Motivational Quotes

Happiness

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

Best Quotes about Happiness

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

Proverb, Chinese

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

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

Aristotle

The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.

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 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

Only one thing has to change for us to know happiness in our lives: where we focus our attention.

Anderson, Greg

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

Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel

10.

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.

Wilde, Oscar

11.

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

Fichte, Johann G.

12.

Happiness is not a horse, you cannot harness it.

Proverb, Russian

13.

Happiness is a sunbeam which may pass through a thousand bosoms without losing a particle of its original ray; nay, when it strikes on a kindred heart, like the converged light on a mirror, it reflects itself with redoubled brightness. It is not perfected till it is shared.

Porter, Jane

14.

There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.

Dyer, Wayne

15.

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

16.

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

Bierce, Ambrose

17.

Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.

Dumas, Alexandre

18.

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

19.

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

Palmer, Gretta Brooker

20.

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

Kennedy, John F.

21.

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

22.

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.

23.

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

24.

Happiness is a hard thing because it is achieved only by making others happy.

Cloete, Stuart

25.

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found; and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

Johnson, Samuel

26.

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

27.

The happy think a lifetime short, but to the unhappy one night can be an eternity.

Lucian

28.

Happiness is the harvest of a quiet eye.

O'Malley, Austin

29.

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

30.

I am learning to understand rather than immediately judge or to be judged. I cannot blindly follow the crowd and accept their approach. I will not allow myself to indulge in the usual manipulating game of role creation. Fortunately for me, my self-knowledge has transcended that and I have come to understand that life is best to be lived and not to be conceptualized. I am happy because I am growing daily and I am honestly not knowing where the limit lies. To be certain, every day there can be a revelation or a new discovery. I treasure the memory of the past misfortunes. It has added more to my bank of fortitude.

Lee, Bruce

31.

Do you want my one-word secret of happiness -- It's growth -- mental, financial, you name it.

Geneen, Harold S.

32.

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

Zee, James Van Der

33.

One feels inclined to say that the intention that man should be happy is not included in the plan of Creation.

Freud, Sigmund

34.

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.

35.

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

36.

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

37.

Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.

Democritus

38.

The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.

William Cowper

39.

Remember that very little is needed to make a happy life.

Aurelius, Marcus

40.

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

Buchan, John

41.

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

Mahatma Gandhi

42.

It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.

Bentham, Jeremy

43.

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

44.

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

Benjamin Franklin

45.

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

Mill, John Stuart

46.

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)

47.

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

48.

Happiness requires problems

Hollingworth, H. L.

49.

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

50.

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

Farrall, Joseph