cantor

13.

Happiness must be cultivated. It is like character. It is not a thing to be safely let alone for a moment, or it will run to weeds.

Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart

14.

We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.

Koenig, Frederick

15.

Happiness consists more in small conveniences of pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom to a man in the course of his life.

Franklin, Benjamin

16.

No thoroughly occupied man was ever yet very miserable.

Landon, Letitia Elizabeth

17.

To be happy is not the purpose of our being rather it is to deserve happiness.

Fichte, Johann G.

18.

No man is happy; he is at best fortunate.

Solon

19.

Be open to your happiness and sadness as they arise.

Thomas, John M.

20.

The smallest annoyances, disturb us the most.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

21.

We cannot be contented because we are happy, and we cannot be happy because we are contented.

Landor, Walter Savage

22.

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

Boone, Daniel

23.

The only happiness a brave person ever troubles themselves in asking about, is happiness enough to get their work done.

Carlyle, Thomas

24.

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

Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

25.

Never believe straight off in a man's unhappiness. Ask him if he can still sleep. If the answer's yes, all's well. That is enough.

Celine, Louis-Ferdinand

26.

Happiness is not best achieved by those who seek it directly.

Russell, Bertrand

27.

Happiness... is not a destination: it is a manner of traveling. Happiness is not an end in itself. It is a by-product of working, playing, loving and living.

Ginott, Haim

28.

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

Meltzer, Bernard

29.

I cannot believe that the inscrutable universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty of the world must somewhere rest on pure joy!

Louise Bogan

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.

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

Fielding, Henry

32.

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

Kant, Immanuel

33.

Happiness in the present is only shattered by comparison with the past.

Horton, Doug

34.

A person is never happy till their vague strivings has itself marked out its proper limitations.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

35.

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

Confucius

36.

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

37.

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier.

Young, Margaret

38.

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.

Kingsley, Charles

39.

Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition.

Rubinstein, Arthur

40.

The man who is born with a talent which he was meant to use finds his greatest happiness in using it.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

41.

Farms and in castles, in homes, studies, and cloisters -- where sensible people manage to live relatively lusty and decent lives, as moral as they must be, as free as they may be, and as masterly as they can be. If we only knew it, this elusive arrangement is happiness.

Erikson, Erik H.

42.

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.

43.

Happiness is the harvest of a quiet eye.

O'Malley, Austin

44.

Happiness comes more from loving than being loved; and often when our affection seems wounded it is only our vanity bleeding. To love, and to be hurt often, and to love again -- this is the brave and happy life.

Buckrose, J.E

45.

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

46.

Happiness is unrepentant pleasure.

Socrates

47.

All I can say about life is, Oh God, enjoy it!

Bob Newhart

48.

What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?

Smith, Adam

49.

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

Immanuel Hermann Fichte

50.

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