HAPPINESS QUOTES VIII

quotations about Happiness

He who strives for happiness is a fool.
The wise man makes happiness for another.

EDWIN LEIBFREED

"The Song of the Soul"


Gold, gold! It may not buy happiness, but it can buy you a better state of misery, that's for sure!

COUNT DUCKULA

"Ghostly Gold", Count Duckula


The broader unquestioned premises upon which my own culture founded its view of the human condition, such as the one that Unhappiness is as legitimate a part of experience as happiness and necessary in order to render happiness appreciable, or that it is more advantageous to be young than to be old: those still took me a long time to pry loose for reexamination.

JEAN LIEDLOFF

The Continuum Concept


Good relationships make people happy, and happy people enjoy more and better relationships than unhappy people.... Conflicts in relationships--having an annoying office mate or roommate, or having chronic conflict with your spouse--is one of the surest ways to reduce your happiness. You never adapt to interpersonal conflict; it damages every day, even days when you don't see the other person but ruminate about the conflict nonetheless.

JONATHAN HAIDT

The Happiness Hypothesis


Most people would rather be certain they're miserable, than risk being happy.

ROBERT ANTHONY

attributed, The Graduate's Book of Practical Wisdom


As I enter on the path of happiness, I scatter the dregs and shreds and clippings of the past behind me. I divest myself of all the crapulous years.

WILLIAM JOHN LOCKE

The Beloved Vagabond


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


Constant happiness is the philosopher's stone of the soul.

VOLTAIRE

A Philosophical Dictionary


Regard this world as the place to sow seed for eternity, and after taking such a portion from this world as may give you strength to take the journey to the other world, turn away from whatever is more than this. Realize that the future world is the place for enjoyment and happiness which is eternal, and the land to behold the excellence and beauty of the Lord; and make it your purpose, divine and omniscient grace assisting you, never to cease from the pursuit of them, but to secure as your prey, the phoenix of felicity and happiness.

MOHAMMED AL-GHAZZALI

The Alchemy of Happiness


That pit of blackness that lies beneath us, everywhere ... the firmest substance of human happiness is but a thin crust spread over it, with just reality enough to bear up the illusive stage-scenery amid which we tread. It needs no earthquake to open the chasm.

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

The Marble Faun


My friends' happiness forms part of my own.

PEDRO ALEXIS TABENSKY

Happiness: Personhood


Happiness can come in a single moment. And in a single moment it can go again. But a single moment does not create it. Happiness is created through countless choices made and then made again throughout a lifetime. You are its host as well as its guest. You give it form, shape, individuality, texture, tone. And what it allows you to give can change your world. Happiness can be stillness. But it isn't still. It wraps, enchants, heals, consoles, soothes, delights, calms, inspires and connects. It is on your face and in your body. It is in your life and being.

STEPHANIE DOWRICK

Choosing Happiness


A man may be happy anywhere that knows how to be contented.

WELLINS CALCOTT

Thoughts Moral and Divine


In vain do they talk of happiness who never subdued an impulse in obedience to a principle. 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.

HORACE MANN

Thoughts


There are many teachers who assert positions, which logically lead to pessimism. Some declare that happiness is a will-o-the-wisp ever deluding the eager grasp, and it is better not to attempt the impossible. Others see life lived under a leaden sky and on a sodden earth. They agree that to some, and under some conditions, happiness of a kind would be possible, but it is so rare a chance that it is not worth counting on ourselves becoming the fortunate exceptions. There is not enough happiness to go round. Others assert that the sure way to lose happiness is to seek it. If you aim at it at all, it must be indirectly. You may have it at the back of your mind, but you must not have your eye on it. Still another objection to the pursuit of happiness is that it is selfish. Yet everybody would admit that a world of happy human beings is an ideal worth while. How is this even to begin to be possible, if nobody is ever to try to be happy himself?

HUGH BLACK

Happiness


Like all happiness, it did not last long.

LOUISA MAY ALCOTT

Little Women


We have all had the experience of being happy and of being unhappy, and we have all observed happiness and unhappiness in other people. As a result, many people feel they are experts on the topic of happiness. This claimed expertise, however, is often illusory. There is a natural tendency for us to assume that what is true of our lives is generally true of other people's lives. Thus, if someone has discovered that he is happier in the married state than he was when he was single, he may conclude that marriage increases human happiness. On the other hand, someone whose level of happiness has gone down after marriage may well decide that marriage is an outmoded happiness-demolishing institution. The fallacy in attempting to draw general conclusions solely on the basis of one's own experience is obvious.

MICHAEL W. EYSENCK

Happiness: Facts and Myths


To be caught happy in a world of misery was for an honest man the most despicable of crimes.

VIRGINIA WOOLF

To the Lighthouse


In my life I have found two things of priceless worth - learning and loving. Nothing else - not fame, not power, not achievement for its own sake - can possible have the same lasting value. For when your life is over, if you can say "I have learned" and "I have loved," you will also be able to say "I have been happy."

ARTHUR C. CLARKE

Rama II


The happiest people are the people with the best attitudes, not the best lives.

BOB LONSBERRY

A Various Language