Popular quotes about Happiness! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 79
And 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 ZamyatinYou cannot achieve happiness. Happiness happens and is a transitory stage. Imagine how happy I felt when I got relief from bladder pressure. How long did that happiness last?
Frederick Salomon PerlsIโm constantly in doubt about what Iโm doing, Iโm constantly tortured, and thatโs why I say happiness is irrelevant. Happiness is for children and yuppies. Iโm not striving for happiness, Iโm trying to get some work done. And sometimes the best work is done under doubt. Constant rethinking, and reevaluating what youโre doing, working and working until you feel itโs finished. And thatโs an interesting point too, that youโve got to know when to stop. Sometimes thereโs a magical moment when everything comes together.
John ZornIf you do not feel deserving of happiness, consciously or subconsciously, or if you have accepted the idea that happiness is somehow wrong or cannot last, you will not respond appropriately when happiness comes knocking at your door in the form of romantic love. No matter how much you may have waited and cried, you will not welcome love when it arrives-you will find a way to sabotage it. What a challenge to resist this temptation! What an opportunity for true spiritual growth and transformation-to defy your negative feelings and honor the gift that life offers you!
Nathaniel BrandenThe happiness of those who want to be popular depends on others; the happiness of those who seek pleasure fluctuates with moods outside their control; but the happiness of the wise grows out of their own free acts.
Marcus AureliusAll 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.
Laurel MellinGenuine 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 LamaMost people keep waiting on happiness, putting off happiness until they're successful or until they achieve some goal, which means we limit both happiness and success. That formula doesn't work.
Shawn AchorWhen 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.
Nhat HanhHappiness 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 IkedaHappiness and suffering support each other. To be is to inter-be. It's like the left and the right. If the left is not there, the right cannot be there. The same is true with suffering and happiness, good and evil.
Nhat HanhHappiness is a fata morgana. the only way to not end up unhappy is to not long for happiness.
Friedrich NietzscheScience of happiness lies in our understanding. The secrets of happiness lie in our capacity to expand our heart.
Amit Ray...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 RubinsteinThe fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid.
J. D. SalingerThere is no one way to Happiness. Happiness is the way! It's inside your head FIRST and everyplace else second
Jeffrey GitomerPeace comes from within. Do not seek it without. It can be argued that peace and happiness comes from the subjective internalised perspective of realizing things could be worse and being grateful they aren't. The alternative view that peace and happiness comes from the objective external perspective of having more and better things than at present, while important for growth, can be a never-ending source of jealousy, dissatisfaction and disappointment. A balance of the two, where people are grateful for what they have while striving for more seems the best blended perspective.
Gautama BuddhaThe happiness which is lacking makes one think even the happiness one has unbearable.
Philibert Joseph RouxWhat have wealth or grandeur to do with happiness?" Grandeur has but little," said Elinor, "but wealth has much to do with it." Elinor, for shame!" Said Marianne. "Money can only give happiness where there is nothing else to give it.
Jane AustenHappiness is a choice, not a result. Nothing will make you happy until you choose to be happy. No person will make you happy unless you decide to be happy. Your happiness will not come to you. It can only come from you.
Ralph MarstonThe data says that with the poor, a little money can buy a lot of happiness. If you're rich, a lot of money can buy you a little more happiness. But in both cases, money does it.
Daniel GilbertTo 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.
Viktor E. FranklGod has created all things for good; all things for their greatest good; everything for its own good. What is the good of one is not the good of another; what makes one man happy would make another unhappy. God has determined, unless I interfere with His plan, that I should reach that which will be my greatest happiness. He looks on me individually, He calls me by my name, He knows what I can do, what I can best be, what is my greatest happiness, and He means to give it me.
John Henry NewmanAnd when you sense a faint potentiality for happiness after such dark times you must grab onto the ankles of that happiness and not let go until it drags you face-first out of the dirt - this is not selfishness, but obligation. You were given life; it is your duty to find something beautiful within life no matter how slight.
Elizabeth GilbertBefore I was abducted, I think that happiness was related to success. Nowadays happiness is related, for me, to rest, peace, serenity.
Ingrid BetancourtEverybody in the world is seeking happiness - and there is one sure way to find it. That is by controlling your thoughts. Happiness doesn't depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner conditions.
Dale CarnegieIf 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.
Tyler BlackburnMeditation 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 HarrisTo be happy you have to fulfill your nature. That's what Aristotle taught so many centuries ago, that the road to happiness isn't to go drink more or consume more. The road to happiness is to fully develop your abilities, and then apply them to do good.
Charles KochHappiness 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.
Arthur SchopenhauerIn Tibet there is no marriage, and there is no jealousy, yet we know that marriage is a much higher state. The Tibetans have not known the wonderful enjoyment, the blessing of chastity, the happiness of having a chaste, virtuous wife, or a chaste, virtuous husband. These people cannot feel that. And similarly they do not feel the intense jealousy of the chaste wife or husband, or the misery caused by unfaithfulness on either side, with all the heart-burnings and sorrows which believers in chastity experience. On one side, the latter gain happiness, but on the other, they suffer misery too.
Swami VivekanandaMankind is interdependent, and the happiness of each depends upon the happiness of all, and it is this lesson that humanity has to learn today as the first and the last lesson.
Hazrat Inayat KhanWhen we are not too anxious about happiness and unhappiness, but devote ourselves to the strict and unsparing performance of duty, then happiness comes of itself - nay, even springs from the midst of a life of troubles and anxieties and privations.
Wilhelm von HumboldtFeeling very happy - why? An explanation is needed. No, happiness needs no explanation, happiness is its own explanation. God is creating because that is the only way he can be happy, that is the only way he loves, that is the only way he sings, that's the only way he can be at all. Creation is his innermost nature, no why is needed.
RajneeshFor optimists, human life never needs justification, no matter how much hurt piles up, because they can always tell themselves that things will get better. For pessimists, there is no amount of happinessโshould such a thing as happiness even obtain for human beings except as a misconceptionโthat can compensate us for lifeโs hurt.
Thomas LigottiPeople will survive, and they will find happiness. Happiness only comes when you're not looking for it.
Hugh LaurieSo much of unhappiness, it seems to me, is due to nerves; and bad nerves are the result of having nothing to do, or doing a thing badly, unsuccessfully or incompetently. Of all the unhappy people in the world, the unhappiest are those who have not found something they want to do. True happiness comes to those who do their work well, followed by a refreshing period of rest. True happiness comes from the right amount of work for the day.
Lin YutangMany people think excitement is happiness.... But when you are excited you are not peaceful. True happiness is based on peace.
Nhat HanhI wish people could acheive what they think would bring them happiness in order for them to realize that thats not really what happiness is.
Alanis MorissetteMost successful people find out that the attainment of their goals doesn't necessarily bring them the happiness and joy they assumed; their happiness is short-lived.
Frederick LenzMany people in Western culture are striving for success. They want the home, they want the great business. They want all of these outer things. But what we found in our research is that having those things, certainly doesn't guarantee what we really want, which is happiness. And that's when all those outer things come. They don't come from going after them first to get the happiness, it's backwards; you go for the sense of inner joy, of inner peace, of inner vision first and then all of the other things from the outside appear.
Marci ShimoffDestructive thoughts and emotions undermine the very causes of peace and happiness. If you think clearly about it, it makes no sense to think youโre seeking happiness, if you do nothing to restrain angry, spiteful, and malicious thoughts and emotions.
Dalai LamaThe problem isn't materialism as such. Rather it is the underlying assumption that full satisfaction can arise from gratifying the senses alone. Unlike animals whose quest for happiness is restricted to survival and to the immediate gratification of sensory desires, we human beings have the capacity to experience happiness at a deeper level which, when achieved, can overwhelm unhappy experiences.
Dalai LamaWe want everything. All the happiness that earth and heaven are capable of bestowing. Creature comforts, and heart and soul comforts also; and, proud-spirited beings that we are, we will not be put off with a part. Give us only everything, and we will be content. And, after all, Cinderella, you have had your day. Some little dogs never get theirs. You must not be greedy. You have KNOWN happiness. The palace was Paradise for those few months, and the Prince's arms were about you, Cinderella, the Prince's kisses on your lips; the gods themselves cannot take THAT from you.
Jerome K. Jerome