Quotes About Happiness

Upon this point all speculative politicians will agree, that the happiness of society is the end of government, as all divines and moral philosophers will agree that the happiness of the individual is the end of man. From this principle it will follow that the form of government which communicates ease, comfort, security, or, in one word, happiness, to the greatest numbers of persons, and in the greatest degree, is the best. All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.

People misunderstand happiness. They think it's the absence of trouble. That's not happiness, that's luck. Happiness is the ability to live well alongside trouble. No two people have the same trouble, or the same way of metabolizing it. Q.E.D. - No two happy people are happy in the same way. . . . Every day brilliant people, people smarter than I, wallow in safe tragedy and pessimism, shying from what really takes guts - recognizing how much courage and labor happiness demands.

Happiness doesn't lie in conspicuous consumption and the relentless amassing of useless crap. Happiness lies in the person sitting beside you and your ability to talk to them. Happiness is clear-headed human interaction and empathy. Happiness is home. And home is not a house-home is a mythological conceit. It is a state of mind. A place of communion and unconditional love. It is where, when you cross its threshold, you finally feel at peace.

I think for me, happiness is crucial, but I think we think that happiness comes from amassing goods and getting things and being loved and being successful, when in fact my experience of happiness comes when you give everything away, when you serve people, when you're watching something you do make somebody happy, that's when happiness happens.

You'll never meet a happy ungrateful person, or an unhappy grateful person because gratitude and happiness go together. Sometimes happiness precedes gratitude but often gratitude precedes happiness. The latter is achieved by realising things could be worse but aren't and so feeling relieved, grateful and happy.

The 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

Happiness is not an acquisition - it is a skill. We do not experience happiness because of what we get. We experience happiness because of how we live each moment.

Normally we will say we are happy or we are unhappy. I have met some people who told Me, "Oh we went to that Guru we were very happy." I said, "You could be happy in the pub also. What is happiness?" Happiness is not the way to judge any one, neither unhappiness. Unhappiness comes to you through this super ego and happiness through this ego. But joy has no double face, joy is joy. In joy, you witness, you witness the whole thing. And when you are joyous you feel the whole thing, the joy itself coming on you like grace falling on to you. It's so beautiful that you just get lost into it.

We begin from the recognition that all beings cherish happiness and do not want suffering. It then becomes both morally wrong and pragmatically unwise to pursue only one's own happiness oblivious to the feelings and aspirations of all others who surround us as members of the same human family. The wiser course is to think of others when pursuing our own happiness.

Contemplation does not ignore the 'historical Gethsemane', does not ignore the mystery of evil, guilt and its bloody atonement. The happiness of contemplation is a true happiness, indeed the supreme happiness; but it is founded upon sorrow.

If humanity is to survive, happiness and inner balance are crucial. Otherwise the lives of our children and their children are more likely to be unhappy, desperate and short. Material development certainly contributes to happiness - to some extent - and a comfortable way of life. But this is not sufficient. To achieve a deeper level of happiness we cannot neglect our inner development.

But the reason we have this built-in desire for happiness is because we're created in God's image. He wired us to want to be happy. Unfortunately, we sometimes disassociate happiness from its true source, which is God Himself. Satan tempts us by offering us happiness, because he knows that's what we want. But he offers it in the wrong places, at the wrong times, and in the wrong things.

History is not the soil of happiness. The periods of happiness are blank pages in it.

Meditation is the direct means of enjoying the greatest happiness and is the only means to quench the thirst for happiness on earth.

Everything 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.

Don't evaluate your life in terms of achievements, trivial or monumental, along the way... Instead, wake up and appreciate everything you encounter along your path. Enjoy the flowers that are there for your pleasure. Tune in to the sunrise, the little children, the laughter, the rain, and the birds. Drink it all in... there is no way to happiness; happiness is the way.

I believe all suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their happiness or satisfaction. Yet true happiness comes from a sense of inner peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved through the cultivation of altruism, of love and compassion and elimination of ignorance, selfishness and greed.

I did some more soul searching. I asked myself, "What do I want more than happiness?" and there was only one answer - the only thing that trumps happiness is love. Not the kind of love we are normally taught about, but the kind of unconditional love that is a deep inner state which doesn't depend on any person, situation or a romantic partner. That's how I define Love for No Reason: it's an inner state of love.

Success does not necessarily create happiness. I could take you on a tour of West Lost Angeles. You would be surprised that happiness does not blossom in Beverly Hills any more than it does in most places.

So they speak soothingly about progress and the greatest possible happiness, forgetting that happiness is itself poisoned if the measure of suffering has not been fulfilled.

Success is not the key to happiness, happiness is the key to success.

Happiness lies in virtuous activity, and perfect happiness lies in the best activity, which is contemplative

Happiness 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.

When the founders wrote about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they didn't mean longer vacations and more comfortable hammocks. They meant the pursuit of learning. The pursuit of improvement and excellence. In hard work is happiness.

