Popular quotes about Happiness! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
True happiness isn't something that can be made. It isn't the result of anything. Happiness comes to those who understand that you can't seek it any more than you seek the air you breathe. It is a part of life to be found within living. ... All pursuit of happiness is based upon the false assumption that there is a way to possess it; you may as well try to grab a handful of breeze! Happiness is the natural expression of a stress-free life, just as sunlight naturally warms the Earth after dark clouds appear.
Guy FinleyAnd happiness...Well, after all, desires torment us, don't they? And, clearly, happiness is when there are no more desires, not one...What a mistake, what ridiculous prejudice it's been to have marked happiness always with a plus sign. Absolute happiness should, of course, carry a minus sign โ the divine minus.
Yevgeny ZamyatinReal happiness is not dependent on external things. The pond is fed from within. The kind of happiness that stays with you is the happiness that springs from inward thoughts and emotions. You must cultivate your mind if you wish to achieve enduring happiness.
William Lyon PhelpsHappiness--a small-scale, endearing, harmonious happiness--surely dwelt here beneath the low-powered lamps in the tiny rooms of these houses. A small-scale happiness and a modest harmony: let a man cry out, let him rage, let him howl with grief with all the power of which he was capable, what more than these could he ever hope to gain in this life?
Fumiko EnchiI don't believe in happiness anyway... it's too much of an American pastime, this search for happiness. Just forget happiness and enjoy your misery.
Frank McCourtHappiness is a state of mind. With physical comforts if your mind is still in a state of confusion and agitation, it is not happiness. Happiness means calmness of mind.
Dalai LamaHappiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd discovery. It happens as well that the felling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well," says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.
Albert CamusThe pursuit of happiness is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence as a right of all Americans, as well as on the self-improvement shelves of every American bookstore. Yet the scientific evidence makes it seem unlikely that you can change your level of happiness in any sustainable way. It suggests that we each have a fixed range for happiness just as we do for weight. And just as dieters almost always regain the weight they lose, sad people don't become lastingly happy, and happy people don't become lastingly sad.
Martin SeligmanHappiness does not come from football awards. It's terrible to correlate happiness with football. Happiness comes from a good job, being able to feed your wife and kids. I don't dream football, I dream the American dream - two cars in a garage, be a happy father.
Barry SandersWe 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.
Dalai LamaItโs an odd thing, happiness. Some people take happiness from gold. Or black pearls. And some of us, far more fortunate, take their happiness from periwinkles.
Patricia A. McKillipGenuine 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 LamaIs it not in the struggle to obtain knowledge that happiness exists? I am very ignorant, consequently the conditions of happiness are mine.
Fridtjof NansenMeditation is the direct means of enjoying the greatest happiness and is the only means to quench the thirst for happiness on earth.
Maharishi Mahesh YogiReason shows me that if my happiness is desirable and good, the equal happiness of any other person must be equally desirable.
Henry SidgwickRemember: success does not lead to happiness - it's the other way around. Greater happiness is what leads to greater success.
Jeff OlsonI am too easily contented with a slight and almost animal happiness. My happiness is a good deal like that of the woodchucks.
Henry David ThoreauThe 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.
Dalai LamaLenten practices of giving up pleasures are good reminders that the purpose of life is not pleasure. The purpose of life is to attain to perfect life, all truth and undying ecstatic love - which is the definition of God. In pursuing that goal we find happiness. Pleasure is not the purpose of anything; pleasure is a by-product resulting from doing something that is good. One of the best ways to get happiness and pleasure out of life is to ask ourselves, 'How can I please God?' and, 'Why am I not better?' It is the pleasure-seeker who is bored, for all pleasures diminish with repetition.
Fulton J. SheenNobody 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.
Lucy Maud MontgomeryToday, the law is a crazy quilt of provisions and clauses that very often have little to do with securing general happiness but instead are designed to secure the particular happiness of various advocacy groups, politicians and bureaucrats.
Joel MillerBuddha renounced every worldly happiness because he wanted to share with the whole world his happiness which was to be had by men who sacrificed and suffered in the search for truth.
