Motivational Quotes

Happiness

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

Best Quotes about Happiness

Human happiness seems to consist in three ingredients; action, pleasure and indolence. And though these ingredients ought to be mixed in different proportions, according to the disposition of the person, yet no one ingredient can be entirely wanting without destroying in some measure the relish of the whole composition. composition.

Hume, David

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

Ingersoll, Robert Green

If you pursue happiness you never find it.

Snow, C(harles) P(ercy)

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

True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The great blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.

Seneca

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

John Berry

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

Heywood, John

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

Lubbock, Sir John

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

Proverb, Scottish

10.

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

11.

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

Confucius

12.

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

Fichte, Johann G.

13.

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

Lao-Tzu

14.

Happiness lies neither in vice nor in virtue; but in the manner we appreciate the one and the other, and the choice we make pursuant to our individual organization.

Sade, Marquis De

15.

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

Horton, Doug

16.

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

Horace

17.

Success is getting and achieving what you want. Happiness is wanting and being content with what you get.

Meltzer, Bernard

18.

The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.

Saroyan, William

19.

Happiness is like a sunbeam, which the least shadow intercepts, while adversity is often as the rain of spring.

Proverb, Chinese

20.

Happiness is never stopping to think if you are.

Sondreal, Palmer

21.

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

22.

IÆve decided that the key to happiness is low expectations.

Laura Moncur

23.

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

Ketchel, Holly

24.

Life at its noblest leaves mere happiness far behind; and indeed cannot endure it. Happiness is not the object of life: life has no object: it is an end in itself; and courage consists in the readiness to sacrifice happiness for an intenser quality of life.

Shaw, George Bernard

25.

If you can't be happy where you are, it's a cinch you can't be happy where you ain't.

Jones, Charles ''Tremendous''

26.

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

Levenson, Samuel

27.

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

Cloete, Stuart

28.

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

Mahatma Gandhi

29.

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

30.

Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.

Democritus

31.

No burden is so heavy for a man to bear as a succession of happy days.

Muller, Max

32.

To be happy we must not be too concerned with others.

Camus, Albert

33.

Happiness seems made to be shared.

Corneille, Pierre

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.

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

Peterson, Wilferd A.

36.

It is not in the pursuit of happiness that we find fulfillment, it is in the happiness of pursuit.

Waitley, Denis

37.

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

38.

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

39.

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

Bradley, Amanda

40.

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

James Oppenheim

41.

When what we are is what we want to be, that's happiness.

Forbes, Malcolm S.

42.

Like swimming, riding, writing, or playing golf, happiness can be learned.

Sokoloff, Boris

43.

It seldom happens that any felicity comes so pure as not to be tempered and allayed by some mixture of sorrow.

Cervantes, Miguel De

44.

Where one is wise two are happy.

Proverb

45.

If you optimize everything, you will always be unhappy.

Knuth, Don

46.

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

47.

True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.

Addison, Joseph

48.

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

49.

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

50.

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