I do not like the idea of happiness - it is too momentary - I would say that I was always busy and interested in something - interest has more meaning to me than the idea of happiness.

Most people are searching for happiness. They're looking for it. They're trying to find it in someone or something outside of themselves. That's a fundamental mistake. Happiness is something that you are, and it comes from the way you think.

There is no lasting happiness outside the prescribed cycle of painful exhaustion and pleasurable regeneration, and whatever throws this cycle out of balance – poverty and misery where exhaustion is followed by wretchedness instead of regeneration, or great riches and an entirely effortless life where boredom takes the place of exhaustion and where the mills of necessity, of consumption and digestion, grind an impotent human body mercilessly and barrenly to death – ruins the elemental happiness that comes from being alive.

Because gratitude is the key to happiness, anything that undermines gratitude must undermine happiness. And nothing undermines gratitude as much as expectations. There is an inverse relationship between expectations and gratitude: The more expectations you have, the less gratitude you will have.

I say all the time that if you really want to feel alive, it's not through striving for yourself. If you really want to feel alive, it's not through trying to get more things or get more success or climbing a corporate ladder or getting to the top. Because, once you get there, you realize that you don't really find happiness in that. If you want to feel alive and if you want to feel peace and happiness, give your life away. Do something that is outside of yourself for someone else. I think that's the way to truly feel alive.

Simply to have all the necessities of life and three meals a day will not bring happiness. Happiness is hidden in the unnecessary and in those impractical things that bring delight to the inner person. . . . When we lack proper time for the simple pleasures of life, for the enjoyment of eating, drinking, playing, creating, visiting friends, and watching children at play, then we have missed the purpose of life. Not on bread alone do we live but on all these human and heart-hungry luxuries.

Happiness is a fata morgana. the only way to not end up unhappy is to not long for happiness.

I have come to see that our problem is that we don't know what happiness is. We confuse it with a life uncluttered by feelings of anxiety, rage, doubt, and sadness. But happiness is something entirely different. It's the ability to receive the pleasant without grasping and the unpleasant without condemning.

Happiness is man's greatest aim in life. Tranquility and rationality are the cornerstones of happiness.

If you understand the great plan of happiness and follow it, what goes on in the world will not determine your happiness.

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

Animism is not a belief system, but a worldview: The world is a sacred place and we are part of it. The factuality of this statement is not the issue. To say that the world is a sacred place is to make a statement about values, not facts. It’s a statement about what you mean by ‘sacred,’ just as ‘Money can’t buy happiness’ is a statement about what you mean by ‘happiness.’ To put it all very simply, animism isn’t a belief system, it’s a value system.

If a human being is filled with happiness and positivity, this is what they radiate out into the world. We each affect our environment and that collective consciousness. The more people who are diving within and transcending and are getting that happiness and positivity, the better the world will be.

But the "wise" person understands something else— that we are all connected and, therefore, his or her own happiness must include the happiness of others.

But happiness is being able to hope, however faintly, for happiness. So, at least, we must believe if we are to live in the world of today.

It is only a poor sort of happiness that could ever come by caring very much about our own pleasures. We can only have the highest happiness such as goes along with being a great man, by having wide thoughts and much feeling for the rest of the world as well as ourselves.

After all, isn't the purpose of the novel, or of a museum, for that matter, to relate our memories with such sincerity as to transform individual happiness into a happiness all can share?

Happiness is not synonymous with pleasure. It is, instead, a deeper emotion that originates from within. . . . Happiness results from a sense of mental and moral contentment with who we are, what we value, and how we invest our time and resources for purposes beyond ourselves.

Contentment is not happiness. Contentment is stagnation and decay, whereas happiness is life and growth.

Every living being longs always to be happy, untainted by sorrow; and everyone has the greatest love for himself, which is solely due to the fact that happiness is his real nature. Hence, in order to realize that inherent and untainted happiness, which indeed he daily experiences when the mind is subdued in deep sleep, it is essential that he should know himself. For obtaining such knowledge the inquiry 'Who am I?' in quest of the Self is the best means.

Those who wander in the world avowedly and purposely in pursuit of happiness, who view every scene of present joy with an eye to what may succeed, certainly are more liable to disappointment, misfortune and unhappiness, than those who give up their fate to chance and take the goods and evils of fortune as they come, without making happiness their study, or misery their foresight.

Don't get it twisted. It's not about money, it's not about the fame. It's about I don't have to worry about if my little brother is gonna be able to get a new toy for Christmas. It's those little tiny things that really make up the bigger picture. So, my happiness doesn't come from money or fame. My happiness comes from seeing life without struggle.

I think there are different kinds of happiness. We know when we're happy a lot of the time, but then there are those moments that have more of an afterglow, when the happiness has more depth.

In this world we find that all happiness is followed by misery as its shadow. Life has its shadow, death. They must go together, because they are not contradictory, not two separate existences, but different manifestations of the same unit, life and death, sorrow and happiness, good and evil.