quotations about Happiness
Happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both, is more often found with those who are highly cultivated in their minds and in their character, and have only a moderate share of external goods, than among those who possess external goods to a useless extent but are deficient in higher qualities.
ARISTOTLE
Politics
To be conscious of happiness is to hear Nemesis rapping at the portals.
PHILIP MOELLER
The Roadhouse in Arden
So long as men strive for their individual happiness only, so long they shall strive for it in vain, because they strive for something which does not exist. When one will strive for all and all for one, then, and then only, general happiness will be possible. Until then men will remain savages, in constant war with each other, like fools destroying the very house that shelters them.
NORBERT LAFAYETTE SAVAY
Emancipation
Surely happiness is reflective, like the light of heaven; and every countenance, bright with smiles, and glowing with innocent enjoyment, is a mirror transmitting to others the rays of a supreme and ever-shining benevolence.
WASHINGTON IRVING
Old Christmas
Worldly happiness is like a golden palace, but with no entrance.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
The happy man is he who turns his soul
Unto the light of joys that he can find;
And pays each day its just demand of toll,
But shuts the future troubles from his mind.
EDGAR GUEST
"The Present"
My happiness is not the means to any end. It is the end. It is its own goal. It is its own purpose.
AYN RAND
Anthem
Happiness is a hard master -- particularly other people's happiness.
ALDOUS HUXLEY
Brave New World
Do not procrastinate happiness. Enjoy every moment and find peace with yourself.
ANNET KATUSIIME
"What defines your happiness?", Daily Monitor, July 3, 2018
What is the worth of anything,
But for the happiness 'twill bring?
RICHARD OWEN CAMBRIDGE
Learning
We all have direct experience with things that do or don't make us happy, we all have friends, therapists, cabdrivers, and talk-show hosts who tell us about things that will or won't make us happy, and yet, despite all this practice and all this coaching, our search for happiness often culminates in a stinky mess. We expect the next car, the next house, or the next promotion to make us happy even though the last ones didn't and even though others keep telling us that the next ones won't.
DANIEL GILBERT
Stumbling on Happiness
Happiness--like love--is itself an attitude.
STEPHANIE DOWRICK
Choosing Happiness
Happiness flourishes where there is happiness.
ANDRÉ MAUROIS
An Art of Living
You have to fight to carve little pieces of happiness out of your life, or the everyday emergencies will eat up everything.
LAURELL K. HAMILTON
Cerulean Sins
Happiness ... does not consist in the gratification of desires, nor in that freedom from care, that imaginary state of repose, to which most men look so anxiously forward, and with the prospect of which their labors are lightened, but which is more languid, irksome, and insupportable than all the toils of active life. True, the objects we pursue with so much ardor are insignificant in themselves, and never fulfil our extravagant expectations; but this by no means proves them unworthy of pursuit. Properly to estimate their value, we must take into view all the pleasurable emotions they awaken prior to attainment.
WILLIAM MATHEWS
Hints on Success in Life
The spider's most attenuated thread
Is cord, is cable, to man's tender tie
On earthly bliss; it breaks at every breeze.
EDWARD YOUNG
Night Thoughts
Happiness hates the timid! So does science!
EUGENE O'NEILL
Strange Interlude
Happiness consumes itself like a flame. It cannot burn for ever, it must go out, and the presentiment of its end destroys it at its very peak.
AUGUST STRINDBERG
A Dream Play
Happiness is the harvest of a quiet eye.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
To while away the day contemplating evils that might have been is to poison the happiness we already have.
CHRISTOPHER PAOLINI
Brisingr