Quotes and anectdotes from the wise to the foolish, and the courageous to the drunk

happiness

Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them.

Whether happiness may come or not, one should try and prepare one's self to do without it.

Thus happiness depends, as nature shows, less on exterior things than most suppose.

What would there be in a story of happiness? Only what prepares it, only what destroys it can be told.

The will of man is his happiness.

There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one - keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy.

Affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.

All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?

Fun I love, but too much fun is of all things the most loathsome. Mirth is better than fun, and happiness is better than mirth.

God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.

Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.

Happiness doesn't depend on any external conditions, it is governed by our mental attitude.

Happiness is a virtue, not its reward.

Happiness is different from pleasure. Happiness has something to do with struggling and enduring and accomplishing.

Happiness is inward, and not outward and so, it does not depend on what we have, but on what we are.

Happiness is itself a kind of gratitude.

Happiness is mental harmony unhappiness is mental inharmony.

Happiness? No, it's not there for me.

Happy he who learns to bear what he cannot change.

It is great happiness to be praised of them who are most praiseworthy.

Life everlasting in a state of happiness is the greatest desire of all men.

Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness.

Purring would seem to be, in her case, an automatic safety valve device for dealing with happiness overflow.

Remember happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have it depends solely on what you think.

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get.

The greatest happiness is to know the source of unhappiness.

The lesson I have thoroughly learnt, and wish to pass on to others, is to know the enduring happiness that the love of a garden gives.

The person who seeks all their applause from outside has their happiness in another's keeping .

90%, 100% are going there to hear the singing. The story is another thing. Nobody's interested in the story. Happiness is happiness.

A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.

Action may not always bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.

Be happy with what you have and are, be generous with both, and you won't have to hunt for happiness.

Character is the basis of happiness and happiness the sanction of character.

Derive happiness in oneself from a good day's work, from illuminating the fog that surrounds us.

Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.

Happiness is a by-product. You cannot pursue it by itself.

Happiness is a monstrosity! Punished are those who seek it.

Happiness is always a coincidence.

Happiness is the natural flower of duty.

Happiness is the only sanction of life where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.

Happiness isn't something you experience it's something you remember.

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.

One mustn't ask apple trees for oranges, France for sun, women for love, life for happiness.

That is happiness to be dissolved into something complete and great.

The happiness of every country depends upon the character of its people, rather than the form of its government.

The health of the people is really the foundation upon which all their happiness and all their powers as a state depend.

The only happiness a brave person ever troubles themselves in asking about, is happiness enough to get their work done.

There is no worse sorrow than remembering happiness in the day of sorrow.

There is no happiness for people at the expense of other people.

Those who seek happiness miss it, and those who discuss it, lack it.

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.

To have the sense of creative activity is the great happiness and the great proof of being alive.

Trifles make up the happiness or the misery of human life.

The slave may be happy, but happiness is not enough.

True religion... is giving and finding one's happiness by bringing happiness into the lives of others.

Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.

To describe happiness is to diminish it.

We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.

The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring. And that is not happiness.

When ambition ends, happiness begins.

You believe happiness to be derived from the place in which once you have been happy, but in truth it is centered in ourselves.

To be obliged to beg our daily happiness from others bespeaks a more lamentable poverty than that of him who begs his daily bread.

The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.

There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.

There is happiness in duty, although it may not seem so.

There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery.

A wise woman never yields by appointment. It should always be an unforeseen happiness.

Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.

All who joy would win must share it. Happiness was born a Twin.

Beauty is the promise of happiness.

Do not speak of your happiness to one less fortunate than yourself.

Goodness does not more certainly make men happy than happiness makes them good.

Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.

Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in strangers' gardens.

Happiness is an inside job.

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

Happiness is secured through virtue it is a good attained by man's own will.

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.

Happiness? A good cigar, a good meal, a good cigar and a good woman - or a bad woman it depends on how much happiness you can handle.

He who avoids complaint invites happiness.

Heaven takes care that no man secures happiness by crime.

I am about to be married, and am of course in all the misery of a man in pursuit of happiness.

