Quotes About Happiness

A lot of people say there is no happiness in this life, and certainly there's no permanent happiness. But self-sufficiency creates happiness. Happiness is a state of bliss. Just because you're satisfied one moment - saying yes, it's a good meal, makes me happy - well, that's not going to necessarily be true the next hour. Life has its ups and downs, and time has to be your partner. Time is your soul mate. Children are happy. But they haven't really experienced ups and downs yet. I'm not exactly sure what happiness even means. I don't know if I personally could define it.

There's been a false and negative distinction that's been made between joy and happiness. Unfortunately, the message we send to those both inside and outside the church is, "Seeking happiness is superficial and shallow. Go out and get it in the world, but you won't find happiness in God." But all people seek happiness, and because they do, we're basically telling them, "Stop seeking what God Himself wired you to seek." What we should be saying is, "Seek your happiness in the right place - in God Himself."

The word happiness is used to indicate at least three related things, which we might roughly call emotional happiness, moral happiness, and judgmental happiness.

Well, there are two kinds of happiness, grounded and ungrounded. Ungrounded happiness is cheesy and not based on reality. Grounded happiness is informed happiness based on the knowledge that the world sometimes sucks, but even then you have to believe in yourself.

Happiness is sorrow; sorrow is happiness. There is happiness in difficulty; difficulty in happiness. Even though the ways we feel are different, they are not really different, in essence they are the same. This is the true understanding transmitted from Buddha to us.

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.

Sometimes we get wrong notions, we think we have to be in a luxurious house, in a large city, with a new car in order to be happy. Happiness isn't there. Happiness isn't in a new car, it isn't in a new and luxurious apartment. Happiness isn't in banks and stocks. Happiness is where you make it, it's up to you. It comes from within, it doesn't come from things.

Now, when ordinary people attempt to find happiness, I am not sure whether the happiness is really happiness or not. I study what ordinary people do to find happiness, what they struggle for, rushing about apparently unable to stop.

I think a lot about the poems I wasn't able to write...I masturbrated...Solitude is essentially a matter of pride; you bury yourself in your own scent. The issue is the same for all real poets. If you've been happy for too long, you become banal. By the same token, if you've been unhappy for a long time, you lose your poetic power...Happiness and poverty can only coexist for the briefest time. Afterword either happiness coarsens the poet or the poem is so true it destroys his happiness.

While it is all very well to distinguish happiness that is transient from that which is lasting, between ephemeral and genuine happiness, the only happiness it is meaningful to speak of when a person is dying from thirst is access to water.

Happiness. We're tearing our hair out to try to find a definition of it, for heaven's sake. Is it joy? People will tell you that it isn't, that joy is a fleeting emotion, a moment of happiness, which is always welcome, mind you. And then what about pleasure, huh? Oh, yes, that's easy, everybody knows what that is, but there again it doesn't last. But is happiness not the sum total of lots of small joys and pleasures, huh?

A lot of people say there is no happiness in this life and certainly there's no permanent happiness. But self-sufficiency creates happiness.

A 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.

Happiness consists not of having, but of being; not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is a warm glow of the heart at peace with itself. A martyr at the stake may have happiness that a king on his throne might envy. Man is the creator of his own happiness. It is the aroma of life, lived in harmony with high ideals. For what a man has he may be dependent upon others; what he is rests with him alone.

Material objects give rise to physical happiness, while spiritual development gives rise to mental happiness. Since we experience both physical and mental happiness, we need both material and spiritual development. This is why, for our own good and that of society we need to balance material progress with inner development.

Happiness is not the shallow state of feeling pleased and chipper all the time. Happiness is the state of a human being that has achieved cross-level coherence within herself, and between herself and the people, challenges, and institutions around her. Happiness comes from between.

Happiness comes from spiritual wealth, not material wealth... Happiness comes from giving, not getting. If we try hard to bring happiness to others, we cannot stop it from coming to us also. To get joy, we must give it, and to keep joy, we must scatter it. .

We ask for happiness but what we get is unhappiness. We all put our efforts into trying to be happy but we make a fundamental mistake: happiness is not related to the effort, happiness is related to not asking for it.

Divine happiness, even the tiniest particle of a grain of it, never leaves one again; and when one attains to the essence of things and finds one's Self-this is supreme happiness. When it is found, nothing else remains to be found; the sense of want will not awaken anymore, and the heart's torment will be stilled forever. Do not be satisfied with fragmentary happiness, which is invariably interrupted by shocks and blows of fate; but become complete, and having attained to perfection, be YOURSELF.

