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

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

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.

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

The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

Happiness held is the seed; Happiness shared is the flower-Author Unknown People need your love the most when they appear to deserve it the least.

Harrigan, John

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

Immanuel Hermann Fichte

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

Call no man unhappy until he is married.

Socrates

Happiness is the harvest of a quiet eye.

O'Malley, Austin

10.

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

11.

Suspicion of happiness is in our blood.

Lucas, E. V.

12.

Joy comes from using your potential.

Schultz, Will

13.

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

Robert Frost

14.

Happiness includes chiefly the idea of satisfaction after full honest effort. No one can possibly be satisfied and no one can be happy who feels that in some paramount affairs he failed to take up the challenge of life.

Bennett, Arnold

15.

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

Alfred Lord Tennyson

16.

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

Schweitzer, Albert

17.

The secret to happiness is not in doing what one likes to do, but in liking what one has to do.

18.

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

Stossel, John

19.

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

20.

Celebrate the happiness that friends are always giving, make every day a holiday and celebrate just living!

Bradley, Amanda

21.

The final moment of success is often no more thrilling than taking off a heavy backpack at the end of a long hike. If you went on the hike only to feel that pleasure, you are a fool. Yet people sometimes do just this. They work hard at a task and expect some special euphoria at the end. But when they achieve success and find only moderate and short-lived pleasure, they ask is that all there is? They devalue their accomplishments as a striving after wind. We can call this the progress principle: Pleasure comes more from making progress toward goals than from achieving them.

Jonathan Haidt

22.

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

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

23.

Happiness lies first of all in health.

Curtis, George William

24.

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.

25.

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

Meredith, Owen

26.

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

27.

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

Lucian

28.

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

Spurgeon, Charles Haddon

29.

What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?

Smith, Adam

30.

It's not a question of happiness, it's a requirement. Consider the alternative.

Horton, Doug

31.

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

32.

It is kind of happiness to know to what extent we may be unhappy.

33.

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

34.

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

35.

To be happy is not the purpose of our being rather it is to deserve happiness.

Fichte, Johann G.

36.

Work and live to serve others, to leave the world a little better than you found it and garner for yourself as much peace of mind as you can. This is happiness.

Sarnoff, David

37.

Depend not on another, but lean instead on thyself...True happiness is born of self-reliance.

The laws of Manu

38.

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

39.

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

Aurelius, Marcus

40.

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

Dyer, Wayne

41.

What happiness is there which is not purchased with more or less of pain?

Oliphant, Margaret

42.

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

Freud, Sigmund

43.

IÆve decided that the key to happiness is low expectations.

Laura Moncur

44.

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

Nicole Kidman

45.

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

46.

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

47.

Happiness is not a possession to be prized. It is a quality of thought, a state of mind.

Maurier, Daphne Du

48.

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

Goodman, Roy

49.

A person is never happy till their vague strivings has itself marked out its proper limitations.