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

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

Dalai Lama

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.

Robert Frost

The pursuit of happiness is the chase of a life time.

The only happiness a brave person ever troubles themselves in asking about, is happiness enough to get their work done.

Carlyle, Thomas

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

Happiness is not best achieved by those who seek it directly.

Russell, Bertrand

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

Greene, Graham

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.

Santayana, George

It is pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed.

Kin Hubbard

10.

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

11.

Happiness is never stopping to think if you are.

Sondreal, Palmer

12.

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

Addison, Joseph

13.

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

Ann Radcliffe

14.

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

15.

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

16.

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

17.

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

18.

The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and beginning of his life.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

19.

Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible.

Proust, Marcel

20.

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

Greene, Graham

21.

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

Fielding, Henry

22.

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

Confucius

23.

Objects we ardently pursue bring little happiness when gained; most of our pleasures come from unexpected sources.

Spencer, Herbert

24.

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

La Bruyere, Jean De

25.

Do you want my one-word secret of happiness -- It's growth -- mental, financial, you name it.

Geneen, Harold S.

26.

Our happiness in this world depends on the affections we are able to inspire.

Prazlin, Duchess

27.

When you relinquish the desire to control your future, you can have more happiness.

Nicole Kidman

28.

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

29.

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a person and life they lead.

Camus, Albert

30.

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

31.

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

Huxley, Aldous

32.

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

Peterson, Wilferd A.

33.

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

34.

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

35.

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

36.

Happiness is a sort of action.

Aristotle

37.

It is kind of happiness to know to what extent we may be unhappy.

38.

Happiness is something that comes into our lives through doors we don't even remember leaving open.

Lane, Rose Wilder

39.

Holiness, not happiness, is the chief end of man.

Chambers, Oswald

40.

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

41.

There is something ridiculous and even quite indecent in an individual claiming to be happy. Still more a people or a nation making such a claim. The pursuit of happiness... is without any question the most fatuous which could possibly be undertaken. This lamentable phrase the pursuit of happiness is responsible for a good part of the ills and miseries of the modern world.

Muggeridge, Malcolm

42.

Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed. which give happiness. Thomas Jefferson We never enjoy perfect happiness; our most fortunate successes are mingled with sadness; some anxieties always perplex the reality of our satisfaction.

James, William

43.

The secret of happiness is to make others believe they are the cause of it.

Al Batt

44.

Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition.

Rubinstein, Arthur

45.

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

Maurier, Daphne Du

46.

True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.

Saint-Exupery, Antoine De

47.

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

48.

Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

49.

Personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a checklist of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications are not your life.

J.K. Rowling

50.

The hardest habit of all to break is the terrible habit of happiness.

Garrison, Theodosia