Motivational Quotes

Happiness

Happiness is not in having being; it is in doing.

- Watson, Lilian Eichler

Best Quotes about Happiness

Happiness consists in activity -- it is a running stream, not a stagnant pool.

Mason, John L.

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

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

Epicurus

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

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

Lao-Tzu

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

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

Zee, James Van Der

Cherish all your happy moments: they make a fine cushion for old age.

Christopher Morley

Those who seek happiness miss it, and those who discuss it, lack it.

Jackson, Holbrook

10.

Joy comes from using your potential.

Schultz, Will

11.

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

12.

Happiness is never stopping to think if you are.

Sondreal, Palmer

13.

No thoroughly occupied man was ever yet very miserable.

Landon, Letitia Elizabeth

14.

Happiness is not so much in having or sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

Macewan, Norman

15.

There are seeds of self-destruction in all of us that will bear only unhappiness if allowed to grow.

Brande, Dorothea

16.

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

17.

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

Landor, Walter Savage

18.

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

Peterson, Wilferd A.

19.

Where one is wise two are happy.

Proverb

20.

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

Horace

21.

The most exciting happiness is the happiness generated by forces beyond your control.

Nash, Ogden

22.

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

23.

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.

Santayana, George

24.

Not what you have, but what you see; Not what you see, but what you choose; Not what seems fair, but what is true; Not what you dream, but what you do; Not what you take, but what you give; Not as you pray, but as you live. These are the things that mar or bless The sum of human happiness.

25.

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

26.

Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.

Oscar Levant

27.

In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it.

Kafka, Franz

28.

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

Oprah Winfrey

29.

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

Fichte, Johann G.

30.

Happiness is a thing to be practiced, like the violin.

Lubbock, Sir John

31.

Where there is joy there is creation. Where there is no joy there is no creation: know the nature of joy.

Upanishads, Veda

32.

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

33.

Happiness seems made to be shared.

Corneille, Pierre

34.

Holiness, not happiness, is the chief end of man.

Chambers, Oswald

35.

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

36.

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

Carnegie, Dale

37.

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

38.

Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism, selfishness, evil --or else an absolute ignorance.

Greene, Graham

39.

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

Levenson, Samuel

40.

If you pursue happiness you never find it.

Snow, C(harles) P(ercy)

41.

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

Aurelius, Marcus

42.

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

Spencer, Herbert

43.

A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.

Downs, Hugh

44.

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

Dumas, Alexandre

45.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

46.

If you cannot renounce the world the genius of happiness will never salute you.

Prutz

47.

Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.

Storm Jameson

48.

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

49.

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

Cloete, Stuart

50.

The smallest annoyances, disturb us the most.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De