I know not if this earth on which I stand is the core of the universe or if it is but a speck of dust lost in eternity. I know not and I care not. For I know what happiness is possible to me on earth. And my happiness needs no higher aim to vindicate it. My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.

When we live in the spirit of gratitude, there will be much happiness in our life. The one who is grateful is the one who has much happiness while the one who is ungrateful will not be able to have happiness.

In the height of thy prosperity expect adversity, but fear it not. If it come not, thou art the more sweetly possessed of the happiness thou hast, and the more strongly confirmed. If it come, thou art the more gently dispossessed of the happiness thou hadst, and the more firmly prepared.

Reason shows me that if my happiness is desirable and good, the equal happiness of any other person must be equally desirable.

From 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.

Every action generates a force of energy that returns to us in like kind... what we sow is what we reap. And when we choose actions that bring happiness and success to others, the fruit of our karma is happiness and success.

Nobody whom this war has touched will ever be happy again in quite the same way. But it will be a better happiness, I think, little sister - a happiness we've earned.

Know how to replace in your heart, by the happiness of those you love, the happiness that may be wanting to yourself

The Constitution of America only guarantees pursuit of happiness-you have to catch up with it yourself. Fortunately, happiness is something that depends not on position but on disposition, and life is what you make it.

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.

Even happiness itself may become habitual. There is a habit of looking at the bright side of things, and also of looking at the dark side. Dr. Johnson has said that the habit of looking at the best side of a thing is worth more to a man than a thousand pounds a year. And we possess the power, to a great extent, of so exercising the will as to direct the thoughts upon objects calculated to yield happiness and improvement rather than their opposites.

There are only two roads that lead to something like human happiness. They are marked by the words . . . love and achievement. . . . Inorder to be happy oneself it is necessary to make at least one other person happy. . . . The secret of human happiness is not inself-seeking but in self-forgetting.

The mind is the source of happiness and unhappiness by what it chooses to compare the experience with. If it chooses to compare it to something worse then it will create happiness, gratitude and pride but if it chooses to compare it to something better then it will create unhappiness, bitterness and envy.

If you let go a little you will have a little happiness. If you let go a lot you will have a lot of happiness. If you let go completely you will be free.

Success in life depends upon happiness, and happiness is found in no other way than through SERVICE that is rendered in a spirit of love.

You have to believe in happiness, or happiness never comes.

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.

Happiness, happiness ... the flavor is with you-with you alone, and you can make it as intoxicating as you please.

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

All these years I had been sustained by an illusion-happiness through victory- and now that illusion was burned to ashes. I was no more happier, no more fullfilled, for all my achievements. Finally I saw through the clouds I saw that I had never learned how to enjoy life, only how to achieve. All my life i had been busy seeking happiness, but never finding it or sustaining it.

I am now experiencing perfect health, abundant prosperity and complete and utter happiness. This is true because the world is full of charming people who now lovingly help me in every way. I am now coming into an innumerable company of angels. I am now living a delightful, interesting and satisfying life of the most widely useful kind. Because of my own increased health, wealth and happiness, I am now able to help others live a delightful, interesting and satisfying life of the most widely useful kind, my good - our good - is universal.

There is something infinitely better than happily-ever-after. There is happiness. Happiness is a living, dynamic thing, Eve, and has to be worked on every moment for the rest of our lives. It is a far more exciting prospect than that silly static idea of a happily-ever-after. Would you not agree?" - Aidan Bedwyn

Because in the midst of happiness there is always a seed of unhappiness; it consumes itself like fire--it can't burn forever, sooner or later it must die; and this presentiment of the end destroys my happiness when it is at is height.

The 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.

No matter how many possessions we acquire, they will not provide us with any lasting happiness and freedom. On the contrary, it is often our pursuit of material possessions that causes our problems. If we want ultimate happiness and freedom from suffering, we must engage in the supreme practices of training the mind. There is no other way.

Happiness is such a fleeting point of view - there's no such thing as continual happiness.

Those who seek for something more than happiness in this world must not complain if happiness is not their portion.

Cultivate your garden… Do not depend upon teachers to educate you … follow your own bent, pursue your curiosity bravely, express yourself, make your own harmony… 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.