Motivational Quotes

Happiness

Happiness arises in a state of peace, not of tumult.

- Ann Radcliffe

Best Quotes about Happiness

The secret of happiness is to make others believe they are the cause of it.

Al Batt

We are no longer happy as soon as we wish to be happier.

Landor, Walter Savage

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

Alfred Lord Tennyson

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

Chuck Sigars

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... she loves, to see men at work. She loves sweat, weariness, self sacrifice. She will be found not in places but lurking in cornfields and factories; and hovering over littered desks; she crowns the unconscious head of the busy child.

Grayson, David

Happiness is a continuation of happenings which are not resisted.

Chopra, Deepak

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

Lao-tzu

Men expect that religion should cost them no pains, that happiness should drop into their laps without any design and endeavor on their part, and that, after they have done what they please while they live, God should snatch them up to heaven when they die. But though the commandments of God be not grievous, yet it is fit to let men know that they are not thus easy.

Tillotson, John

10.

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

11.

Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meandering, but leads none of us by the same route

Colton, Charles Caleb

12.

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

C. P. Snow

13.

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

14.

Happiness is the harvest of a quiet eye.

O'Malley, Austin

15.

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

James Oppenheim

16.

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

17.

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.

18.

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

19.

If you were happy every day of your life you wouldn't be a human being, you'd be a game show host.

Heatter, Gabriel

20.

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

21.

A great obstacle to happiness is to expect too much happiness.

Fontenelle, Bernard Le Bovier

22.

Happy is the son whose faith in his mother remains unchallenged.

Alcott, Louisa May

23.

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

24.

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

25.

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

Robert Frost

26.

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

27.

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

28.

A good way I know to find happiness, is to not bore a hole to fit the plug.

Billings, Josh

29.

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

30.

Happy were men if they but understood There is no safety but in doing good

Fountain., John

31.

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

Mill, John Stuart

32.

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

Horton, Doug

33.

The smallest annoyances, disturb us the most.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

34.

Some of us might find happiness if we quit struggling so desperately for it.

Feather, William

35.

The pursuit of happiness is the chase of a life time.

36.

Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product.

Roosevelt, Eleanor

37.

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

Addison, Joseph

38.

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

Immanuel Hermann Fichte

39.

Happy are those who dream dreams and are willing to pay the price to make them come true.

40.

The loss of wealth is loss of dirt, as sages in all times assert; The happy man's without a shirt.

Heywood, John

41.

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

Maurier, Daphne Du

42.

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.

Santayana, George

43.

The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.

Hoffer, Eric

44.

Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth, We are happy when we are growing.

Yeats, William Butler

45.

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.

46.

For who is pleased with himself.

Johnson, Samuel

47.

The glow of satisfaction which follows the consciousness of doing our level best never comes to a human being from any other experience.

Marden, Orison Swett

48.

If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence.

Aristotle

49.

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

50.

Happiness is a how, not a what: a talent, not an object

Hesse, Hermann