Motivational Quotes

Happiness

While we pursue happiness, we flee from contentment.

- Proverb, Hasidic

Best Quotes about Happiness

Some of us might find happiness if we quit struggling so desperately for it.

Feather, William

True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The great blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.

Seneca

Be it jewel or toy, not the prize gives the joy, but the striving to win the prize.

Meredith, Owen

Happiness is the longing for repetition.

Kundera, Milan

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

Spencer, Herbert

Remember, happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have, it depends solely upon what you think.

Carnegie, Dale

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.

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

Carlyle, Thomas

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

10.

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

11.

Happiness doesn't come from doing what we like to do but from liking what we have to do.

Peterson, Wilferd A.

12.

Happiness ain't a thing in itself --it's only a contrast with something that ain't pleasant. And so, as soon as the novelty is over and the force of the contrast dulled, it ain't happiness any longer, and you have to get something fresh.

Twain, Mark

13.

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

John Berry

14.

Joy comes from using your potential.

Schultz, Will

15.

We are never so happy nor so unhappy as we imagine.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

16.

If you want to be happy for a year, plant a garden; If you want to be happy for life, plant a tree.

Proverb, English

17.

If you optimize everything, you will always be unhappy.

Knuth, Don

18.

To be happy in this world, especially when youth is past, it is necessary to feel oneself not merely an isolated individual whose day will soon be over, but part of the stream of life slowing on from the first germ to the remote and unknown future.

Russell, Bertrand

19.

The great end of all human industry is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, sciences cultivated, laws ordained, and societies modeled, by the most profound wisdom of patriots and legislators. Even the lonely savage, who lies exposed to the inclemency of the elements and the fury of wild beasts, forgets not, for a moment, this grand object of his being.

Hume, David

20.

In order to have great happiness, you have to have great pain and unhappiness-otherwise how would you know when you're happy?

Caron, Leslie

21.

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

22.

IÆve decided that the key to happiness is low expectations.

Laura Moncur

23.

The highest happiness of man is to have probed what is knowable and quietly to revere what is unknowable.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

24.

Sir, that all who are happy, are equally happy, is not true. A peasant and a philosopher may be equally satisfied, but not equally happy. Happiness consists in the multiplicity of agreeable consciousness.

Johnson, Samuel

25.

Be open to your happiness and sadness as they arise.

Thomas, John M.

26.

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

Proverb, Scottish

27.

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

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

28.

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.

Waitley, Denis

29.

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

Robert Frost

30.

Happy is the son whose faith in his mother remains unchallenged.

Alcott, Louisa May

31.

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

George Burns

32.

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.

Santayana, George

33.

You traverse the world in search of happiness, which is within the reach of every man. A contented mind confers it on all.

Horace

34.

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

35.

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

Apollinaire, Guillaume

36.

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

37.

Happiness depends more on how life strikes you than on what happens.

Rooney, Andy

38.

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

Fielding, Henry

39.

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

40.

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

41.

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

Beckett, Samuel

42.

While we pursue happiness, we flee from contentment.

Proverb, Hasidic

43.

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

44.

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.

45.

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

46.

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

47.

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

Rockefeller, John D.

48.

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

49.

Happiness is like a sunbeam, which the least shadow intercepts, while adversity is often as the rain of spring.

Proverb, Chinese

50.

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world. Someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.

Chalmers, Allan K.