quotations about Happiness
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 is a road-side flower, growing on the highways of Usefulness,
Plucked, it shall wither in thy hand; passed by, it is fragrance to thy spirit.
MARTIN FARQUHAR TUPPER
Proverbial Philosophy
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
The best type of affection is reciprocally life-giving: each receives affection with joy and gives it without effort, and each finds the whole world more interesting in consequence of the existence of this reciprocal happiness. There is, however, another kind, by no means uncommon, in which one person sucks the vitality of the other, one receives what the other gives, but gives almost nothing in return. Some very vital people belong to this bloodsucking type. They extract the vitality from one victim after another, but while they prosper and grow interesting, those upon whom they live grow pale and dim and dull.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The Conquest of Happiness
As the sea is beautiful not only in calm but also in storm, so is happiness found not only in peace but also in strife.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
We are most happy when least aware of happiness.
IVAN PANIN
Thoughts
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
One secret to long-term happiness is surrounding yourself with others who are also happy.
DEEP PATEL
"20 Secrets to Living a Happier Life", Entrepreneur, July 2, 2018
The belief that happiness has to be deserved has led to centuries of pain, guilt, and deception. So firmly have we clung to this single, illusory belief that we've almost forgotten the real truth about happiness. So busy are we trying to deserve happiness that we no longer have much time for ideas such as: Happiness is natural, happiness is a birthright, happiness is free, happiness is a choice, happiness is within, and happiness is being. The moment you believe that happiness has to be deserved, you must toil forevermore.
ROBERT HOLDEN
Happiness Now: Timeless Wisdom for Feeling Good Fast
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The Conquest of Happiness
To be conscious of happiness is to hear Nemesis rapping at the portals.
PHILIP MOELLER
The Roadhouse in Arden
Why do we so often settle for what makes us devoutly unhappy! Why do we accept that happiness just isn't possible?
ANNE RICE
The Wolves of Midwinter
Maybe you have to wait for happiness. Maybe the rest is only words.
ELLEN GILCHRIST
The Writing Life
Happiness is variously associated by different people with a multiplicity of conscious states, such as calm contentment, ecstasy, hilarity, elation, and others. These states all have some claim to be parts or aspects of happiness.... However, they certainly don't all obtain together, and some of them, once again, seem incompatible with each other--ecstasy and calm contentment, for instance.... It may be that happiness is one of those concepts of "folk psychology" that doesn't designate any psychological state, and can't have any explication in terms of the kind of science that tries to discover general laws or regularities.
NICHOLAS P. WHITE
A Brief History of Happiness
If I think that happiness is possible, I know all too well its hidden nature--and by what wretched paradox, instead of being an excess that would elevate us in dignity, it is a numbness we are only aware of afterward.
ALBERT CAMUS
letter, Jun. 18, 1938
The happiest people are focused on living their own life (not someone else's) as well as possible.
HARRIET LERNER
Twitter post, January 2, 2015
I found myself in possession of happiness once more, and the evils I had lately suffered, gave me uncommon relish for it.
ETHAN ALLEN
A Narrative of Colonel Ethan Allen's Captivity
Happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery.
ALDOUS HUXLEY
Brave New World
It may be obvious that this world has not been made merely for the ease and happiness of men, and obvious that we are not made to inhabit an earthly paradise, but the human heart can never cease to long for satisfaction of desire. This primal need has been the driving power to transform society and to improve the conditions of life. Even when men miss happiness as an experience, they feel they were made for it. The capacity for joy, which is their natural human instinct, demands fruition. To ask them to abandon the quest for happiness and to acknowledge it a phantom would be to make a mock of life.
HUGH BLACK
Happiness
Most folks are just about as happy as they've made up their minds to be.
KEN ALSTAD
Savvy Sayin's