Motivational Quotes

Happiness

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

- Confucius

Best Quotes about Happiness

Happiness and virtue rest upon each other; the best are not only the happiest, but the happiest are usually the best.

Bulwer-Lytton, Edward G.

We are long before we are convinced that happiness is never to be found; and each believes it possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.

Johnson, Samuel

The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

Russell, Bertrand

We are made happy when reason can discover no occasion for it. The memory of some past moments is more persuasive than the experience of present ones. There have been visions of such breadth and brightness that these motes were invisible in their light.

Thoreau, Henry David

I am learning to understand rather than immediately judge or to be judged. I cannot blindly follow the crowd and accept their approach. I will not allow myself to indulge in the usual manipulating game of role creation. Fortunately for me, my self-knowledge has transcended that and I have come to understand that life is best to be lived and not to be conceptualized. I am happy because I am growing daily and I am honestly not knowing where the limit lies. To be certain, every day there can be a revelation or a new discovery. I treasure the memory of the past misfortunes. It has added more to my bank of fortitude.

Lee, Bruce

The mintage of wisdom is to know that rest is rust, and that real life is love, laughter, and work.

Hubbard, Elbert

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

Huxley, Aldous

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

I'm fulfilled in what I do... I never thought that a lot of money or fine clothes -- the finer things of life -- would make you happy. My concept of happiness is to be filled in a spiritual sense.

King, Coretta Scott

10.

Happiness depends more on how life strikes you than on what happens.

Rooney, Andy

11.

Happiness is experienced when your life gives you what you are willing to accept.

Keyes Jr., Ken

12.

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

Mill, John Stuart

13.

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier.

Young, Margaret

14.

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

15.

If frugality were established in the state, and if our expenses were laid out to meet needs rather than superfluities of life, there might be fewer wants, and even fewer pleasures, but infinitely more happiness.

Goldsmith, Oliver

16.

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

Lao-Tzu

17.

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

Epictetus

18.

It isn't necessary to be rich and famous to be happy. It's only necessary to be rich.

Alda, Alan

19.

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

20.

Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel

21.

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

Fielding, Henry

22.

The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp.

John Berry

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.

Anything you're good at contributes to happiness.

Russell, Bertrand

25.

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

26.

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.

27.

Happiness is the act of being tough with ourselves and tender with others.

28.

A man is happy so long as he chooses to be happy and nothing can stop him.

Solzhenitsyn, Alexander

29.

If you pursue happiness you never find it.

Snow, C(harles) P(ercy)

30.

Happiness radiates like the fragrance from a flower, and draws all good things toward you. Allow your love to nourish yourself as well as others. Do not strain after the needs of life. It is sufficient to be quietly alert and aware of them. In this way life proceeds more naturally and effortlessly. Life is here to Enjoy!

Yogi, Maharishi Mahesh

31.

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

32.

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

33.

Happiness is a wine of the rarest vintage, and seems insipid to a vulgar taste.

Smith, Logan Pearsall

34.

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

35.

Let no one till his death be called unhappy. Measure not the work until the day's out and the labor done.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

36.

But the whim we have of happiness is somewhat thus. By certain valuations, and averages, of our own striking, we come upon some sort of average terrestrial lot; this we fancy belongs to us by nature, and of indefeasible rights. It is simple payment of our wages, of our deserts; requires neither thanks nor complaint. Foolish soul! What act of legislature was there that thou shouldst be happy? A little while ago thou hadst no right to be at all.

Carlyle, Thomas

37.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

38.

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

Fichte, Johann G.

39.

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

40.

Our happiness depends on the habit of mind we cultivate. So practice happy thinking every day. Cultivate the merry heart, develop the happiness habit, and life will become a continual feast.

Peale, Norman Vincent

41.

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

42.

While we pursue happiness, we flee from contentment.

Proverb, Hasidic

43.

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

Feather, William

44.

Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response.