Motivational Quotes

Happiness

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

Best Quotes about Happiness

Happiness is good for the body but sorrow strengthens the spirit.

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.

Santayana, George

To be happy in this world, especially when youth is past, it is necessary to feel oneself not merely an isolated individual whose day will soon be over, but part of the stream of life slowing on from the first germ to the remote and unknown future.

Russell, Bertrand

What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?

Smith, Adam

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

Meltzer, Bernard

In order to have great happiness, you have to have great pain and unhappiness-otherwise how would you know when you're happy?

Caron, Leslie

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

Happiness is a sunbeam which may pass through a thousand bosoms without losing a particle of its original ray; nay, when it strikes on a kindred heart, like the converged light on a mirror, it reflects itself with redoubled brightness. It is not perfected till it is shared.

Porter, Jane

What a man really wants is creative challenge with sufficient skills to bring him within the reach of success so that he may have the expanding joy of achievement.

Nash, Fay B.

10.

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

11.

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

Ann Radcliffe

12.

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness

Orwell, George

13.

Happiness is not a state to arrive at, rather, a manner of traveling.

Johnson, Samuel

14.

The secret of happiness is something to do.

Burroughs, John

15.

Enjoy your happiness while you have it, and while, you have it do not too closely scrutinize its foundation.

Farrall, Joseph

16.

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

Ketchel, Holly

17.

Happiness comes from... some curious adjustment to life.

Walpole, Sir Hugh

18.

Happiness is not so much in having or sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give.

Macewan, Norman

19.

I cannot believe that the inscrutable universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty of the world must somewhere rest on pure joy!

Louise Bogan

20.

All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse, and a good wife.

Boone, Daniel

21.

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

Apollinaire, Guillaume

22.

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

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.

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

25.

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

Prutz

26.

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

27.

If you optimize everything, you will always be unhappy.

Knuth, Don

28.

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

Addison, Joseph

29.

To buy happiness is to sell soul.

Horton, Doug

30.

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

31.

Depend not on another, but lean instead on thyself...True happiness is born of self-reliance.

The laws of Manu

32.

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

33.

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

34.

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

Confucius

35.

There are seeds of self-destruction in all of us that will bear only unhappiness if allowed to grow.

Brande, Dorothea

36.

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

Alda, Alan

37.

Call no man unhappy until he is married.

Socrates

38.

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

39.

He felt the loyalty we feel to unhappiness -- the sense that is where we really belong.

Greene, Graham

40.

We cannot be contented because we are happy, and we cannot be happy because we are contented.

Landor, Walter Savage

41.

One feels inclined to say that the intention that man should be happy is not included in the plan of Creation.

Freud, Sigmund

42.

Let no man be called happy before his death. Till then, he is not happy, only lucky.

Solon

43.

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

William Cowper

44.

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

John Berry

45.

Happiness is unrepentant pleasure.

Socrates

46.

If you pursue happiness you never find it.

Snow, C(harles) P(ercy)

47.

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

Keyes Jr., Ken

48.

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

49.

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

Proverb, Scottish

50.

While we pursue happiness, we flee from contentment.

Proverb, Hasidic