Motivational Quotes

Happiness

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

Best Quotes about Happiness

It is the paradox of life that the way to miss pleasure is to seek it first. The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self.

Black, Hugo

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

Nash, Ogden

Happiness is the longing for repetition.

Kundera, Milan

We wish to be happier than other people; and this is difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.

Montesquieu, Charles De

It seldom happens that any felicity comes so pure as not to be tempered and allayed by some mixture of sorrow.

Cervantes, Miguel De

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

Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

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

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

10.

Those who seek happiness miss it, and those who discuss it, lack it.

Jackson, Holbrook

11.

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

12.

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.

13.

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

14.

It is wrong to assume that men of immense wealth are always happy.

Rockefeller, John D.

15.

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

Spencer, Herbert

16.

True happiness is the full use of your powers along lines of excellence in a life affording scope.

Kennedy, John F.

17.

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

18.

Where one is wise two are happy.

Proverb

19.

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

Rubinstein, Arthur

20.

We are happy when for everything inside us there is a corresponding something outside us.

Yeats, William Butler

21.

No thoroughly occupied man was ever yet very miserable.

Landon, Letitia Elizabeth

22.

Joy comes from using your potential.

Schultz, Will

23.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

24.

Act happy, feel happy, be happy, without a reason in the world. Then you can love, and do what you will.

Millman, Dan

25.

Happiness is a small and unworthy goal for something as big and fancy as a whole lifetime, and should be taken in small doses.

Baker, Russell (Wayne)

26.

Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.

Rubin, Theodore I.

27.

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

28.

To describe happiness is to diminish it.

Stendhal, Henri B.

29.

Happiness is a by product of an effort to make someone else happy.

Palmer, Gretta Brooker

30.

The smallest annoyances, disturb us the most.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

31.

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

32.

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

J.K. Rowling

33.

The mintage of wisdom is to know that rest is rust, and that real life is love, laughter, and work.

Hubbard, Elbert

34.

Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed. which give happiness. Thomas Jefferson We never enjoy perfect happiness; our most fortunate successes are mingled with sadness; some anxieties always perplex the reality of our satisfaction.

James, William

35.

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

Aristotle

36.

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

Johnson, Samuel

37.

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

38.

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

Boone, Daniel

39.

If you're ever given the choice between happiness and intelligence choose happiness

40.

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

41.

The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy; I mean that if you are happy you will be good.

Russell, Bertrand

42.

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

Proverb, Spanish

43.

To be happy we must not be too concerned with others.

Camus, Albert

44.

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.

45.

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

Lubbock, Sir John

46.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

47.

Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.

Rohn, Jim

48.

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

Richter, Jean Paul

49.

The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

Russell, Bertrand

50.

Happiness consists in activity -- it is a running stream, not a stagnant pool.

Mason, John L.