quotations about Happiness
The idea has been transmitted from generation to generation, that happiness is one large and beautiful precious stone--a single gem, so rare that all search for it is vain, all effort for it hopeless. It is not so. Happiness is a mosaic, composed of many smaller stones. Each taken apart and viewed singly, may be of little value; but when all are grouped together and judiciously combined and set, they form a graceful whole--a costly jewel. Trample not under foot, then, the little pleasures that appear along the daily path, while you look for some great joy which may never be attained.
T. L. HAINES & L. W. YAGGY
Royal Path of Life
Happiness never becomes a habit.
MARILYN MONROE
My Story
The continual search for happiness is a primary reason that so many people are miserable. If you make happiness your goal, you are almost certainly destined to fail. You will be on a continual roller coaster, changing from successful to unsuccessful with every mood change. Life is uncertain, and emotions aren’t stable. Happiness simply cannot be relied upon as a measure of success.
JOHN C. MAXWELL
Your Road Map for Success
Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.
MAXIM GORKY
attributed, Know Your Limits
Past happiness augments present wretchedness.
PUBLILIUS SYRUS
The Moral Sayings of Publilius Syrus
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
But for now, happiness throws stones.
It guards itself.
I wait.
MARKUS ZUSAK
Getting the Girl
Happiness and unhappiness
differ as a bucket hammered from gold differs from one pressed in tin ...
Each carries the same water.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
"Late Self-Portrait By Rembrandt"
He is the happiest man who can set the end of his life in connection with the beginning.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
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
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
Perfect happiness, I believe, was never intended by the Deity to be the lot of one of his creatures in this world; but that he has very much put in our power the nearness of our approaches to it, is what I have steadfastly believed.
THOMAS JEFFERSON
letter to John Page, Jul. 15, 1763
Happy people die whole, they are all dissolved in a moment, they have had what they wanted.
ROBINSON JEFFERS
"Post Mortem"
There is a restless endeavour in the mind of man after Happiness. This appetite is wrought into the original frame of our nature, and exerts itself in all parts of the creation that are endued with any degree of thought or sense. But, as the human mind is dignified by a more comprehensive faculty than can be found in the inferior animals, it is natural for men not only to have an eye each to his own happiness, but also to endeavour to promote that of others.
GEORGE BERKELEY
The Works of George Berkeley
All natural happiness thus seems infected with a contradiction. The breath of the sepulchre surrounds it.
WILLIAM JAMES
The Varieties of Religious Experience
Happiness does not depend upon surroundings, but upon disposition.
CHARLES EDWARD JERNINGHAM
The Maxims of Marmaduke
The best recipe for happiness and contentment I've seen is this: dig a big hole in the garden of your thoughts and put into it all your disillusions, disappointments, regrets, worries, troubles, doubts, and fears. Cover well with the earth of fruitfulness. Water it from the well of contentment. Sow on top the seeds of hope, courage, strength, patience, and love. Then when the time for gathering comes, may your harvest be a rich and fruitful one.
ZIG ZIGLAR
Staying Up
False pleasures come from without and are imperfect: happiness is internal and our own.
JOHN LUBBOCK
Peace and Happiness
Happiness, like air and water, the other two great requisites of life, is composite. One kind of it suits one man, another kind another. The elevated mind takes in and breathes out again that which would be uncongenial to the baser; and the baser draws life and enjoyment from that which would be putridity to the loftier.
WALTER SAVAGE LANDOR
Imaginary Conversations
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