Motivational Quotes

Happiness

Happiness must be cultivated. It is like character. It is not a thing to be safely let alone for a moment, or it will run to weeds.

- Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart

Best Quotes about Happiness

Happiness comes more from loving than being loved; and often when our affection seems wounded it is only our vanity bleeding. To love, and to be hurt often, and to love again -- this is the brave and happy life.

Buckrose, J.E

Very little is needed to make a happy life.

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Happiness is a small and unworthy goal for something as big and fancy as a whole lifetime, and should be taken in small doses.

Baker, Russell (Wayne)

Happiness is a continuation of happenings which are not resisted.

Chopra, Deepak

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

Carlyle, Thomas

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

Benjamin Franklin

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

Cervantes, Miguel De

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

The really happy person is the one who can enjoy the scenery, even when they have to take a detour.

Jeans, Sir James

10.

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

Freud, Sigmund

11.

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

Alda, Alan

12.

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

13.

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

Horace

14.

Happiness is the act of being tough with ourselves and tender with others.

15.

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

Millman, Dan

16.

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

Horton, Doug

17.

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

18.

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

Ingersoll, Robert Green

19.

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world. Someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.

Chalmers, Allan K.

20.

Happiness consumes itself like a flame. It cannot burn for ever, it must go out, and the presentiment of its end destroys it at its very peak.

Strindberg, J. August

21.

Happiness is perfume, you can't pour it on somebody else without getting a few drops on yourself

Zee, James Van Der

22.

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.

23.

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

Kant, Immanuel

24.

We are happy when for everything inside us there is a corresponding something outside us.

Yeats, William Butler

25.

Happiness is like manna; it is to be gathered in grains, and enjoyed every day. It will not keep; it cannot be accumulated; nor have we got to go out of ourselves or into remote places to gather it, since it has rained down from a Heaven, at our very door

Edwards, Tryon

26.

Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self. To be damned is for one's ordinary everyday mode of consciousness to be unremitting agonizing preoccupation with self.

Murdoch, Iris

27.

No thoroughly occupied man was ever yet very miserable.

Landon, Letitia Elizabeth

28.

Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.

Eddie Cantor

29.

The secret to happiness is not in doing what one likes to do, but in liking what one has to do.

30.

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.

Baruch Spinoza

31.

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

Proverb, Chinese

32.

Where one is wise two are happy.

Proverb

33.

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

34.

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

Immanuel Hermann Fichte

35.

The great end of all human industry is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, sciences cultivated, laws ordained, and societies modeled, by the most profound wisdom of patriots and legislators. Even the lonely savage, who lies exposed to the inclemency of the elements and the fury of wild beasts, forgets not, for a moment, this grand object of his being.

Hume, David

36.

Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth, is unhappy, though he be master of the world.

Epictetus

37.

We wish to be happier than other people; and this is difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.

Montesquieu, Charles De

38.

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

39.

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

Democritus

40.

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

Proust, Marcel

41.

Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in stranger's gardens.

Jerrold, Douglas William

42.

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

43.

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

Alfred Lord Tennyson

44.

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

Confucius

45.

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

Horton, Doug

46.

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

47.

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

Smith, Adam

48.

Happiness is understanding that friendship is more precious than mere things, more precious than getting your own way, more precious than being in situations where true principles are not at stake.

Walters, J. Donald

49.

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

50.

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