Quotes about happiness

The glow of satisfaction which follows the consciousness of doing our level best never comes to a human being from any other experience.

— Orison Swett Marden

Happiness is the interval between periods of unhappiness.

— Don Marquis

Happiness consists in activity -- it is a running stream, not a stagnant pool.

— John L. Mason

Happiness is not a possession to be prized. It is a quality of thought, a state of mind.

— Daphne Du Maurier

Happiness is the light on the water. The water is cold and dark and deep.

— William Maxwell

Success is getting and achieving what you want. Happiness is wanting and being content with what you get.

— Bernard Meltzer

Be it jewel or toy, not the prize gives the joy, but the striving to win the prize.

— Owen Meredith

Happiness is not a matter of events; it depends upon the tides of the mind.

— Alice Meynell

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

— John Stuart Mill

Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.

— John Stuart Mill

Act happy, feel happy, be happy, without a reason in the world. Then you can love, and do what you will.

— Dan Millman

The smallest annoyances, disturb us the most.

— Michel Eyquem De Montaigne

If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier that other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.

— Charles De Montesquieu

False happiness renders men stern and proud, and that happiness is never communicated. True happiness renders them kind and sensible, and that happiness is always shared.

— Charles De Montesquieu

We wish to be happier than other people; and this is difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are.

— Charles De Montesquieu

There is something ridiculous and even quite indecent in an individual claiming to be happy. Still more a people or a nation making such a claim. The pursuit of happiness... is without any question the most fatuous which could possibly be undertaken. This lamentable phrase the pursuit of happiness is responsible for a good part of the ills and miseries of the modern world.

— Malcolm Muggeridge

I can say that I never knew what joy was like until I gave up pursuing happiness, or cared to live until I chose to die. For these two discoveries I am beholden to Jesus.

— Malcolm Muggeridge

No burden is so heavy for a man to bear as a succession of happy days.

— Max Muller

He's simply got the instinct for being unhappy highly developed.

— Hector Hugh Munro

Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self. To be damned is for one's ordinary everyday mode of consciousness to be unremitting agonizing preoccupation with self.

— Iris Murdoch

Most of us experience happiness when we are enjoying life and feeling free, enjoying the process and products of our creative and intellectual processes, enjoying the ecstasy of transcendent oneness with the universe.

— James Muriel

What a man really wants is creative challenge with sufficient skills to bring him within the reach of success so that he may have the expanding joy of achievement.

— Fay B. Nash

The most exciting happiness is the happiness generated by forces beyond your control.

— Ogden Nash

Happiness adds and multiplies, as we divide it with others.

— A. Nielsen

What happiness is there which is not purchased with more or less of pain?

— Margaret Oliphant

Happiness is the harvest of a quiet eye.

— Austin O'Malley

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; The wise grows it under his feet.

— Julius Robert Oppenheimer

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness

— George Orwell

Happiness is a by product of an effort to make someone else happy.

— Gretta Brooker Palmer

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.

— Norman Vincent Peale

As happy a man as any in the world, for the whole world seems to smile upon me!

— Samuel Pepys

Happiness doesn't come from doing what we like to do but from liking what we have to do.

— Wilferd A. Peterson

Happiness must be cultivated. It is like character. It is not a thing to be safely let alone for a moment, or it will run to weeds.

— Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

The happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts. Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good company, good conversation, are the happiest people in the world. And they are not only happy in themselves, they are the cause of happiness in others.

— William Lyon Phelps

The happier the moment the shorter.

— Pliny The Elder

Do not speak of your happiness to one less fortunate than yourself.

— Plutarch

Happy the man whose wish and care a few paternal acres bound, content to breathe his native air in his own ground.

— Alexander Pope

Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.

— Alexander Pope

Happiness is a sunbeam which may pass through a thousand bosoms without losing a particle of its original ray; nay, when it strikes on a kindred heart, like the converged light on a mirror, it reflects itself with redoubled brightness. It is not perfected till it is shared.

— Jane Porter

Our happiness in this world depends on the affections we are able to inspire.

— Duchess Prazlin

Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it.

