Popular quotes about Happiness! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 24
I think we all mistake certain things for happiness. I think we mistake comfort for happiness and we mistake pleasure for happiness, and entertainment for happiness, when really these are just things we use as proxies for our happiness. We use them to cheer us up or try and achieve brief happiness, when really happiness is something much more profound and long lasting and exists within us.
Simon PeggWhen I look at what the world does and where people nowadays believe they can find happiness, I am not sure that that is true happiness. The happiness of these ordinary people seems to consist in slavishly imitating the majority, as if this were their only choice. And yet they all believe they are happy. I cannot decide whether that is happiness or not. Is there such a thing as happiness?
ZhuangziOlive Ann describes Sanna as 'a perfectionist and a worrier.' She is obsessed with the idea of finding happiness, and for her, as Olive ann wrote in her notes for the novel, 'happiness means being first with somebody, having perfect, loving children...The theme of Sanna is disillusionment,' Olive Ann wrote. 'Her life is the pursuit of happiness and perfection, but she finds happiness and perfection impossible to obtain-her idea of happiness is constant joy, no changes.
Olive Ann BurnsYou could say that spirituality is bliss, and bliss is physical happiness, emotional happiness, mental happiness, and spiritual happiness. And it's intense. It's an intense happiness. It brings you together with everything.
David LynchIn our concern for others, we worry less about ourselves. When we worry less about ourselves an experience of our own suffering is less intense. What does this tell us? Firstly, because our every action has a universal dimension, a potential impact on others' happiness, ethics are necessary as a means to ensure that we do not harm others. Secondly, it tells us that genuine happiness consists in those spiritual qualities of love, compassion, patience, tolerance and forgiveness and so on. For it is these which provide both for our happiness and others' happiness.
Dalai LamaYou cannot achieve happiness. Happiness happens and is a transitory stage. Imagine how happy I felt when I got relief from bladder pressure. How long did that happiness last?
Frederick Salomon PerlsHappiness follows sorrow, sorrow follows happiness, but when one no longer discriminates happiness and sorrow, a good deal and a bad deed, one is able to realize freedom.
Gautama BuddhaThe measure of the moral worth of a man is his happiness. The better the man, the more happiness. Happiness is the synonym of well-being
Bruce LeeIโm constantly in doubt about what Iโm doing, Iโm constantly tortured, and thatโs why I say happiness is irrelevant. Happiness is for children and yuppies. Iโm not striving for happiness, Iโm trying to get some work done. And sometimes the best work is done under doubt. Constant rethinking, and reevaluating what youโre doing, working and working until you feel itโs finished. And thatโs an interesting point too, that youโve got to know when to stop. Sometimes thereโs a magical moment when everything comes together.
John ZornLife 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.
George Bernard ShawWeโve all heard of Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Rossโ five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In contrast, I realized, happiness has four stages. To eke out the most happiness from an experience we must: anticipate it, savor it as it unfolds, express happiness, and recall a happy memory.
Gretchen RubinA feeling that greater possessions, no matter of what kind they may be, will of themselves bring contentment or happiness, is a misunderstanding. No person, place, or thing can give you happiness. They may give you cause for happiness and a feeling of contentment, but the JOY of Living comes from within.
Genevieve BehrendHappiness 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.
William JamesAt a time when you stay at the top, there is no explosion of happiness - happiness is experienced when everything remains in front of you, when you know that you have to a goal a few hundred, a few dozen meters when you are right in front. This is the time of happiness.
Jerzy KukuczkaWe desire truth, and find within ourselves only uncertainty. We seek happiness, and find only misery and death. We cannot but desire truth and happiness, and are incapable of certainty or happiness.
Blaise PascalA life of wealth and many belongings is only a means to happiness. Honor, power, and success cannot be happiness because they depend on the whims of others, and happiness should be self-contained, complete in itself.
AristotleHappiness is a byproduct of helping others. No man ever finds happiness by thinking of himself. True happiness comes when we lose ourselves in the service of others โ when we are merciful to our fellowmen.
Royden G. DerrickDon't be too much concerned about money, because that is the greatest distraction against happiness. And the irony of ironies is that people think they will be happy when they have money. Money has nothing to do with happiness. If you are happy and you have money, you can use it for happiness. If you are unhappy and you have money, you will use that money for more unhappiness. Because money is simply a neutral force.
RajneeshMisery makes you special. Misery makes you more egoistic. A miserable man can have a more concentrated ego than a happy man. A happy man really cannot have the ego, because a person becomes happy only when there is no ego. The more egoless, the more happy; the more happy, the more egoless. You dissolve into happiness. You cannot exist together with happiness; you exist only when there is misery. In happiness there is dissolution.
RajneeshHappiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.
Elizabeth GilbertMoney cannot buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you're being miserable. Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness.
Andre GideWhen we decide to be happy we accept the responsibility to bring happiness to someone else. Some decide that happiness and glee are the same thing, they are not. When we choose happiness we accept the responsibility to lighten the load of someone else and to be a light on the path to another who may be walking in darkness.
Maya AngelouFrom their teenage years on, children are considerably more capable of causing parents unhappiness than bringing them happiness. That is one reason parents who rely on their children for happiness make both their children and themselves miserable.