Mahatma GandhiTo 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.
ZhuangziTrue religion... is giving and finding one's happiness by bringing happiness into the lives of others.
William J. H. BoetckerOn Christmas morning, our joy or our happiness can be at a very high level, not because of our anticipation of what we might receive but, rather, in anticipation of watching our loved ones open our gifts to them. In fact, if we're not careful, we can fail to register sufficient excitement and joy upon opening the gifts we receive from others. We must remember that they are happiest at that time and to give them top billing, to stretch their happiness to its full length.
Earl NightingaleWhy had we come to the moon? The thing presented itself to me as a perplexing problem. What is this spirit in man that urges him for ever to depart from happiness and security, to toil, to place himself in danger, to risk an even a reasonable certainty of death? It dawned upon me that there in the moon as a thing I ought always to have known, that man is not made to go about safe and comfortable and well fed and amused. ... against his interest, against his happiness, he is constantly being driven to do unreasonable things. Some force not himself impels him, and he must go.
H. G. WellsHappiness of heart can never be measured out and bundled up, it's intangible. We keep running after it, grasping for it, and the heat of our running so seldom brings it closer. But now and then there may be a moment. We look at something and know it is good and beautiful. Those moments are happiness.
Gladys TaberRemember, if you have not known sadness together with happiness you have not known anything yet. Then your happiness is superficial; your sadness is also superficial. Then you have been living on the surface; then you have known only the waves; you have not known the depth of the ocean that you are.
RajneeshDon'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.
Nicki MinajIn 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.
Swami VivekanandaMeditation 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 HarrisEvery human being has the right to search for happiness, and by 'happiness' is meant something that makes other people feel content.
Paulo CoelhoToday you may not be familiar with the happiness habit. But like any new behavior, happiness can be learned.
Sarah Ban BreathnachTied to consciousness are all positive qualities, so that ocean within is an ocean of unbounded intelligence, unbounded creativity, unbounded happiness, unbounded love, unbounded energy, and unbounded peace. And when students start expanding consciousness in those positive qualities, their relationships improve, their grades go up, their happiness goes up, the fighting and bullying stops, and things get very, very, very good.
David LynchIf we practice the science of yoga, which is useful to the entire human community and which yields happiness both here and hereafter - if we practice it without fail, we will then attain physical, mental, and spiritual happiness, and our minds will flood towards the Self.
K. Pattabhi JoisDon't think you can relax yourself to happiness. Happiness comes as a result of doing.
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.There is that kind of happiness. There is the love and marriage and family kind of happiness, which is exceedingly boring to describe but nonetheless is important to have and dreadful not to have.
P. J. O'RourkeThese days, in our materialistic culture, many people are led to believe that money is the ultimate source of happiness. Consequently, when they donโt have enough of it they feel let down. Therefore, it is important to let people know that they have the source of contentment and happiness within themselves, and that it is related to nurturing our natural inner values.
Dalai LamaTo diminish envy, let us consider not what others possess, but what they enjoy; mere riches may be the gift of lucky accident or blind chance, but happiness must be the result of prudent preference and rational design; the highest happiness then can have no other foundation than the deepest wisdom; and the happiest fool is only as happy as he knows how to be.
Charles Caleb ColtonTruth is not always the best basis for happiness. There are certain lies which may constitute a far better and more secure foundation of happiness. There are people who perish when their eyes are opened.
Wilhelm StekelYou are quite, quite wrong if you think that ... I find your happiness painful. What matters is that happiness - the golden day - should exist in the world, not much to whom it comes. For all of us it is so transitory a thing, how could one not draw joy from its arrival?
Winifred HoltbyI think life is difficult and that's that. I am not at all - absolutely not at all - interested in the pursuit of happiness. I am not interested in the pursuit of positivity. I am interested in pursuing a truth, and the truth often seems to be not happiness but its opposite.
Jamaica KincaidAnd I believe happiness is the exact opposite of sadness, bitterness, and hatred: happiness should remain unexamined as long as possible.
Stephen King