Motivational Quotes

Happiness

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

Best Quotes about Happiness

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

Levenson, Samuel

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.

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

Immanuel Hermann Fichte

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.

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

The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

When you relinquish the desire to control your future, you can have more happiness.

Nicole Kidman

The really happy man never laughs -- seldom -- though he may smile. He does not need to laugh, for laughter, like weeping is a relief of mental tension -- and the happy are not over strung.

Aveling, Prof. F. A. P.

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

Aristotle

10.

Content makes poor men rich; discontentment makes rich men poor.

Benjamin Franklin

11.

Gaiety --a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.

Diderot, Denis

12.

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

Mahatma Gandhi

13.

A great obstacle to happiness is to expect too much happiness.

Fontenelle, Bernard Le Bovier

14.

The loss of wealth is loss of dirt, as sages in all times assert; The happy man's without a shirt.

Heywood, John

15.

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

J.K. Rowling

16.

When what we are is what we want to be, that's happiness.

Forbes, Malcolm S.

17.

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

Lincoln, Abraham

18.

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

Apollinaire, Guillaume

19.

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

20.

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

21.

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

22.

Suspicion of happiness is in our blood.

Lucas, E. V.

23.

Happiness comes from... some curious adjustment to life.

Walpole, Sir Hugh

24.

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

25.

Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self. To be damned is for one's ordinary everyday mode of consciousness to be unremitting agonizing preoccupation with self.

Murdoch, Iris

26.

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

27.

Happiness is unrepentant pleasure.

Socrates

28.

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

29.

I've grown to realize the joy that comes from little victories is preferable to the fun that comes from ease and the pursuit of pleasure.

Lawana Blackwell

30.

Be open to your happiness and sadness as they arise.

Thomas, John M.

31.

Men expect that religion should cost them no pains, that happiness should drop into their laps without any design and endeavor on their part, and that, after they have done what they please while they live, God should snatch them up to heaven when they die. But though the commandments of God be not grievous, yet it is fit to let men know that they are not thus easy.

Tillotson, John

32.

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

Rubinstein, Arthur

33.

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

34.

Remember that it is nothing to do your duty, that is demanded of you and is no more meritorious than to wash your hands when they are dirty; the only thing that counts is the love of duty; when love and duty are one, then grace is in you and you will enjoy a happiness which passes all understanding.

W. Somerset Maugham

35.

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.

36.

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

Jeans, Sir James

37.

Happiness comes when we test our skills towards some meaningful purpose.

Stossel, John

38.

False happiness renders men stern and proud, and that happiness is never communicated. True happiness renders them kind and sensible, and that happiness is always shared.

Montesquieu, Charles De

39.

Happy were men if they but understood There is no safety but in doing good

Fountain., John

40.

Happiness is experienced when your life gives you what you are willing to accept.

Keyes Jr., Ken

41.

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

C. P. Snow

42.

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

43.

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

Ayn Rand

44.

The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.

Schweitzer, Albert

45.

Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook and a good digestion.

Jean Jacques Rousseau

46.

We are no longer happy as soon as we wish to be happier.

Landor, Walter Savage

47.

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

Beckett, Samuel

48.

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

Lao-tzu

49.

We cannot be contented because we are happy, and we cannot be happy because we are contented.

Landor, Walter Savage

50.

The world's literature and folklore are full of stories that point out how futile it can be to seek happiness. Rather, happiness is a blessing that comes to you as you go along; a treasure that you incidentally find.

Binstock, Louis