Read books online
at our other site:
The Literature Page

Quotations by Subject

Quotations by Subject: Happiness
(Related Subjects: Laughter)
Showing quotations 21 to 50 of 72 quotations in our collections

All sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones are moving easily under the flesh.: Doris Lessing
Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.: Eddie Cantor (1892 - 1964)
Happiness is a mystery like religion, and should never be rationalized.: G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)
A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.: George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950), "Man and Superman" (1903), act I
Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.: George Burns (1896 - 1996)
Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.: George Santayana (1863 - 1952)
To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.: Gustave Flaubert (1821 - 1880)
Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.: Helen Keller (1880 - 1968)
Man is the artificer of his own happiness.: Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862), Journal, January 21, 1838
If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us least live so as to deserve it.: Immanuel Hermann Fichte
I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.: J. D. Salinger (1919 - )
Personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a checklist of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications are not your life.: J. K. Rowling, Harvard Commencement Address, 2008
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.: James Oppenheim
At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities.: Jean Houston
Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook and a good digestion.: Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712 - 1778)
The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp.: John Berry, Flight of White Crows
Why not be happy after a while? You get to a certain age where you prepare yourself for happiness. Sometimes you never remember to get happy.: John Mayer, The Ellen DeGeneres Show, 05-14-12
Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.: Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, 2005
The final moment of success is often no more thrilling than taking off a heavy backpack at the end of a long hike. If you went on the hike only to feel that pleasure, you are a fool. Yet people sometimes do just this. They work hard at a task and expect some special euphoria at the end. But when they achieve success and find only moderate and short-lived pleasure, they ask is that all there is? They devalue their accomplishments as a striving after wind. We can call this the progress principle: Pleasure comes more from making progress toward goals than from achieving them.: Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom, 2005
True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.: Joseph Addison (1672 - 1719), The Spectator, March 17, 1911
It is an aspect of happiness to suppose we all deserve it.: Joseph Joubert
Laughing is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one spot.: Josh Billings (1818 - 1885)
Your primary goal should be to have a great life. You can still have a good day, enjoy your child, and ultimately find happiness, whether your ex is acting like a jerk or a responsible person. Your happiness is not dependent upon someone else.: Julie A., M.A. Ross and Judy Corcoran, Joint Custody with a Jerk: Raising a Child with an Uncooperative Ex, 2011
It is pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed.: Kin Hubbard (1868 - 1930)
Seek not happiness too greedily, and be not fearful of happiness.: Lao-tzu (604 BC - 531 BC)
I've decided that the key to happiness is low expectations.: Laura Moncur (1969 - ), Merriton: Twelve Hours from San Francisco, 06-04-08
Joy is not a commodity to be hoarded and protected. It is like a muscle. It must be used daily to keep strong and vigorous. For all my hardships, I have been able to remain quite joyful, for my muscles are strong.: Laura Moncur (1969 - ), The Secret Heart of Charlotte Lucas, 2014
I've grown to realize the joy that comes from little victories is preferable to the fun that comes from ease and the pursuit of pleasure.: Lawana Blackwell, The Courtship of the Vicar's Daughter, 1998
I cannot believe that the inscrutable universe turns on an axis of suffering; surely the strange beauty of the world must somewhere rest on pure joy!: Louise Bogan
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.: Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)

	Next Page
Showing quotations 21 to 50 of 72 quotations in our collections
Previous Subject: Habits	Next Subject: Hate
Return to Subject List