Quotes About Happiness

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.

Happiness is the sense that one matters. Happiness is an abiding enthusiasm. Happiness is single-mindedness. Happiness is whole-heartedness. Happiness is a by-product. Happiness is faith.

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."

Finding happiness is like finding yourself. You don't find happiness, you make happiness. You choose happiness. Self-actualization is a process of discovering who you are, who you want to be and paving the way to happiness by doing what brings you the most meaning and contentment to your life over the long run.

Happiness has nothing to do with what you have or don't have. Happiness is related to what you are. However many things you may collect, perhaps they may increase your worries, your troubles, but happiness will not increase because of them. Certainly unhappiness will increase with them, but they have no relation to an increase in your happiness.

In 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.

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.

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.

The paths by which people journey toward happiness lie in part through the world about them and in part through the experience of their souls. On the one hand, there is the happiness which comes from wealth, honor, the enjoyment of life, from health, culture, science, or art; and, on the other hand, there is the happiness which is to be found in a good conscience, in virtue, work, philanthropy, religion, devotion to great ideas and great deeds.

But what is after all the happiness of mere power? There is a greater happiness possible than to be lord of heaven and earth; that is the happiness of being truly loved.

But there's the rub. The present can never deliver one thing: meaning. The way of happiness and meaning are not the same. To find happiness, a man need only live in the moment; he need only live for the moment. But if he wants meaning--the meaning of his dreams, his secrets, his life--a man must reinhabit his past, however dark, and live for the future, however uncertain. Thus nature dangles happiness and meaning before us all, insisting only that we choose between them.

The components of happiness are quite simple. Happiness is gentleness, peace, concentration, simplicity, forgiveness, humor, fearlessness, trust, and now. In its true form each quality includes all the rest, for happiness is whole, and one feels whole when genuinely happy.

What I like about cooking is that, so long as you follow the recipe exactly, everything always turns out perfect. It’s too bad there’s no recipe for happiness. Happiness is more like pastry—which is to say that you can take pains to keep cool and not overwork the dough, but if you don’t have that certain light touch, your best efforts still fall flat. The work-around is to buy what you need. I’m talking about pastry, not happiness, although money does make things easier all around.

Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That's its balance.

Happiness is the result of inner maturity. It depends on us alone, and requires patient work, carried out from day to day. Happiness must be built, and this requires time and effort. In the long term, happiness and unhappiness are therefore a way of being, or a life skill.

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.

It's very easy to look for happiness outside ourselves; in a relationship, a dream job, or the perfect body weight. When we chase happiness externally, we're simply looking for God in all the wrong places. The outside search is based on false projections we place on the world. These projections build up a wall against true happiness, which lies within us.

All moments of joy include an element of happiness. But not all moments of happiness include joy. Happiness often comes from drive reduction-avoidance of pain or the pursuit of pleasure for pleasure's sake. The essence of joy, on the other hand, is spirit.

We must learn that to enjoy happiness we must conscientiously and continuously seek to spread happiness. Selfishness is suicidal to happiness.

According to your sympathy, you will take pleasure in your own happiness or in the happiness of other people; but it is always your own happiness you seek.

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.

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.

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

The mantra that you're given in Transcendental Meditation you keep to yourself. The reason being, true happiness is not out there, true happiness lies within.

Happiness depends on your mindset and attitude. Happiness is in your mind, not in the circumstance.

The fact that there is always a positive side to life is the one thing that gives me a lot of happiness. This world is not perfect. There are problems. But things like happiness and unhappiness are relative. Realizing this gives you hope.

Usually we try to figure out what we think would make us happy, and then try to make those things happen. But happiness isn't circumstance-de pendent. There are people who have every reason in the world to be happy who aren't. There are people with genuine problems who are. The key to happiness is the decision to be happy.

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.

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

It 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.

... our purpose in founding our state was not to promote the happiness of a single class, but, so far as possible, of the whole community. Our idea was that we were most likely to justice in such a community, and so be able to decide the question we are trying to answer. We are therefore at the moment trying to construct what we think is a happy community by securing the happiness not of a select minority, but of a whole.

Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness.

Nothing is more fatal to happiness than the remembrance of happiness.

Now if there is any gift of the gods to men, it is reasonable that happiness should be god-given, and most surely god-given of all human things inasmuch as it is the best. But this question would perhaps be more appropriate to another inquiry; happiness seems, however, even if it is not god-sent but comes as a result of virtue and some process of learning and training, to be among the most god-like things; for that which is the prize and end of virtue seems to be the best thing in the world, and something god-like and blessed.

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.

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.

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." ~

Happiness worth having is the warm glow that comes from investing ourselves in the world around us, come what may. It cannot be passively consumed or gulped down like a sugary drink. Happiness must be created by own ingenuity.

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.

The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.

To the European, it is a characteristic of the American culture that, again and again, one is commanded and ordered to 'be happy.' But happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. One must have a reason to 'be happy.' Once the reason is found, however, one becomes happy automatically. As we see, a human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy, last but not least, through actualizing the potential meaning inherent and dormant in a given situation.

An unshared happiness is not happiness.

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

Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it.

Happiness 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.

If you're going to break up, it reaches a point where whatever is happening is not working and it all comes to a head. I think that's a tough realization and it's hard to communicate sometimes. You just have to think about your happiness and the other person's happiness, and communicate really honestly.

Happiness belongs to those who are sufficient unto themselves. For all external sources of happiness and pleasure are, by their very nature, highly uncertain, precarious, ephemeral and subject to chance.

I just think happiness is what makes you pretty. Period. Happy people are beautiful. They become like a mirror and they reflect that happiness. If somebody walks in the room and they're drop-dead gorgeous and sexy, it's really fun to look at. But if someone is giving of their spirit and they make you laugh and feel good, that's a whole other level of beauty.