Motivational Quotes

Happiness

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

Best Quotes about Happiness

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

Alfred Lord Tennyson

Happiness is unrepentant pleasure.

Socrates

While we pursue happiness, we flee from contentment.

Proverb, Hasidic

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

Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember.

Oscar Levant

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

A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.

Downs, Hugh

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

It is the paradox of life that the way to miss pleasure is to seek it first. The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self.

Black, Hugo

10.

Unhappiness is not knowing what we want, and killing ourselves to get it.

Herold, Don

11.

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

Millman, Dan

12.

Many people have the wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

Keller, Helen

13.

Happiness is not in having being; it is in doing.

Watson, Lilian Eichler

14.

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

Greene, Graham

15.

Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.

Rohn, Jim

16.

No man is happy who does not think himself so.

Publilius Syrus

17.

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

18.

Gaiety --a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.

Diderot, Denis

19.

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

Freud, Sigmund

20.

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

21.

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

22.

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

23.

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

James Oppenheim

24.

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

Jefferson, Thomas

25.

Happiness includes chiefly the idea of satisfaction after full honest effort. No one can possibly be satisfied and no one can be happy who feels that in some paramount affairs he failed to take up the challenge of life.

Bennett, Arnold

26.

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

27.

We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.

Koenig, Frederick

28.

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

29.

Be it jewel or toy, not the prize gives the joy, but the striving to win the prize.

Meredith, Owen

30.

If you pursue happiness you never find it.

Snow, C(harles) P(ercy)

31.

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

32.

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

Maurier, Daphne Du

33.

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Abraham Lincoln

34.

Happiness seems made to be shared.

Corneille, Pierre

35.

Happiness in the present is only shattered by comparison with the past.

Horton, Doug

36.

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

Ketchel, Holly

37.

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

Goodman, Roy

38.

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

Sokoloff, Boris

39.

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

40.

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

41.

We are never so happy nor so unhappy as we imagine.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

42.

Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.

Robertson Davies

43.

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

44.

The happy think a lifetime short, but to the unhappy one night can be an eternity.

Lucian

45.

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

Cloete, Stuart

46.

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

47.

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

Democritus

48.

Work and live to serve others, to leave the world a little better than you found it and garner for yourself as much peace of mind as you can. This is happiness.

Sarnoff, David

49.

Happiness is not pleasure, it is victory.

Ziglar, Zig

50.

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