Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
Gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.
The charming aspect of Christmas is the fact that it expresses good will in a cheerful, happy, benevolent, non-sacrificial way. One says: “Merry Christmas”-not “Weep and Repent.” And the good will is expressed in a material, earthly form-by giving presents to one's friends, or by sending them cards in token of remembrance . . . .
Life is to be fortified by many friendships. To love and to be loved is the greatest happiness of existence.
Action expresses priorities.
There is nothing you can't achieve if you help other people get what they want
Happiness, it seems to me, consists of two things: first, in being where you belong, and second -- and best -- in comfortably going through everyday life, that is, having had a good night's sleep and not being hurt by new shoes.
A good laugh is sunshine in the house.
Strange is our situation here on Earth. Each of us comes for a short visit, not knowing why, yet sometimes seeming to divine a purpose. From the standpoint of daily life, however, there is one thing we do know: that man is here for the sake of other men - above all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness depends.
Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.
Happiness does not consist in things themselves but in the relish we have of them; and a man has attained it when he enjoys what he loves and desires himself, and not what other people think lovely and desirable.
Happiness refers to feelings, virtue refers to actions, and those actions can cause those feelings. But not necessarily and not exclusively.
The key ingredient to any kind of happiness or success is to never give less than your best
Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.
For most people to be happy, there has to be a person, place, or thing involved in their happiness. In true happiness, there are no things involved. It's a natural state. You will abide in that state forever.
Whatever you put aside to seek happiness, remember where you put it.
The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.
Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.
I can say that I never knew what joy was like until I gave up pursuing happiness, or cared to live until I chose to die. For these two discoveries I am beholden to Jesus.
It's a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.
Since every man is obliged to promote happiness and virtue, he should be careful not to mislead unwary minds, by appearing to set too high a value upon things by which no real excellence is conferred.
The process of finding happiness within one's own Self may be difficult and slow but it cannot be found anywhere else.
The solution of present-day problems lie in the re-establishment of a harmonious relationship between man and nature. To keep this relationship permanent we will have to digest the definition of real development: development is synonymous with culture. When we sublimate nature in a way that we achieve peace, happiness, prosperity and, ultimately, fulfilment along with satisfying our basic needs, we march towards culture.
To be able to share in another's joy, that is the secret of happiness.
Nothing,' wrote Tolstoy, 'can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.
Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering 'it will be happier'.
The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest.
Mama says that, happiness is from magic rays of sunshine that come down when you're feeling blue.
It's not about facts, it's about feelings. It's about remembering feelings and happiness. A definition of art is that it makes concrete our most subtle emotions. I think the highest form of art is music. It's the most abstract of all art expression.
Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd discovery. It happens as well that the felling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well," says Oedipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.
We needs must love the highest when we see it.
We cannot make bargains for blisses, / Nor catch them like fishes in nets; / And sometimes the thing our life misses, / Helps more than the thing which it gets.
Laughter, and the broader category of humor, are key elements in helping us go on with our life after a loss.
Happiness has not to all the same name: to Youth she is known as the Future; Age knows her as the Dream.
People are not on a truth quest; they are on a happiness quest. They will continue to attend your church - even if they don't share your beliefs - as long as they find the content engaging and helpful.
The first person who ever told me that happiness was work was this manic-depressive artist I knew when I was in my 20s. I was like, 'What are you talking about? Happiness just happens. That's even the root of that word. How could it be work?
The happy man . . . will be always or at least most often employed in doing and contemplating the things that are in conformity with virtue. And he will bear changes of fortunes most nobly, and with perfect propriety in every way.
A thing chosen always as an end and never as a means we call absolutely final. Now happiness above all else appears to be absolutely final in this sense, since we always choose it for its own sake and never as a means to something else.
Happiness is an expression of the soul in considered actions.
I don't know why my smile has become a signature pose. I think it's a nice change. I think people want to see happiness, so a smile is what can bring that. I didn't make it my trademark on purpose.
The safest way of not being very miserable is not to expect to be very happy.
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.
Developing a cheerful disposition can permit an atmosphere wherein one's spirit can be nurtured and encouraged to blossom and bear fruit. Being pessimistic and negative about our experiences will not enhance the quality of our lives. A determination to be of good cheer can help us and those around us to enjoy life more fully.
Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor.
Who is strong? He that can conquer his bad habits.
Power means happiness; power means hard work and sacrifice.
To find recreation in amusement is not happiness.
Almost all unhappiness in life comes from the tendency to blame someone else.
I am an eternal optimist. Being happy is a choice. And you can make that choice every day, if you want to.
Wish for the happiness of your enemies, for if they are happy, they are your enemy no more.
When we are such as He can love without impediment, we shall in fact be happy.
The paths by which people journey toward happiness lie in part through the world about them and in part through the experience of their own soul.
