Motivational Quotes

Happiness

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

- Nash, Ogden

Best Quotes about Happiness

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

Confucius

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

James Oppenheim

The best advice on the art of being happy is about as easy to follow as advice to be well when one is sick.

Swetchine, Anne Sophie

Happiness lies in being privileged to work hard for long hours in doing whatever you think is worth doing. One man may find happiness in supporting a wife and children. Another may find it in robbing banks. Still another may labor mightily for years in pursuing pure research with no discernible result. Note the individual and subjective nature of each case. No two are alike and there is no reason to expect them to be. Each man or woman must find for himself or herself that occupation in which hard work and long hours make him or her happy. Contrariwise, if you are looking for shorter hours and longer vacations and early retirement, you are in the wrong job. Perhaps you need to take up bank robbing. Or geeking in a sideshow. Or even politics.

Heinlein, Robert

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

Oprah Winfrey

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.

Happiness is good for the body but sorrow strengthens the spirit.

If you deliberately plan on being less than you are capable of being, then I warn you that you'll be unhappy for the rest of your life.

Maslow, Abraham H.

If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence.

Aristotle

10.

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

11.

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

Goodman, Roy

12.

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

Watson, Lilian Eichler

13.

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

Fichte, Johann G.

14.

The secret of happiness and prosperity in this world, as in the world to come, lies in thinking of the welfare of others first, and not taking one's self too seriously.

Kindleberger, J.

15.

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

16.

Not only is there a right to be happy, there is a duty to be happy. So much sadness exists in the world that we are all under obligation to contribute as much joy as lies within our powers.

Bonnell, John S.

17.

Happiness is perfume, you can't pour it on somebody else without getting a few drops on yourself

Zee, James Van Der

18.

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

19.

No man is happy; he is at best fortunate.

Solon

20.

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

Spencer, Herbert

21.

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.

Jung, Carl

22.

Happiness is a continuation of happenings which are not resisted.

Chopra, Deepak

23.

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

24.

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

Aristotle

25.

Happiness is the act of being tough with ourselves and tender with others.

26.

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

27.

Our happiness depends on the habit of mind we cultivate. So practice happy thinking every day. Cultivate the merry heart, develop the happiness habit, and life will become a continual feast.

Peale, Norman Vincent

28.

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

29.

For who is pleased with himself.

Johnson, Samuel

30.

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

Epicurus

31.

Very little is needed to make a happy life.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

32.

The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

33.

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

34.

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

Mahatma Gandhi

35.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

36.

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

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Addison, Joseph

40.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

41.

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

Farrall, Joseph

42.

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

Barrie, Sir James M.

43.

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

Buchan, John

44.

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

Oppenheimer, Julius Robert

45.

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.

Santayana, George

46.

Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly often attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.

Szasz, Thomas

47.

He wanted to live life in such a way that if a photograph were taken at random it would be a cool photograph. Things should look right. Fun; there should be a lot of fun and no more sadness than absolutely necessary.

David Nicholls

48.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

49.

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

Russell, Bertrand

50.

Talk happiness. The world is sad enough without your woe.

Marden, Orison Swett