Motivational Quotes

Happiness

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

Best Quotes about Happiness

Most of us experience happiness when we are enjoying life and feeling free, enjoying the process and products of our creative and intellectual processes, enjoying the ecstasy of transcendent oneness with the universe.

Muriel, James

Like swimming, riding, writing, or playing golf, happiness can be learned.

Sokoloff, Boris

This is the best kind of voyeurism, hearing joy from your neighbors.

Chuck Sigars

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

Proust, Marcel

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

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

Jeans, Sir James

In order for people to be happy, sometimes they have to take risks. It's true these risks can put them in danger of being hurt.

Meg Cabot

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

Baruch Spinoza

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

Nash, Ogden

10.

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

11.

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.

Robert Frost

12.

Happiness is a by-product. You cannot pursue it by itself.

Levenson, Samuel

13.

The thing that counts most in the pursuit of happiness is choosing the right companion.

14.

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

15.

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

Apollinaire, Guillaume

16.

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

Mill, John Stuart

17.

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

Horton, Doug

18.

A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.

Downs, Hugh

19.

Happiness seems made to be shared.

Corneille, Pierre

20.

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

Beckett, Samuel

21.

Happiness is not in having being; it is in doing.

Watson, Lilian Eichler

22.

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

Maurier, Daphne Du

23.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

24.

Not what you have, but what you see; Not what you see, but what you choose; Not what seems fair, but what is true; Not what you dream, but what you do; Not what you take, but what you give; Not as you pray, but as you live. These are the things that mar or bless The sum of human happiness.

25.

In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it.

Kafka, Franz

26.

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

27.

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

28.

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

Goodman, Roy

29.

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.

Santayana, George

30.

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

Buchan, John

31.

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

32.

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

Jonathan Haidt

33.

Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response.

Barthel, Mildred

34.

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

Proverb, Spanish

35.

I am more and more convinced that our happiness or our unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

36.

No man is happy who does not think himself so.

Publilius Syrus

37.

Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product.

Roosevelt, Eleanor

38.

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

39.

Happiness radiates like the fragrance from a flower, and draws all good things toward you. Allow your love to nourish yourself as well as others. Do not strain after the needs of life. It is sufficient to be quietly alert and aware of them. In this way life proceeds more naturally and effortlessly. Life is here to Enjoy!

Yogi, Maharishi Mahesh

40.

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

C. P. Snow

41.

Happiness is an agreeable sensation, arising from contemplating the misery of others.

Bierce, Ambrose

42.

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

43.

The pursuit of happiness is the chase of a life time.

44.

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

Jerrold, Douglas William

45.

Sometimes it's hard to avoid the happiness of others.

David Assael

46.

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

47.

If you pursue happiness you never find it.

Snow, C(harles) P(ercy)

48.

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

49.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

50.

Shall I give you my recipe for happiness? I find everything useful and nothing indispensable. I find everything wonderful and nothing miraculous. I reverence the body. I avoid first causes like the plague.

Douglas, Norman