I thank my God for graciously granting me the opportunity of learning that death is the key which unlocks the door to our true happiness.

Ladies of Fashion starve their happiness to feed their vanity, and their love to feed their pride.

Let us never know what old age is. Let us know the happiness time brings, not count the years.

Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable.

Love is trembling happiness.

Marriage is the most natural state of man, and... the state in which you will find solid happiness.

Money has never made man happy, nor will it, there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more of it one has the more one wants.

Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition.

No period of my life has been one of such unmixed happiness as the four years which have been spent within college walls.

Off with you! You're a happy fellow, for you'll give happiness and joy to many other people. There is nothing better or greater than that!

Power, after love, is the first source of happiness.

Seek happiness for its own sake, and you will not find it seek for duty, and happiness will follow as the shadow comes with the sunshine.

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.

The happiness of most people is not ruined by great catastrophes or fatal errors, but by the repetition of slowly destructive little things.

The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.

Although one may fail to find happiness in theatrical life, one never wishes to give it up after having once tasted its fruits.

An effort made for the happiness of others lifts above ourselves.

Beauty for some provides escape, who gain a happiness in eyeing the gorgeous buttocks of the ape or Autumn sunsets exquisitely dying.

Doing nothing is happiness for children and misery for old men.

Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it.

Every age has its happiness and troubles.

Every possession and every happiness is but lent by chance for an uncertain time, and may therefore be demanded back the next hour.

Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is right at their heels.

Happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.

Happiness is a byproduct of function, purpose, and conflict those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war.

Happiness is no laughing matter.

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.

Happiness is the sublime moment when you get out of your corsets at night.

Happiness lies first of all in health.

Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open.

Happiness, I do not know where to turn to discover you on earth, in the air or the sky yet I know you exist and are no futile dream.

Happiness, to some, elation Is, to others, mere stagnation.

Independence is happiness.

Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.

Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Satisfaction of one's curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life.

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

The greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.

The greatest of follies is to sacrifice health for any other kind of happiness.

The most worth-while thing is to try to put happiness into the lives of others.

The right to happiness is fundamental.

The said truth is that it is the greatest happiness of the greatest number that is the measure of right and wrong.

There is no such thing as the pursuit of happiness, but there is the discovery of joy.

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved loved for ourselves, or rather in spite of ourselves.

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.

To be perfectly happy it does not suffice to possess happiness, it is necessary to have deserved it.

The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.

There is no excellence without labor. One cannot dream oneself into either usefulness or happiness.

What's the use of happiness? It can't buy you money.

What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.

To suppose that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue in the people, is a chimerical idea.

A smile is happiness you'll find right under your nose.

A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin what else does a man need to be happy?

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.

Happiness comes from... some curious adjustment to life.

Happiness doesn't depend on how much you have to enjoy, but how much you enjoy what you have.

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.

Happiness, or misery, is in the mind. It is the mind that lives.

Happiness: a way station between too little and too much.

I'm an inherently happy person. It comes from the inside, which means you can achieve happiness under any circumstance.

Money can't buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you're being miserable.

One's happiness depends less on what he knows than on what he feels.

The action is best that secures the greatest happiness for the greatest number.

The only real happiness a ballplayer has is when he is playing a ball game and accomplishes something he didn't think he could do.

The People have a right to the Truth as they have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

A good way I know to find happiness, is to not bore a hole to fit the plug.

A sure way to lose happiness, I found, is to want it at the expense of everything else.

As to happiness in this life it is hardly compatible with that diminished respect which ever attends the relinquishing of labour.

But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.

Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable.

Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.

How easy to be amiable in the midst of happiness and success.

If you ever find happiness by hunting for it, you will find it, as the old woman did her lost spectacles, safe on her own nose all the time.

If you hope for happiness in the world, hope for it from God, and not from the world.

It is neither wealth nor splendor but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.

It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.

It is not God's will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy.

It is not the possession of truth, but the success which attends the seeking after it, that enriches the seeker and brings happiness to him.

It's afterwards you realize that the feeling of happiness you had with a man didn't necessarily prove that you loved him.

Lovers who love truly do not write down their happiness.

Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

Music is the refuge of souls ulcerated by happiness.

No man chooses evil because it is evil he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.

Objects we ardently pursue bring little happiness when gained most of our pleasures come from unexpected sources.

Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.

Scarcely one person in a thousand is capable of tasting the happiness of others.

See to do good, and you will find that happiness will run after you.

Suspicion is far more to be wrong than right more often unjust than just. It is no friend to virtue, and always an enemy to happiness.

The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government.

The greatest happiness is to transform one's feelings into action.

The office of government is not to confer happiness, but to give men the opportunity to work out happiness for themselves.

The secret of happiness is something to do.

There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.

We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other's happiness, not by each other's misery.

There are as many kinds of beauty as there are habitual ways of seeking happiness.

The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.

We find delight in the beauty and happiness of children that makes the heart too big for the body.

We exaggerate misfortune and happiness alike. We are never as bad off or as happy as we say we are.

Unquestionably, it is possible to do without happiness it is done involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths of mankind.

There is even a happiness - that makes the heart afraid.

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

Time the great destroyer of other men's happiness, only enlarges the patrimony of literature to its possessor.

A mother's happiness is like a beacon, lighting up the future but reflected also on the past in the guise of fond memories.

Anything you're good at contributes to happiness.

Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.

Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people's happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race.

Happiness does not consist in self-love.

Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalised.

Happiness is like a kiss. You must share it to enjoy it.

Happiness is mostly a by-product of doing what makes us feel fulfilled.

Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them.

I heard a definition once: Happiness is health and a short memory! I wish I'd invented it, because it is very true.

I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.

If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.

Know then this truth, enough for man to know virtue alone is happiness below.

Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.

Part of the happiness of life consists not in fighting battles, but in avoiding them. A masterly retreat is in itself a victory.

Success is getting and achieving what you want. Happiness is wanting and being content with what you get.

The first requisite for the happiness of the people is the abolition of religion.

The great thing in the world is not so much to seek happiness as to earn peace and self-respect.

A comfortable house is a great source of happiness. It ranks immediately after health and a good conscience.

But it is my happiness to be half Welsh, and that the better half.

Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.

Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.

Happiness can exist only in acceptance.

Happiness is ideal, it is the work of the imagination.

Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth, We are happy when we are growing.

Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us.

Happiness never lays its finger on its pulse.

Happiness seems made to be shared.

I can be forced to live without happiness, but I will never consent to live without honor.

I've learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances.

Imagination disposes of everything it creates beauty, justice, and happiness, which are everything in this world.

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.

Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.

No matter how dull, or how mean, or how wise a man is, he feels that happiness is his indisputable right.

No one has a right to consume happiness without producing it.

The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.

The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not our circumstances.

The happiness of the bee and the dolphin is to exist. For man it is to know that and to wonder at it.

The happiness of this life depends less on what befalls you than the way in which you take it.

The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us.

Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.

True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.

True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in the worth and choice.

True happiness... is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?

We never taste happiness in perfection, our most fortunate successes are mixed with sadness.

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.

There is something curiously boring about somebody else's happiness.

The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.

When we were together, I loved you deeply and you gave me so much happiness I can never repay you.

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.

To attain happiness in another world we need only to believe something, while to secure it in this world we must do something.

Wealth, like happiness, is never attained when sought after directly. It comes as a by-product of providing a useful service.

To be able to throw one's self away for the sake of a moment, to be able to sacrifice years for a woman's smile - that is happiness.

There is joy in work. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.

The word 'happiness' would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.

To buy happiness is to sell soul.

There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.

Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.

Every happiness is a hostage to fortune.

Fate often puts all the material for happiness and prosperity into a man's hands just to see how miserable he can make himself with them.

For Mythology is the handmaid of literature and literature is one of the best allies of virtue and promoters of happiness.

God's children and their happiness are my reasons for being.

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

Happiness in the present is only shattered by comparison with the past.

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

Happiness is a hard master, particularly other people's happiness.

Happiness is a how not a what. A talent, not an object.

Happiness is a matter of one's most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.

Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.

