Motivational Quotes

Happiness

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

Best Quotes about Happiness

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)

The creed of a true saint is to make the best of life, and to make the most of it.

Chapin, Edwin Hubbel

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

Buchan, John

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

Beckett, Samuel

Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.

Bono, Edward De

Man is the artificer of his own happiness.

Henry David Thoreau

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

Robert Frost

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

Horton, Doug

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

10.

Happiness is the longing for repetition.

Kundera, Milan

11.

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

12.

My happiness derives from knowing the people I love are happy.

Ketchel, Holly

13.

Shall I give you my recipe for happiness? I find everything useful and nothing indispensable. I find everything wonderful and nothing miraculous. I reverence the body. I avoid first causes like the plague.

Douglas, Norman

14.

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

15.

Happiness lies first of all in health.

Curtis, George William

16.

Happiness consumes itself like a flame. It cannot burn for ever, it must go out, and the presentiment of its end destroys it at its very peak.

Strindberg, J. August

17.

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

C. P. Snow

18.

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

19.

Happiness is not a reward -- it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment -- it is a result.

Ingersoll, Robert Green

20.

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

21.

I cannot believe that the inscrutable universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty of the world must somewhere rest on pure joy!

Louise Bogan

22.

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

Bradley, Amanda

23.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

24.

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

25.

Happiness consists of three things; Someone to love, work to do, and a clear conscience.

26.

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

Fichte, Johann G.

27.

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

28.

I define joy as a sustained sense of well-being and internal peace - a connection to what matters.

Oprah Winfrey

29.

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

J.K. Rowling

30.

I can say that I never knew what joy was like until I gave up pursuing happiness, or cared to live until I chose to die. For these two discoveries I am beholden to Jesus.

Muggeridge, Malcolm

31.

Happiness seems made to be shared.

Corneille, Pierre

32.

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

Oliphant, Margaret

33.

He felt the loyalty we feel to unhappiness -- the sense that is where we really belong.

Greene, Graham

34.

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

35.

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

Proverb, Scottish

36.

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

37.

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.

James Oppenheim

38.

Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.

Robertson Davies

39.

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

Fielding, Henry

40.

I can sympathize with people's pains, but not with their pleasures. There is something curiously boring about somebody else's happiness.

Huxley, Aldous

41.

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

42.

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

43.

At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities.

Jean Houston

44.

When we recall the past, we usually find that it is the simplest things -- not the great occasions -- that in retrospect give off the greatest glow of happiness.

Hope, Bob

45.

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.

Jefferson, Thomas

46.

Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it.

Prevert, Jacques

47.

If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.

Epicurus

48.

We take greater pains to persuade others we are happy than in trying to think so ourselves.

Confucius

49.

The man who is born with a talent which he was meant to use finds his greatest happiness in using it.