Motivational Quotes

Happiness

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

Best Quotes about Happiness

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

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

Barrie, Sir James M.

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

Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

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

Such happiness as life is capable of comes from the full participation of all our powers in the endeavor to wrest from each changing situations of experience its own full and unique meaning.

Dewey, John

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

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

Mill, John Stuart

What makes people happy is activity; changing evil itself into good by power, working in a God like manner.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

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

10.

Happiness is like manna; it is to be gathered in grains, and enjoyed every day. It will not keep; it cannot be accumulated; nor have we got to go out of ourselves or into remote places to gather it, since it has rained down from a Heaven, at our very door

Edwards, Tryon

11.

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

12.

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

13.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

14.

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

15.

There is something ridiculous and even quite indecent in an individual claiming to be happy. Still more a people or a nation making such a claim. The pursuit of happiness... is without any question the most fatuous which could possibly be undertaken. This lamentable phrase the pursuit of happiness is responsible for a good part of the ills and miseries of the modern world.

Muggeridge, Malcolm

16.

He felt the loyalty we feel to unhappiness -- the sense that is where we really belong.

Greene, Graham

17.

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

Chambers, Oswald

18.

Happiness is not a reward -- it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment -- it is a result.

Ingersoll, Robert Green

19.

Happiness is activity.

Aristotle

20.

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

Bergson, Henri L.

21.

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.

Ayn Rand

22.

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

Lubbock, Sir John

23.

Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead.

Proverb, Scottish

24.

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness

Orwell, George

25.

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

John Berry

26.

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

Roy M. Goodman

27.

Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel

28.

Happiness is not a possession to be prized. It is a quality of thought, a state of mind.

Maurier, Daphne Du

29.

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

30.

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

Epictetus

31.

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

Dalai Lama

32.

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

Immanuel Hermann Fichte

33.

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

34.

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

Christopher Morley

35.

It's not a question of happiness, it's a requirement. Consider the alternative.

Horton, Doug

36.

Happiness consumes itself like a flame. It cannot burn for ever, it must go out, and the presentiment of its end destroys it at its very peak.

Strindberg, J. August

37.

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

Jean Houston

38.

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

39.

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

40.

To have joy one must share it. Happiness was born a twin.

Byron, Lord

41.

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

Lao-tzu

42.

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

Garrison, Theodosia

43.

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

44.

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

William Cowper

45.

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

Spencer, Herbert

46.

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

47.

I'm fulfilled in what I do... I never thought that a lot of money or fine clothes -- the finer things of life -- would make you happy. My concept of happiness is to be filled in a spiritual sense.

King, Coretta Scott

48.

Happiness is not a brilliant climax to years of grim struggle and anxiety. It is a long succession of little decisions simply to be happy in the moment.

Walters, J. Donald

49.

Happiness is a sort of action.

Aristotle

50.

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

Proust, Marcel