— Jacques Prevert

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

— Marcel Proust

Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible.

— Marcel Proust

Where one is wise two are happy.

— Proverb

If you want happiness for an hour -- take a nap. If you want happiness for a day -- go fishing. If you want happiness for a month -- get married. If you want happiness for a year -- inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime -- help someone else.

— Chinese Proverb

Happiness is like a sunbeam, which the least shadow intercepts, while adversity is often as the rain of spring.

— Chinese Proverb

If you want to be happy for a year, plant a garden; If you want to be happy for life, plant a tree.

— English Proverb

While we pursue happiness, we flee from contentment.

— Hasidic Proverb

He is rich who owes nothing.

— Hungarian Proverb

Happiness is not a horse, you cannot harness it.

— Russian Proverb

Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead.

— Scottish Proverb

There is no happiness; there are only moments of happiness.

— Spanish Proverb

If you cannot renounce the world the genius of happiness will never salute you.

— Prutz

It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.

— Agnes Repplier

Joy descends gently upon us like the evening dew, and does not patter down like a hailstorm.

— Jean Paul Richter

It is wrong to assume that men of immense wealth are always happy.

— John D. Rockefeller

Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.

— Jim Rohn

The journey to happiness involves finding the courage to go down into ourselves and take responsibility for what's there: all of it.

— Richard Rohr

Happiness depends more on how life strikes you than on what happens.

— Andy Rooney

Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product.

— Eleanor Roosevelt

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

The thirst after happiness is never extinguished in the heart of man.

— Jean Jacques Rousseau

Happiness does not come from doing easy work but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best.

— Theodore I. Rubin

Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition.

— Arthur Rubinstein

To be happy in this world, especially when youth is past, it is necessary to feel oneself not merely an isolated individual whose day will soon be over, but part of the stream of life slowing on from the first germ to the remote and unknown future.

— Bertrand Russell

Anything you're good at contributes to happiness.

— Bertrand Russell

Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed.

— Bertrand Russell

Happiness is not best achieved by those who seek it directly.

— Bertrand Russell

If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years.

— Bertrand Russell

Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.

— Bertrand Russell

The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy; I mean that if you are happy you will be good.

— Bertrand Russell

The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

— Bertrand Russell

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.

— Bertrand Russell

Happiness lies neither in vice nor in virtue; but in the manner we appreciate the one and the other, and the choice we make pursuant to our individual organization.

— Marquis De Sade

It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and in creative action, that man finds his supreme joys.

— Antoine De Saint-Exupery

True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.

— Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.

— George Santayana

Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experience.

— George Santayana

Work and live to serve others, to leave the world a little better than you found it and garner for yourself as much peace of mind as you can. This is happiness.

— David Sarnoff

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

— William Saroyan

Happiness is not having what you want, but wanting what you have.

— Rabbi H. Schachtel

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Joy comes from using your potential.

— Will Schultz

Lead the life that will make you kindly and friendly to everyone about you, and you will be surprised what a happy life you will lead.

— Charles M. Schwab

The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.

— Albert Schweitzer

True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The great blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.

— Seneca

I had rather have a fool make me merry, than experience make me sad.

— William Shakespeare

But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.

— William Shakespeare

Life 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 Shaw

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.

— George Bernard Shaw

A lifetime of happiness? No man alive could bear it; it would be hell on earth.

— George Bernard Shaw

Give a man health and a course to steer; and he'll never stop to trouble about whether he's happy or not.

— George Bernard Shaw

The soul's joy lies in doing.

— Percy Bysshe Shelley

There is no end of craving. Hence contentment alone is the best way to happiness. Therefore, acquire contentment.

— Sri Swami Sivananda

What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?

— Adam Smith

We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once.

— Alexander Smith

Happiness is a wine of the rarest vintage, and seems insipid to a vulgar taste.

— Logan Pearsall Smith

If you pursue happiness you never find it.

— C(harles) P(ercy) Snow

The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase; if you pursue happiness you'll never find it.

— C(harles) P(ercy) Snow

Happiness is unrepentant pleasure.

— Socrates