Quotes on happiness

Suspicion is not less an enemy to virtue than to happiness; he that is already corrupt is naturally suspicious, and he that becomes suspicious will quickly be corrupt.

Author: Joseph Addison

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

Author: Joseph Addison

A pencil and rubber are of more use to thought than a battalion of assistants. To happiness the same applies as to truth: one does not have it, but is in it.

Author: Theodor Adorno

Happiness is obsolete: uneconomic.

Author: Theodor Adorno

For the poison of hatred seated near the heart doubles the burden for the one who suffers the disease; he is burdened with his own sorrow, and groans on seeing another's happiness.

Author: Aeschylus

Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.

Author: Aeschylus

And one who is just of his own free will shall not lack for happiness; and he will never come to utter ruin.

Author: Aeschylus

I don't really care how I am remembered as long as I bring happiness and joy to people.

Author: Eddie Albert

The purpose of human life and the sense of happiness is to give the maximum what the man is able to give.

Author: Alexander Alekhine

Heaven takes care that no man secures happiness by crime.

Author: Vittorio Alfieri

No period of my life has been one of such unmixed happiness as the four years which have been spent within college walls.

Author: Horatio Alger

There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery.

Author: Dante Alighieri

Happiness is mental harmony; unhappiness is mental inharmony.

Author: James Allen

A man is not rightly conditioned until he is a happy, healthy, and prosperous being; and happiness, health, and prosperity are the result of a harmonious adjustment of the inner with the outer of the man with his surroundings.

Author: James Allen

I don't get a sense of American pride. I just get a sense that everyone is here, battling the same thing - that around the world everybody's after the same thing, just some minor piece of happiness each day.

Author: Paul Anderson

We learn the inner secret of happiness when we learn to direct our inner drives, our interest and our attention to something besides ourselves.

Author: Ethel Andrus

Gratitude is the vitamin for the soul, nourishing it with joy and contentment.

Author: Olivia Patterson

The greatest happiness comes from being vitally interested in something that excites all your energies.

Author: Walter Annenberg

Independence is happiness.

Author: Susan Anthony

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

Author: Guillaume Apollinaire

Happiness is found in the simplest moments, not just the grand occasions.

Author: Sarah Anderson

Happiness is secured through virtue; it is a good attained by man's own will.

Author: Thomas Aquinas

The ultimate end of human acts is eudaimonia, happiness in the sense of living well, which all men desire; all acts are but different means chosen to arrive at it.

Author: Hannah Arendt

Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness.

Author: Aristotle

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

Author: Aristotle

I believe that my clothes can give people a better image of themselves - that it can increase their feelings of confidence and happiness.

Author: Giorgio Armani

To have the sense of creative activity is the great happiness and the great proof of being alive.

Author: Matthew Arnold

When we were together, I loved you deeply and you gave me so much happiness I can never repay you.

Author: Arthur Ashe

The only way to find true happiness is to embrace your uniqueness and live authentically, despite the pressures of society.

Author: Maya Angelou

We all agree that its fit to be as Happy as we can, and we need no Instructor to teach us this Knowledge, 'tis born with us, and is inseparable from our Being, but we very much need to be Inform'd what is the true Way to Happiness.

Author: Mary Astell

The key to happiness is not in seeking perfection, but in embracing imperfection with a loving heart.

Author: Sharon Salzberg

Today I choose life. Every morning when I wake up I can choose joy, happiness, negativity, pain... To feel the freedom that comes from being able to continue to make mistakes and choices - today I choose to feel life, not to deny my humanity but embrace it.

Author: Kevyn Aucoin

Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.

Author: Saint Augustine

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.

Author: Marcus Aurelius

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.

Author: Jane Austen

A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.

Author: Jane Austen

Tell him, on the contrary, that he needs, in the interest of his own happiness, to walk in the path of humility and self-control, and he will be indifferent, or even actively resentful.

Author: Irving Babbitt

Since every man desires happiness, it is evidently no small matter whether he conceives of happiness in terms of work or of enjoyment.

Author: Irving Babbitt

Every gift from a friend is a wish for your happiness.

Author: Richard Bach

If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, I guess you do have a problem.

Author: Richard Bach

Happiness is the reward we get for living to the highest right we know.

Author: Richard Bach

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

Author: Francis Bacon

The most worth-while thing is to try to put happiness into the lives of others.

Author: Robert Baden-Powell

Lots of people I know have bootlegged tapes of performances and if they play it I will be transported back sometimes with happiness, sometimes with horror.

Author: Chris Bailey

One's happiness depends less on what he knows than on what he feels.

Author: Liberty Bailey

There is no excellence without labor. One cannot dream oneself into either usefulness or happiness.

Author: Liberty Bailey

Success is not about reaching the top, but about learning to enjoy the climb.

Author: Brian Tracy

He who avoids complaint invites happiness.

