Popular quotes about Happiness! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
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.
Sam ShoemakerI had always been taught that the pursuit of happiness was my natural (even national) birthright. It is the emotional trademark of my culture to seek happiness. Not just any kind of happiness, either, but profound happiness, even soaring happiness. And what could possibly bring a person more soaring happiness than romantic love.
Elizabeth GilbertWhen 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?
ZhuangziHappiness is normally the prime search of every rational human being. One way to derive increasing happiness during the year we have just entered is to strive diligently to promote the happiness of others, to think of them first, yourself second. Happiness is the greatest tonic, the greatest elixir, of all. Worry is among the worst poisons. One sensible New Year resolution: I will do my utmost to have consideration for others, to exercise usefulness, to radiate happiness, to conquer worrying over things I cannot possibly remedy.
B. C. ForbesFinding 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.
David LeonhardtThey must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom. Those who continually search for happiness will never find it. Happiness is made, not found. To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
Bertrand RussellThere is no happiness without knowledge. But knowledge of happiness is unhappy; for knowing ourselves happy is knowing ourselves passing through happiness, and having to, immediatly at once, leave it behind. To know is to kill, in happiness as in everything. Not to know, though, is not to exist.
Fernando PessoaWhy are you chasing your tail so?" Said the kitten, "I have learned that the best thing for a cat is happiness, and that happiness is my tail. Therefore, I am chasing it: and when I catch it. I shall have happiness." Said the cat, "My son, I, too, have paid attention to the problems of the universe. I, too, have judged that happiness is in my tail. But, I have noticed that whenever I chase it, it keeps running away from me, and when I go about my business, it just seems to come after me wherever I go.
C. L. R. JamesPlease stop waiting for a better and more appropriate time to become happy and focus on the moment you live in. Happiness is not an arrival, it is the journey itself. Many people seek for happiness above the height of human beings, some below. Yet, happiness is exactly at the exact height of human beings.
ConfuciusThe only way to find happiness is to understand that happiness is not out there. It's in here. And happiness is not next week. It's now.
Marshall GoldsmithLife 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 ShawShe had known happiness, exquisite happiness, intense happiness, and it silvered the rough waves a little more brightly, as daylight faded, and the blue went out of the sea and it rolled in waves of pure lemon which curved and swelled and broke upon the beach and the ecstasy burst in her eyes and waves of pure delight raced over the floor of her mind and she felt, It is enough! It is enough!
Virginia WoolfHappiness,... even the smallest happiness, is like a step out of Time, and the greatest happiness is sharing in Eternity.
Josef PieperNo mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise.
Charlotte BronteActions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness; wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain.
John Stuart MillA 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.
AristotleAccording 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.
John Buchanan RobinsonIn 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.
Francis QuarlesAs one needs happiness so have I needed love; that is the deepest need of the human spirit. And as I love you utterly, so have you now become the whole world of my spirit. It is beside and beyond anything that you can ever do for me; it lies in what you are, dear love - to me so infinitely lovely that to be near you, to see you, hear you, is now the only happiness, the only life, I know.
Rockwell KentAnd whether this happiness lasted a hundred seconds or ten minutes, it was so far removed from time that it resembled every other genuine happiness as completely as one fluttering blue lycaenid butterfly resembles another.
Hermann HesseHappiness does not exist as an isolated quality, nor does it conform to a single fixed pattern. Happiness is something that breathes and lives in the relationships between one person and another.
Daisaku IkedaMarkets help people pursue their happiness more efficiently and effectively. Because they are so effective, markets provide benefits right here and right now, even while government is busy batching the protection of happiness.
Joel MillerAgainst the suffering which may come upon one from human relationships the readiest safeguard is voluntary isolation, keeping oneself aloof from other people. The happiness which can be achieved along this path is, as we see, the happiness of quietness. Against the dreaded external world one can only defend oneself by some kind of turning away from it, if one intends to solve the task by oneself.
Sigmund FreudChildren at once accept joy and happiness with quick familiarity, being themselves naturally all happiness and joy.
Victor HugoSo 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.
Carl JungWhen you SEEK HAPPINESS for yourself, it will always elude you. When you seek happiness for OTHERS, you will find it yourself.
Wayne DyerI 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.
Georgia O'KeeffeLove is the felt experience of connection to another being. An economist says 'more for you is less for me.' But the lover knows that more of you is more for me too. If you love somebody their happiness is your happiness. Their pain is your pain. Your sense of self expands to include other beings. This shift of consciousness is universal in everybody, 99% and 1%.
Charles EisensteinSimply 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.
Edward M HaysThe necessity of pursuing true happiness is the foundation of all liberty- Happiness, in its full extent, is the utmost pleasure we are capable of.
John LockeAs 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 is never there to stay [...] Happiness is merely a respite offered by inquietude.
Andre MauroisTo be constant is to be useful. To be useful is to realize one's true nature. Realization of one's true nature is happiness. When one reaches happiness, one is close to perfection.
ZhuangziWhen 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 Collins...no formula for success [exists] except, perhaps, an unconditional acceptance of life and what it brings." "I accept life unconditionally. Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition.
Arthur RubinsteinDon't Seek Happiness. If you seek it, you won't find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness
Eckhart TolleThe happiness of man is: I will. The happiness of woman is: he wills. 'Behold , just now the world ... entire love. And woman must obey and find a depth for her surface. Surface is the disposition of woman: a mobile, stormy film over shallow water. Man's disposition, however, is deep; his river roars in subterranean caves: woman feels his strength but does not comprehend it.
Friedrich NietzscheIt 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.
George EliotThere's a happiness about me, a confidence and a happiness that I didn't have when I was younger. You feel good inside, you look good outside. I feel like I look like somebody who's having a good life, who's enjoying it a little better than I did before. You can be really good-looking in your twenties but feel miserable, and people just sort of walk away.
Norman ReedusSelf-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it.
Simone de BeauvoirThrough the practices of yoga, we discover that concern for the happiness and well being of others, including animals, must be an essential part of our own quest for happiness and well being. The fork can be a powerful weapon of mass destruction or a tool to create peace on Earth.
Sharon GannonA happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found: for a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough to make us happy.
Thomas MertonWhen I was growing up, I don't remember being told that America was created so that everyone could get rich. I remember being told it was about opportunity and the pursuit of happiness. Not happiness itself, but the pursuit.
Martin ScorseseSatiety depends not at all on how much we eat, but on how we eat. It's the same with happiness, the very same...happiness doesn't depend on how many external blessings we have snatched from life. It depends only on our attitude toward them. There's a saying about it in the Taoist ethic: 'Whoever is capable of contentment will always be satisfied.
Aleksandr SolzhenitsynOur intentions - noticed or unnoticed, gross or subtle contribute either to our suffering or to our happiness. Intentions are sometimes called seeds. The garden you grow depends on the seeds you plant and water. Long after a deed is done, the trace or momentum of the intention behind it remains as a seed, conditioning our future happiness or unhappiness.
Gil Fronsdal