HAPPINESS QUOTES V

quotations about Happiness

From the greatest to the smallest, happiness and usefulness are largely found in the same soul, and the joy of life is won in its deepest and truest sense only by those who have not shirked life's burdens.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

speech to the New York State Agricultural Association, Sep. 7, 1903


Happiness is less regulated by external circumstances than inward enjoyment. Whoever is happy in the satisfaction of himself feels imperturbable felicity; but he, who trusts entirely to the world for the disposition of his peace, must inevitably participate [in] many privations and disappointments.

NORMAN MACDONALD

Maxims and Moral Reflections


False pleasures come from without and are imperfect: happiness is internal and our own.

JOHN LUBBOCK

Peace and Happiness


Happy people die whole, they are all dissolved in a moment, they have had what they wanted.

ROBINSON JEFFERS

"Post Mortem"


Happiness can not come to any man capable of enjoying true happiness unless it comes as the sequel to duty well and honestly done.

THEODORE ROOSEVELT

speech at Groton, May 24, 1904


I believe that happiness can be found. If I thought otherwise, I should be silent and not make unhappiness the more bitter by discussing it.

KARL HILTY

Happiness: Essays on the Meaning of Life


Love and work are crucial for human happiness because, when done well, they draw us out of ourselves and into connection with people and projects beyond ourselves. Happiness comes from getting these connections right.

JONATHAN HAIDT

The Happiness Hypothesis


We live in a feel-good society, a culture thoroughly obsessed with finding happiness. And what does that society tell us to do? To eliminate "negative" feelings and accumulate "positive" ones in their place. It's a nice theory, and on the surface it seems to make sense. After all, who wants to have unpleasant feelings. But here's the catch: the things we generally value most in life bring with them a whole range of feelings, both pleasant and unpleasant. For example, in an intimate long-term relationship, although you will experience wonderful feelings such as love and joy, you will also inevitably experience disappointment and frustration.... It's pretty well impossible to create a better life if you're not prepared to have some uncomfortable feelings.

RUSS HARRIS

The Happiness Trap


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

Captain Brassbound's Conversion


But for now, happiness throws stones.
It guards itself.
I wait.

MARKUS ZUSAK

Getting the Girl


Happiness is sitting down to watch some slides of your neighbor's vacation and finding out that he spent two weeks in a nudist colony.

JOHNNY CARSON

Happiness Is a Dry Martini


That thou art happy, owe to God;
That thou continu'st such, owe to thy self,
That is, to thy obedience; therein stand.

JOHN MILTON

Paradise Lost


Blessed are the happiness-makers! Blessed are they that take away attritions, that remove friction, that make the courses of life smooth, and the intercourse of men gentle!

HENRY WARD BEECHER

Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit


Past happiness augments present wretchedness.

PUBLILIUS SYRUS

The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus


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 -- the divine minus.

YEVGENY ZAMYATIN

We


If kings would only determine not to extend their dominions until they had filled them with happiness, they would find the smallest territories too large, but the longest life too short for the full accomplishment of so grand and so noble an ambition.

CHARLES CALEB COLTON

Lacon


Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either extreme egotism, selfishness, evil -- or else an absolute ignorance.

GRAHAM GREENE

The Heart of the Matter


I have never looked upon ease and happiness as ends in themselves--such an ethical basis I call more proper for a herd of swine.

ALBERT EINSTEIN

The World As I See It


If happiness is a state of the inward life, we have to look for its chief obstructions not in outward conditions but in deeper places. Happiness depends in the last issue, as we saw, on the essential view of life. It is not a matter of distractions, nor even of mere pleasurable sensations. There may be an appearance of great prosperity with incurable sadness hidden at the heart, as there is an outward peace which is only a well-masked despair. The way to happiness is indeed harder than the way to success; for its chief enemies entrench themselves within the soul.

HUGH BLACK

Happiness


You've got to be responsible for your own happiness -- you can't expect it to come flopping through the door like a parcel.

JULIAN BARNES

Talking It Over

Tags: Julian Barnes