quotations about Happiness
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
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
Happiness: We rarely feel it.
I would buy it, beg it, steal it,
Pay in coins of dripping blood
For this one transcendent good.
AMY LOWELL
"Happiness", Sword Blades and Poppy Seed
Who can tell where happiness may come, or where, though an expected guest, it may never show its face?
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
The Marble Faun
It is good sometimes that the happy of this world should learn, were it only to humble their foolish pride for an instant, that there are higher, wider, and rarer joys than theirs.
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE
"Crowds"
The problem with the concept of happiness is trying to make it do enough without making it do too much. If we define it narrowly as a certain type of feeling or physiological state, then we can, in principle, measure it objectively, but it is too trivial a thing to be the foundation of all public life and private decisions. On the other hand, if we define it broadly as something like 'the elements of a good life', then it is so broad as to beg the question, and certainly too broad to be measured in national statistics. Yet we intuitively feel that there is something called happiness, something unitary but not trivial, concrete enough to strive for yet broad enough to be worth striving for.
DANIEL NETTLE
Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile
The only true happiness lies in knowing who you are ... and making peace with it.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
Narcissus in Chains
He who has once been happy is for aye
Out of destruction's reach. His fortune then
Holds nothing secret; and Eternity,
Which is a mystery to other men,
Has like a woman given him its joy.
WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT
With Esther
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
He that thinks himself the happiest man, really is so.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Success is identical with happiness only on condition that we have aimed at and attained those things in life which are really worthwhile, and--if success is to be complete--the most worthwhile. Any success which does not result in happiness, in some one of its varied forms, for self or for others, is a sham.
FRANK CHAPMAN SHARP
Success: A Course in Moral Instruction
He who strives for happiness is a fool.
The wise man makes happiness for another.
EDWIN LEIBFREED
"The Song of the Soul"
Do you know what I think happiness is really? Lookin' forward.
JOHN HARTLEY MANNERS
Happiness and Other Plays
The happiest people are the people with the best attitudes, not the best lives.
BOB LONSBERRY
A Various Language
Happiness is a condition of mind not a result of circumstances.
JOHN LUBBOCK
attributed, Character and Conduct: A Book of Helpful Thoughts by Great Writers of Past and Present Ages
Happiness has to be installed in each person as a state of affairs completely cut off from the process that brought it about and, in particular, from the real situation. Man has to be affected with happiness. It is a tonality given to him. Contradiction: if one does take care to give him happiness, it is because he is a free creature--but in order to give it to him, one turns him into an object.
JEAN-PAUL SARTRE
Notebooks for an Ethics
Happy are those men who live without ambition, distrust, or disguise.
WELLINS CALCOTT
Thoughts Moral and Divine
A somewhat depressing lesson that we learn from life is that there is no guaranteed sure-fire formula for happiness.
MICHAEL W. EYSENCK
Happiness: Facts and Myths
Like all happiness, it did not last long.
LOUISA MAY ALCOTT
Little Women
Happy domestic life is like a beautiful summer's evening; the heart is filled with peace; and everything around derives a peculiar glory.
HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN
The True Story of My Life