Motivational Quotes

Happiness

Happiness consists more in small conveniences of pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom to a man in the course of his life.

- Franklin, Benjamin

Best Quotes about Happiness

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

Addison, Joseph

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

If you pursue happiness you never find it.

Snow, C(harles) P(ercy)

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

Dalai Lama

If you ever find happiness by hunting for it, you will find it as the old woman did her lost spectacles. Safe on her own nose all the time.

Billings, Josh

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

Greene, Graham

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

Oliphant, Margaret

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

Lubbock, Sir John

Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible.

Proust, Marcel

10.

I am more and more convinced that our happiness or our unhappiness depends far more on the way we meet the events of life than on the nature of those events themselves.

Humboldt, Karl Wilhelm Von

11.

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

Spencer, Herbert

12.

It is wrong to assume that men of immense wealth are always happy.

Rockefeller, John D.

13.

IÆve decided that the key to happiness is low expectations.

Laura Moncur

14.

Man is the artificer of his own happiness.

Henry David Thoreau

15.

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

Ayn Rand

16.

We are never so happy nor so unhappy as we imagine.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

17.

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.

18.

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

19.

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

Fichte, Johann G.

20.

The secret of happiness and prosperity in this world, as in the world to come, lies in thinking of the welfare of others first, and not taking one's self too seriously.

Kindleberger, J.

21.

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

22.

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

23.

Happiness is understanding that friendship is more precious than mere things, more precious than getting your own way, more precious than being in situations where true principles are not at stake.

Walters, J. Donald

24.

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

Epicurus

25.

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

26.

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

Peterson, Wilferd A.

27.

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

28.

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

Storm Jameson

29.

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

30.

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

Immanuel Hermann Fichte

31.

Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth, is unhappy, though he be master of the world.

Epictetus

32.

This is the best kind of voyeurism, hearing joy from your neighbors.

Chuck Sigars

33.

No man is happy; he is at best fortunate.

Solon

34.

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

Watson, Lilian Eichler

35.

We are happy when for everything inside us there is a corresponding something outside us.

Yeats, William Butler

36.

The greatest joy of life is to love and be loved.

Clyde, R.D.

37.

Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the color in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty and your animal spirits.

Hazlitt, William

38.

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

39.

Sometimes it's hard to avoid the happiness of others.

David Assael

40.

A mind always employed is always happy. This is the true secret, the grand recipe, for felicity.

Jefferson, Thomas

41.

Happiness is a journey not a destination.

Sweetland, Ben

42.

No man is happy who does not think himself so.

Publilius Syrus

43.

Happiness is unrepentant pleasure.

Socrates

44.

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

45.

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

46.

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

Alfred Lord Tennyson

47.

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

48.

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.

Kingsley, Charles

49.

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.

50.

There is no end of craving. Hence contentment alone is the best way to happiness. Therefore, acquire contentment.

Sivananda, Sri Swami