Author: Abu Bakr

Suspicion is far more to be wrong than right; more often unjust than just. It is no friend to virtue, and always an enemy to happiness.

Author: Hosea Ballou

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

Author: Hosea Ballou

We exaggerate misfortune and happiness alike. We are never as bad off or as happy as we say we are.

Author: Honore Balzac

A mother's happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories.

Author: Honore Balzac

You must try to generate happiness within yourself. If you aren't happy in one place, chances are you won't be happy anyplace.

Author: Ernie Banks

Protect your health. Without it you face a serious handicap for success and happiness.

Author: Harry Banks

Happiness is the real sense of fulfillment that comes from hard work.

Author: Joseph Barbara

Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open.

Author: John Barrymore

An institution or reform movement that is not selfish, must originate in the recognition of some evil that is adding to the sum of human suffering, or diminishing the sum of happiness.

Author: Clara Barton

Pleasure only starts once the worm has got into the fruit, to become delightful happiness must be tainted with poison.

Author: Georges Bataille

Off with you! You're a happy fellow, for you'll give happiness and joy to many other people. There is nothing better or greater than that!

Author: Ludwig Beethoven

I guess happiness is not a state you want to be in all the time.

Author: John Belushi

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.

Author: Arnold Bennett

One's work usually occupies more than half of one's waking life. Choosing work that does not bring happiness will lead to a life that is mostly disappointing.

Author: Bo Bennett

If you have not taken the time to define what happiness means to you, what have your spent your whole life pursuing?

Author: Bo 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.

Author: William Bennett

The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.

Author: Jeremy Bentham

The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.

Author: Jeremy Bentham

Happiness is always a coincidence.

Author: Jose Bergamin

Happiness is good health and a bad memory.

Author: Ingrid Bergman

Bride: A woman with a fine prospect of happiness behind her.

Author: Ambrose Bierce

Future. That period of time in which our affairs prosper, our friends are true and our happiness is assured.

Author: Ambrose Bierce

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

Author: 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.

Author: Josh Billings

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.

Author: Hugo Black

Fun I love, but too much fun is of all things the most loathsome. Mirth is better than fun, and happiness is better than mirth.

Author: William Blake

True religion... is giving and finding one's happiness by bringing happiness into the lives of others.

Author: William Boetcker

The free market economy is supposed to be the only path leading to the happiness of humanity by promoting wealth and prosperity, power and influence of nations.

Author: Omar Bongo

Success is not defined by the number of trophies on your shelf, but by the depth of joy in your heart.

Author: Maya Angelou

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

Author: Daniel Boone

Our nation was founded on the principals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Author: Leonard Boswell

No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities.

Author: Christian Bovee

The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring. And that is not happiness.

Author: F. Bradley

If you hope for happiness in the world, hope for it from God, and not from the world.

Author: David Brainerd

Those who won our independence... valued liberty as an end and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty.

Author: Louis Brandeis

America has believed that in differentiation, not in uniformity, lies the path of progress. It acted on this belief; it has advanced human happiness, and it has prospered.

Author: Louis Brandeis

Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is right at their heels.

Author: Bertolt Brecht

The truth is that relative income is not directly related to happiness. Nonpartisan social-survey data clearly show that the big driver of happiness is earned success: a person's belief that he has created value in his life or the life of others.

Author: Arthur Brooks

Happiness is the natural flower of duty.

Author: Phillips Brooks

In securing the future of the planet, we secure happiness for ourselves. One of the aims of the Greens is to turn around the tide of pessimism amongst the young people of the world.

Author: Bob Brown

Money, if it does not bring you happiness, will at least help you be miserable in comfort.

Author: Helen Brown

The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.

Author: John Brown

He who never sacrificed a present to a future good or a personal to a general one can speak of happiness only as the blind do of colors.

Author: Olympia Brown

One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.

Author: Rita Brown

Choose your life's mate carefully. From this one decision will come 90 percent of all your happiness or misery.

Author: H. Brown, Jr.

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is liking what you get.

Author: H. Brown, Jr.

Love is when the other person's happiness is more important than your own.

Author: H. Brown, Jr.

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost.

Author: H. Brown, Jr.

There may be Peace without Joy, and Joy without Peace, but the two combined make Happiness.

Author: John Buchan

Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.

Author: Pearl Buck

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one's family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one's own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.

Author: Buddha

All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.

Author: Buddha

For Mythology is the handmaid of literature; and literature is one of the best allies of virtue and promoters of happiness.

Author: Thomas Bulfinch

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.

Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton

True happiness comes from embracing your uniqueness and living authentically, despite the pressures of conformity.

Author: Maya Angelou

If thou be industrious to procure wealth, be generous in the disposal of it. Man never is so happy as when he giveth happiness unto another.

Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton

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

Author: Edward Bulwer-Lytton

I don't like Paris so much, and it's only eight shows. I mean, don't tell them that, of course. But everyone always thinks they're so important. And I'm sure they are. But to me, my happiness is more important.

Author: Gisele Bundchen

Happiness? A good cigar, a good meal, a good cigar and a good woman - or a bad woman; it depends on how much happiness you can handle.

Author: George Burns

I have discovered the secret of happiness - it is work, either with the hands or the head. The moment I have something to do, the draughts are open and my chimney draws, and I am happy.

Author: John Burroughs

The secret of happiness is something to do.

Author: John Burroughs

Virtue is simply happiness, and happiness is a by-product of function. You are happy when you are functioning.

Author: William Burroughs

Happiness is a byproduct of function, purpose, and conflict; those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war.

Author: William Burroughs

Worldly wealth is the Devil's bait; and those whose minds feed upon riches recede, in general, from real happiness, in proportion as their stores increase, as the moon, when she is fullest, is farthest from the sun.

Author: Robert Burton

What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.

Author: Leo Buscaglia

Happiness is not dependant on external circumstances, but on our internal perspective.

Author: Helen Keller

Every man hath a general desire of his own happiness; and likewise a variety of particular affections, passions, and appetites to particular external objects.

Author: Joseph Butler

The principle we call self-love never seeks anything external for the sake of the thing, but only as a means of happiness or good: particular affections rest in the external things themselves.

Author: Joseph Butler

The sum of the whole is plainly this: The nature of man considered in his single capacity, and with respect only to the present world, is adapted and leads him to attain the greatest happiness he can for himself in the present world.

Author: Joseph Butler

Happiness does not consist in self-love.

Author: Joseph Butler

Happiness or satisfaction consists only in the enjoyment of those objects which are by nature suited to our several particular appetites, passions, and affections.

Author: Joseph Butler

The key to happiness is not seeking perfection, but finding beauty in imperfection.

Author: Sophia Parker

All who joy would win must share it. Happiness was born a Twin.

Author: Lord Byron

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

Author: Lord Byron

I am about to be married, and am of course in all the misery of a man in pursuit of happiness.

Author: Lord Byron

I am deeply convinced that happiness does not exist in this world.

Author: Taylor Caldwell

90%, 100% are going there to hear the singing. The story is another thing. Nobody's interested in the story. Happiness is happiness.

Author: Cab Calloway

Since, therefore, no man is born without faults, and he is esteemed the best whose errors are the least, let the wise man consider everything human as connected with himself; for in worldly affairs there is no perfect happiness under heaven.

Author: Giraldus Cambrensis

What is the worth of anything, But for the happiness 'twill bring?

Author: Richard Cambridge

Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them.

Author: Albert Camus

You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.

Author: Albert Camus

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?

Author: Albert Camus

Even when there are times that we're not happy, happiness will creep in.

Author: Dyan Cannon

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

Author: Thomas Carlyle

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

Author: Dale Carnegie

The person who seeks all their applause from outside has their happiness in another's keeping .

Author: Dale Carnegie

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.

Author: Dale Carnegie

Are you bored with life? Then throw yourself into some work you believe in with all your heart, live for it, die for it, and you will find happiness that you had thought could never be yours.

Author: Dale Carnegie

Happiness doesn't depend on any external conditions, it is governed by our mental attitude.

Author: 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?

Author: Leslie Caron

Success isn't just about reaching the top, but enjoying the journey along the way.

Author: Jennifer Lopez

Happiness is your dentist telling you it won't hurt and then having him catch his hand in the drill.

Author: Johnny Carson

For this generation, ours, life is nuclear survival, liberty is human rights, the pursuit of happiness is a planet whose resources are devoted to the physical and spiritual nourishment of its inhabitants.

Author: Jimmy Carter

Desire is individual. Happiness is common.

Author: Julian Casablancas

I have often met with happiness after some imprudent step which ought to have brought ruin upon me, and although passing a vote of censure upon myself I would thank God for his mercy.

Author: Giacomo Casanova

Happiness, I do not know where to turn to discover you on earth, in the air or the sky; yet I know you exist and are no futile dream.

Author: Rosalia Castro

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

Author: Willa Cather

Getting married, for me, was the best thing I ever did. I was suddenly beset with an immense sense of release, that we have something more important than our separate selves, and that is the marriage. There's immense happiness that can come from working towards that.

Author: Nick Cave

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

Author: Oswald Chambers

The happiness and peace attained by those satisfied by the nectar of spiritual tranquillity is not attained by greedy persons restlessly moving here and there.

Author: Chanakya

There is no austerity equal to a balanced mind, and there is no happiness equal to contentment; there is no disease like covetousness, and no virtue like mercy.

Author: Chanakya

Never make friends with people who are above or below you in status. Such friendships will never give you any happiness.

Author: Chanakya