Happiness is spiritual, born of truth and love. It is unselfish therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it.

Happiness is the interval between periods of unhappiness.

Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible.

Holiness, not happiness, is the chief end of man.

In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it.

Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.

Life in common among people who love each other is the ideal of happiness.

Maturity - among other things, the unclouded happiness of the child at play, who takes it for granted that he is at one with his play-mates.

Self-pity comes so naturally to all of us. The most solid happiness can be shaken by the compassion of a fool.

The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.

The idea that happiness could have a share in beauty would be too much of a good thing.

The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.

The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.

An act of goodness is of itself an act of happiness. No reward coming after the event can compare with the sweet reward that went with it.

As a child is indulged or checked in its early follies, a ground is generally laid for the happiness or misery of the future man.

Friendship is a strong and habitual inclination in two persons to promote the good and happiness of one another.

Grief at the absence of a loved one is happiness compared to life with a person one hates.

Happiness is good health and a bad memory.

Happiness is having a scratch for every itch.

Happiness is rarely absent it is we that know not of its presence.

Happiness... consists in giving, and in serving others.

Many a happiness in life, as many a disaster, can be due to chance, but the peace within us can never be governed by chance.

One of the indictments of civilizations is that happiness and intelligence are so rarely found in the same person.

One test of the correctness of educational procedure is the happiness of the child.

Only man clogs his happiness with care, destroying what is with thoughts of what may be.

Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn't stop to enjoy it.

Remember that happiness is as contagious as gloom. It should be the first duty of those who are happy to let others know of their gladness.

Since every man desires happiness, it is evidently no small matter whether he conceives of happiness in terms of work or of enjoyment.

Some of us might find happiness if we quit struggling so desperately for it.

That action is best which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.

The most exciting happiness is the happiness generated by forces beyond your control.

We possess only the happiness we are able to understand.

There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness.

There is no happiness in having or in getting, but only in giving.

When what we are is what we want to be, that's happiness.

There is only one way to achieve happiness on this terrestrial ball, and that is to have either a clear conscience or none at all.

There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern.

To show a child what once delighted you, to find the child's delight added to your own - this is happiness.

Happiness and peace will come to earth only as the light of love and human compassion enter the souls of men.

Happiness is a direction, not a place.

Happiness is not a matter of events it depends upon the tides of the mind.

Happiness is obsolete: uneconomic.

I am deeply convinced that happiness does not exist in this world.

I ask the rights to pursue happiness by having a voice in that government to which I am accountable.

I come before you to declare that my sex are entitled to the inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

I would not give half a guinea to live under one form of government other than another. It is of no moment to the happiness of an individual.

If you want to be happy, be.

In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge.

It is pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness poverty and wealth have both failed.

It's pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness poverty and wealth have both failed.

Money may not buy happiness, but it can damn well give it!

My imagination can picture no fairer happiness than to continue living for art.

Nothing flatters a man as much as the happiness of his wife he is always proud of himself as the source of it.

One of the first conditions of happiness is that the link between Man and Nature shall not be broken.

Subordination tends greatly to human happiness. Were we all upon an equality, we should have no other enjoyment than mere animal pleasure.

That which makes people dissatisfied with their condition, is the chimerical idea they form of the happiness of others.

The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than fortune.

All you need for happiness is a good gun, a good horse, and a good wife.

Grief knits two hearts in closer bonds than happiness ever can and common sufferings are far stronger links than common joys.

Happiness is found in doing, not merely possessing.

Happiness is not a goal it is a by-product.

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness, which this world affords.

I am happy as happiness goes, for a woman who has so many memories and who lives the lonely life of an actress.

I've had a good life. Enough happiness, enough success.

It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.

No human being can really understand another, and no one can arrange another's happiness.

Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.

Some cause happiness wherever they go others whenever they go.

The groundwork of all happiness is health.

The happiness of society is the end of government.

The happiness of the creature consists in rejoicing in God, by which also God is magnified and exalted.

The independence of all political and other bother is a happiness.

The purpose of human life and the sense of happiness is to give the maximum what the man is able to give.

To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.

There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.