Motivational Quotes

Happiness

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.

- Jefferson, Thomas

Best Quotes about Happiness

It is not God's will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy

Kant, Immanuel

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

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

Greene, Graham

All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone.

La Bruyere, Jean De

Never believe straight off in a man's unhappiness. Ask him if he can still sleep. If the answer's yes, all's well. That is enough.

Celine, Louis-Ferdinand

A person will be just about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Lincoln, Abraham

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

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

Horace

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

Horton, Doug

10.

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

Hoffer, Eric

11.

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

Smith, Logan Pearsall

12.

Happiness held is the seed; Happiness shared is the flower-Author Unknown People need your love the most when they appear to deserve it the least.

Harrigan, John

13.

Act happy, feel happy, be happy, without a reason in the world. Then you can love, and do what you will.

Millman, Dan

14.

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

James Oppenheim

15.

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

16.

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

17.

That which you create in beauty and goodness and truth lives on for all time to come. Don't spend your life accumulating material objects that will only turn to dust and ashes.

Waitley, Denis

18.

Such happiness as life is capable of comes from the full participation of all our powers in the endeavor to wrest from each changing situations of experience its own full and unique meaning.

Dewey, John

19.

Happiness is unrepentant pleasure.

Socrates

20.

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

Prutz

21.

Where one is wise two are happy.

Proverb

22.

The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase, Let no one be called happy till his death; to which I would add, Let no one, till his death be called unhappy.

Browning, Elizabeth Barrett

23.

The secret of happiness is something to do.

Burroughs, John

24.

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

Landor, Walter Savage

25.

The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.

Schweitzer, Albert

26.

The journey to happiness involves finding the courage to go down into ourselves and take responsibility for what's there: all of it.

Rohr, Richard

27.

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

28.

No one is in control of your happiness but you; therefore, you have the power to change anything about yourself or your life that you want to change.

Angelis, Barbara De

29.

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

Camus, Albert

30.

We all want to be happy, and we're all going to die. You might say those are the only two unchallengeably true facts that apply to every human being on this planet.

Boyd, William

31.

Remember that happiness is a way of travel, not a destination.

Goodman, Roy

32.

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

Ketchel, Holly

33.

Content makes poor men rich; discontentment makes rich men poor.

Benjamin Franklin

34.

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

35.

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

36.

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

37.

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

Roosevelt, Eleanor

38.

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.

Wilde, Oscar

39.

The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.

William Cowper

40.

No thoroughly occupied man was ever yet very miserable.

Landon, Letitia Elizabeth

41.

Happiness adds and multiplies, as we divide it with others.

Nielsen, A.

42.

The happier the moment the shorter.

Pliny The Elder

43.

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

Heywood, John

44.

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

45.

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

C. P. Snow

46.

The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.

47.

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

Hubbard, Elbert

48.

Joy descends gently upon us like the evening dew, and does not patter down like a hailstorm.

Richter, Jean Paul