Relationships are complicated, but happiness in a relationship isn't: It's just wanting exactly what you have. Wanting something else is dispiriting.
Happiness is the ability to recognize it.
The richness of life lies in memories we have forgotten.
The present time has one advantage over every other -- it is our own.
What is earthly happiness? that phantom of which we hear so much, and see so little; whose promises are constantly given and constantly broken, but as constantly believed; that cheats us with the sound instead of the substance, and with the blossom instead of the fruit. Like Juno, she is a goddess in pursuit, but a cloud in possession.
Ambition makes the same mistake concerning power that avarice makes concerning wealth. She begins by accumulating power as a means to happiness, and she finishes by continuing to accumulate it as an end.
Much too oft we make life gloomy-- When happy we might be, If we gathered more of sunshine, And not dark shadows see.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pound ought and six, result misery.
Did it ever strike you on such a morning as this that drowning would be happiness and peace?
Many men owe the grandeur of their lives to their tremendous difficulties.
Happiness depends on what you can give, not on what you can get.
Compassion automatically invites you to relate with people because you no longer regard people as a drain on your energy.
Happiness comes from our response to the conditions of our lives.
Jackie Gleason said that comedy is the most exacting form of dramatic art, because it has an instant critic: laughter.
An institution or reform movement that is not selfish, must originate in the recognition of some evil that is adding to the sum of human suffering, or diminishing the sum of happiness.
Money can't buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you're being miserable.
Knowing something is not as good as liking it. Liking something is not as good as rejoicing in it.
Dustfinger still clearly remembered the feeling of being in love for the first time. How vulnerable his heart had suddenly been! Such a trembling, quivering thing, happy and miserably unhappy at once.
I believe compassion to be one of the few things we can practice that will bring immediate and long-term happiness to our lives. I'm not talking about the short-term gratification of pleasures like sex, drugs or gambling (though I'm not knocking them), but something that will bring true and lasting happiness. The kind that sticks.
When I meet people from other cultures I know that they too want happiness and do not want suffering, this allows me to see them as brothers and sisters.
One great question underlies our experience, whether we think about it or not: what is the purpose of life? From the moment of birth every human being wants happiness and does not want suffering. Neither social conditioning nor education nor ideology affects this. >From the very core of our being, we simply desire contentment. Therefore, it is important to discover what will bring about the greatest degree of happiness.
The key to human happiness lies within our own state of mind, and so too do the primary obstacles to that happiness.
You're happy when you help others become happy.
If you can't sleep, then get up and do something instead of lying there worrying. It's the worry that gets you, not the lack of sleep.
Would you sell both your eyes for a million dollars...or your two legs...or your hands...or your hearing? Add up what you do have, and you'll find you won't sell them for all the gold in the world. The best things in life are yours, if you can appreciate them.
The expression a woman wears on her face is far more important than the clothes she wears on her back.
The secret of happiness is: Find something more important than you are and dedicate your life to it.
The concept of happiness has to be reorganised.
A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed or duty violated is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us.
How you feel right now is about equally genetic and circumstantial, but how you will feel on average over the next ten years is fully 80 percent because of your genes.
Thinking happy thoughts literally creates a positive chemical change in the brain which stimulates both positive physical and psychological benefits.
Research has shown that the best way to be happy is to make each day happy.
Nothing is more important than reconnecting with your bliss. Nothing is as rich. Nothing is more real.
Being joyful is our natural state of being.
If you equate happiness with success, you will never achieve the amount of success necessary to make you happy.
It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.
I think the secret to happiness is having a Teflon soul. Whatever comes your way, you either let it slide or you cook with it.
One of the things I keep learning is that the secret of being happy is doing things for other people.
Happiness! Can any human being undertake to define it for another?
Happiness is not an end - it is only a means, and adjunct, a consequence.
Find out who you are and do it on purpose.
If you're an adult and still think material wealth leads to happiness, might I suggest not being a moron.
I'm pretty happy for someone who struggles with happiness.
Happiness is a carnival game. It's never as easy as it looks, but the dumb ones always seem to be walking around with a big stuffed animal.
So I started chanting when I was nineteen, which was about twelve years ago, and it really had a huge impact on my outlook, happiness, and general creativity.
It is in the expectations of happiness that much of happiness itself is found. And it takes courage to expect happiness.
All cravings are the mind seeking salvation or fulfillment in external things and in the future as a substitute for the joy of Being. As long as I am my mind, I am those cravings, those needs, wants, attachments, and aversions, and apart from them there is no "I" except as a mere possibility, an unfulfilled potential, a seed that has not yet sprouted.
Don't seek happiness. If you seek it, you won't find it, because seeking is the antithesis of happiness. Happiness is ever elusive, but freedom from unhappiness is attainable now, by facing what is rather than making up stories about it.
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.