Dennis PragerEverything is unfolding based on causes and conditions. Our happiness or suffering is dependent on how we relate to the present moment. If we cling now, we suffer later. If we let go and respond with compassion or friendliness, we create happiness and well-being for the future.
Noah LevineIf we strive for happiness, it's going to be elusive because things constantly happen with human beings that disrupt that happiness. But if you focus on euphoros, the Greek word for "the bearer of goodness," you will be inhabited by the divine source of life.
Agapi StassinopoulosHappiness is a state of mind. The key to happiness is being able to disconnect your life from your perceptions. If you saw things as they really were, you would be happy automatically.
Frederick LenzIt is not a bad thing to settle for the Little Way, not the big search for the big happiness but the sad little happiness of drinks and kisses, a good little car and a warm deep thigh.
Walker PercyJoy seems to me a step beyond happiness- happiness is a sort of atmosphere you can live in sometimes when you're lucky. Joy is a light that fills you with hope and faith and love.
Adela Rogers St. JohnsWhy? Why does what was beautiful suddenly shatter in hindsight because it concealed dark truths? Why does the memory of years of happy marriage turn to gall when our partner is revealed to have had a lover all those years? Because such a situation makes it impossible to be happy? But we were happy! Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily. Because happiness is only real if it lasts forever? Because things always end painfully if they contained pain, conscious or unconscious, all along? But what is unconscious, unrecognized pain?
Bernhard SchlinkAs long as we think our lives are not good enough (materially), we will not have happiness. As soon as we realize our lives are good enough, happiness immediately appears. That is the practice of contentment.
Nhat HanhHappiness happens when you fit with your life, when you fit so harmoniously that whatsoever you are doing is your joy. Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.
Daphne du MaurierWhen I wake, I have a brief, delicious feeling of happiness that is somehow connected with Peeta. Happiness, of course, is a complete absurdity at this point, since at the rate things are going, I'll be dead in a day. And that's the best-case scenario, if I'm able to eliminate the rest of the field, including myself, and get Peeta crowned as the winner of the Quarter Quell. Still, the sensation's so unexpected and sweet I cling to it, if only for a few moments. Before the gritty sand, the hot sun, and my itching skin demand a return to reality.
Suzanne CollinsThe pursuit of happiness is a great activity. One must be open and alive. It is the greatest feat man has to accomplish, and spirits must flow. There must be courage. There are no easy ruts to get into which lead to happiness. A man must become interesting to himself and must become actually expressive before he can be happy.
Robert HenriDon't Seek Happiness. If you seek it, you won't find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness
Eckhart TolleStrength is happiness. Strength is itself victory. In weakness and cowardice there is no happiness
Daisaku IkedaPersonally, I've never had it as a goal in life to be happy. Seems impossible to achieve. Even the Declaration of Independence seems to acknowledge this. They talk about the pursuit of happiness, not happiness itself.
Jonathan AmesThose who seek for something more than happiness in this world must not complain if happiness is not their portion.
James Anthony FroudeCultivate your gardenย Do not depend upon teachers to educate you ย follow your own bent, pursue your curiosity bravely, express yourself, make your own harmonyย In the end, education, like happiness, is individual, and must come to us from life and from ourselves. There is no way; each pilgrim must make his own path. "Happiness," said Chamfort, "is not easily won; it is hard to find it in ourselves, and impossible to find it elsewhere.
Will DurantEach in the most hidden sack kept the lost jewels of memory, intense love, secret nights and permanent kisses, the fragment of public or private happiness. A few, the wolves, collected thighs, other men loved the dawn scratching mountain ranges or ice floes, locomotives, numbers. For me happiness was to share singing, praising, cursing, crying with a thousand eyes. I ask forgiveness for my bad ways: my life had no use on earth.
Pablo NerudaThe data says that with the poor, a little money can buy a lot of happiness. If you're rich, a lot of money can buy you a little more happiness. But in both cases, money does it.
Daniel GilbertThere is no such thing as static happiness. Happiness is a mixed thing, a thing compounded of sacrifices, and losses, and betrayals.
John UpdikeHappiness is the pleasantest of emotions; because of this, it is the most dangerous. Having once felt happiness, one will do anything to maintain it, and losing it, one will grieve.
Kij JohnsonAnd we who have always thought of happiness climbing, would feel the emotion that almost startles when happiness falls.
Cy TwomblyMeditation puts into question more or less everything you tend to do in your search for happiness. But if you lose sight of this, it can become just another strategy for seeking happiness - a more refined version of the problem you already have.
Sam HarrisPeace, or freedom from conflict, is the absolute core of happiness. It is in learning to watch our sense of peace that we avoid unhappiness. All forms of misery are heralded by a frame of mind that must become immediately recognizable if we are ever to gain mastery in happiness...Take the time to look in your heart and be clear. Walk through life being clear. Practice doing each thing in peace.
Hugh PratherToday you may not be familiar with the happiness habit. But like any new behavior, happiness can be learned.
Sarah Ban BreathnachWhat I "discovered" was that happiness is not something that happens. It is not the result of good fortune or random chance. It is not something that money can buy or power command. It does not depend on outside events, but, rather, on how we interpret them. Happiness, in fact, is a condition that must be prepared for, cultivated, and defended privately by each person. People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi