Quotes about happiness

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

— Joseph Addison

True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.

— Joseph Addison

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

— Joseph Addison

Happiness is a positive cash flow.

— Fred Adler

Call no man happy till he is dead.

— Aeschylus

Happy is the son whose faith in his mother remains unchallenged.

— Louisa May Alcott

It isn't necessary to be rich and famous to be happy. It's only necessary to be rich.

— Alan Alda

To live we must conquer incessantly, we must have the courage to be happy.

— Henri Frederic Amiel

Only one thing has to change for us to know happiness in our lives: where we focus our attention.

— Greg Anderson

No one is in control of your happiness but you; therefore, you have the power to change anything about yourself or your life that you want to change.

— Barbara De Angelis

Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

— Guillaume Apollinaire

If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence.

— Aristotle

Happiness is activity.

— Aristotle

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

— Aristotle

Happiness is a sort of action.

— Aristotle

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.

— Marcus Aurelius

Remember that very little is needed to make a happy life.

— Marcus Aurelius

The really happy man never laughs -- seldom -- though he may smile. He does not need to laugh, for laughter, like weeping is a relief of mental tension -- and the happy are not over strung.

— Prof. F. A. P. Aveling

Happiness is a small and unworthy goal for something as big and fancy as a whole lifetime, and should be taken in small doses.

— Russell (Wayne) Baker

Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.

— Hosea Ballou

The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.

— Sir James M. Barrie

Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response.

— Mildred Barthel

We find greatest joy, not in getting, but in expressing what we are. Men do not really live for honors or for pay; their gladness is not the taking and holding, but in doing, the striving, the building, the living. It is a higher joy to teach than to be taught. It is good to get justice, but better to do it; fun to have things but more to make them. The happy man is he who lives the life of love, not for the honors it may bring, but for the life itself.

— R.J. Baughan

Happiness includes chiefly the idea of satisfaction after full honest effort. No one can possibly be satisfied and no one can be happy who feels that in some paramount affairs he failed to take up the challenge of life.

— Arnold Bennett

Happiness is like a cat, If you try to coax it or call it, it will avoid you; it will never come. But if you pay not attention to it and go about your business, you'll find it rubbing against your legs and jumping into your lap.

— William John Bennett

When one is happy there is no time to be fatigued; being happy engrosses the whole attention.

— Edward Frederic Benson

It is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.

— Jeremy Bentham

Happiness is good health and a bad memory.

— Ingrid Bergman

There is no greater joy than that of feeling oneself a creator. The triumph of life is expressed by creation.

— Henri L. Bergson

Happiness is an agreeable sensation, arising from contemplating the misery of others.

— Ambrose Bierce

A good way I know to find happiness, is to not bore a hole to fit the plug.

— Josh Billings

If you ever find happiness by hunting for it, you will find it as the old woman did her lost spectacles. Safe on her own nose all the time.

— Josh Billings

The world's literature and folklore are full of stories that point out how futile it can be to seek happiness. Rather, happiness is a blessing that comes to you as you go along; a treasure that you incidentally find.

— Louis Binstock

It is the paradox of life that the way to miss pleasure is to seek it first. The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self.

— Hugo Black

The truth is that all of us attain the greatest success and happiness possible in this life whenever we use our native capacities to their greatest extent.

— Smiley Blanton

Not only is there a right to be happy, there is a duty to be happy. So much sadness exists in the world that we are all under obligation to contribute as much joy as lies within our powers.

— John S. Bonnell

All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse, and a good wife.

— Daniel Boone

We all want to be happy, and we're all going to die. You might say those are the only two unchallengeably true facts that apply to every human being on this planet.

— William Boyd

Celebrate the happiness that friends are always giving, make every day a holiday and celebrate just living!

— Amanda Bradley

The Greeks said grandly in their tragic phrase, Let no one be called happy till his death; to which I would add, Let no one, till his death be called unhappy.

— Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Happiness comes more from loving than being loved; and often when our affection seems wounded it is only our vanity bleeding. To love, and to be hurt often, and to love again -- this is the brave and happy life.

— J.E Buckrose

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

— Buddha

Happiness and virtue rest upon each other; the best are not only the happiest, but the happiest are usually the best.

— Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

What ever our wandering our happiness will always be found within a narrow compass, and in the middle of the objects more immediately within our reach.

— Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

The secret of happiness is something to do.

— John Burroughs

To have joy one must share it. Happiness was born a twin.

— Lord Byron

When you have once seen the glow of happiness on the face of a beloved person, you know that a man can have no vocation but to awaken that light on the faces surrounding him; and you are torn by the thought of the unhappiness and night you cast, by the mere fact of living, in the hearts you encounter.

— Albert Camus

To be happy we must not be too concerned with others.

— Albert Camus

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a person and life they lead.

— Albert Camus

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

— Thomas Carlyle

But the whim we have of happiness is somewhat thus. By certain valuations, and averages, of our own striking, we come upon some sort of average terrestrial lot; this we fancy belongs to us by nature, and of indefeasible rights. It is simple payment of our wages, of our deserts; requires neither thanks nor complaint. Foolish soul! What act of legislature was there that thou shouldst be happy? A little while ago thou hadst no right to be at all.

— Thomas Carlyle

Remember, happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have, it depends solely upon what you think.

— Dale Carnegie

Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see bird that had the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.

— Dale Carnegie

Many people think that if they were only in some other place, or had some other job, they would be happy. Well, that is doubtful. So get as much happiness out of what you are doing as you can and don't put off being happy until some future date.

— Dale Carnegie

In order to have great happiness, you have to have great pain and unhappiness-otherwise how would you know when you're happy?

— Leslie Caron

That is happiness: to be dissolved into something complete and great.

— Willa Cather

It seldom happens that any felicity comes so pure as not to be tempered and allayed by some mixture of sorrow.

— Miguel De Cervantes

They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world. Someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.

— Allan K. Chalmers

Holiness, not happiness, is the chief end of man.

— Oswald Chambers

The creed of a true saint is to make the best of life, and to make the most of it.

— Edwin Hubbel Chapin

Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalized.

— Gilbert K. Chesterton

Happiness is a continuation of happenings which are not resisted.

— Deepak Chopra

Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.

— Chuang Tzu

We think a happy life consists in tranquility of mind.

— Marcus T. Cicero

Happiness is a hard thing because it is achieved only by making others happy.

— Stuart Cloete

The greatest joy of life is to love and be loved.

— R.D. Clyde

Happiness, or misery, is in the mind. It is the mind that lives.

— William Cobbett

Be happy or die.

— Rob Cohen

There is this difference between happiness and wisdom, that he that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so; but he who thinks himself the wisest, is generally the greatest fool.

— Charles Caleb Colton

Happiness, that grand mistress of the ceremonies in the dance of life, impels us through all its mazes and meandering, but leads none of us by the same route

— Charles Caleb Colton

We take greater pains to persuade others we are happy than in trying to think so ourselves.

— Confucius

Happiness seems made to be shared.

— Pierre Corneille

Happiness lies first of all in health.

— George William Curtis

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

— Dalai Lama

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

— Dalai Lama

Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.

— Robertson Davies

Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.

— Democritus

Such happiness as life is capable of comes from the full participation of all our powers in the endeavor to wrest from each changing situations of experience its own full and unique meaning.

— John Dewey

Gaiety --a quality of ordinary men. Genius always presupposes some disorder in the machine.

— Denis Diderot

The happiness of most people we know is not ruined by great catastrophes or fatal errors, but by the repetition of slowly destructive little things.

— Ernest Dimnet

The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.

— Fyodor Dostoevsky

Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.

— Fyodor Dostoevsky

Shall I give you my recipe for happiness? I find everything useful and nothing indispensable. I find everything wonderful and nothing miraculous. I reverence the body. I avoid first causes like the plague.

— Norman Douglas

A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.

— Hugh Downs

Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.

— Alexandre Dumas

It's never too late to have a happy childhood.

— Wayne Dyer

There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.

— Wayne Dyer

Happiness is like manna; it is to be gathered in grains, and enjoyed every day. It will not keep; it cannot be accumulated; nor have we got to go out of ourselves or into remote places to gather it, since it has rained down from a Heaven, at our very door

— Tryon Edwards

To fill the hour -- that is happiness.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

I look on that man as happy, who, when there is question of success, looks into his work for a reply.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happiness is a perfume which you cannot pour on someone without getting some on yourself.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.

— Epictetus

Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth, is unhappy, though he be master of the world.

— Epictetus

If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.

— Epicurus

It is impossible to live a pleasant life without living wisely and well and justly. And it is impossible to live wisely and well and justly without living a pleasant life.

— Epicurus

It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.

— Desiderius Erasmus

Farms and in castles, in homes, studies, and cloisters -- where sensible people manage to live relatively lusty and decent lives, as moral as they must be, as free as they may be, and as masterly as they can be. If we only knew it, this elusive arrangement is happiness.

— Erik H. Erikson

Enjoy your happiness while you have it, and while, you have it do not too closely scrutinize its foundation.

— Joseph Farrall

Some of us might find happiness if we quit struggling so desperately for it.

— William Feather

One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person.

— William Feather