Happy quotes page 2
“A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician
“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
A version of this quote was published anonymously in an insurance magazine in 1908 https://books.google.com/books?id=S2JJAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA375&dq=%22others+whenever+they+go%22&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwja94i3iaXLAhUY7mMKHW5fAGIQ6AEIJjAC#v=onepage&q=%22others%20whenever%20they%20go%22&f=false. The earliest attribution to Wilde was in 1955 https://www.google.com/search?tbm=bks&hl=en&q=%22others+whenever+they+go%22+wilde#hl=en&tbs=cdr:1%2Ccd_min:1900%2Ccd_max:1999&tbm=bks&q=%22others+whenever+they+go+oscar+wilde+jive%22; no source in Wilde's writings has been found. <br class="br">Disputed
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
As quoted in Sheroes: Bold, Brash, and Absolutely Unabashed Superwomen from Susan B. Anthony to Xena (1998) by Varla Ventura, p. 150
“Life is to be lived, not controlled.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
“Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time; serenity, that nothing is.”
Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist
"Emotions", p. 36.
The Second Sin (1973)
“True happiness
Consists not in the multitude of friends,
But in the worth and choice.”
Cynthia's Revels (1600), Act III, scene ii
“Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.”
Ingrid Bergman (1915–1982) Film actress from Sweden
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
As quoted in Think, Vol. 27 (1961), p. 32
Disputed
“Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer
“The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.”
William Saroyan (1908–1981) American writer
Source: My Heart's in the Highlands (1939)
“Woman is not made to be the admiration of all, but the happiness of one.”
Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman
“There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.”
Freya Stark (1893–1993) British explorer and writer
The Journey's Echo (1963), p. 161 https://books.google.com/books?id=xlFbAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=%22There+can+be+no+happiness+if+the+things+we+believe+in+are+different+from+the+things+we+do.%22.
“Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.”
Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet
Title of poem (1942)
1940s
Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer
Illusions : The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah (1977)
Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.”
Bertrand Russell book The Conquest of Happiness
Source: 1930s, The Conquest of Happiness (1930)
“Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Often misquoted as: "I have found that most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." or "People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be."
This quote is not found in the various Lincoln sources which can be searched online (e.g. Gutenberg). Niether does Lincoln appear more generally to use the phrase "making up {one's} mind". The saying was first quoted, ascribed to Lincoln but with no source given, in 1914 by Frank Crane and several times subsequently by him in altered versions. It was later quoted in How to Get What You Want (1917) by Orison Swett Marden (Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1917), 74, again without source. Alternative versions quoted are: "I have found that most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be" and "People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be."
Source: https://quoteinvestigator.com/2012/10/20/happy-minds/#:~:text=%E2%80%9CPeople%20are%20about%20as%20happy,up%20their%20minds%20to%20be.%E2%80%9D&text=Remember%20Lincoln's%20saying%20that%20%E2%80%9Cfolks,up%20their%20minds%20to%20be.%E2%80%9D
Curiously in later books Crane, e.g. Four Minute Essays, 1919, Adventures in Common Sense, 1920, "21", 1930, Crane mentions other routes to happiness and does not again use this quote.
Marden used a great many quotes in his writings, without giving sources. Whilst sources for many of the quotes can be found, this is not true for all. For instance he mentions another story in which Lincoln says "Madam, you have not a peg to hang your case on"; this also does not seem to found in Lincoln sources.
Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971) American protestant theologian
One of the most commonly quoted forms.
The Serenity Prayer (c. 1942)
Variant: Lord, grant me the strength to accept the things I cannot change,
he courage to change the things I can,
and the wisdom to know the difference.
“Happiness is the feeling that power increases - that resistance is being overcome.”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Source: The Anti-Christ
“Life is an adventure in forgiveness.”
Norman Cousins (1915–1990) American journalist
15 April 1978.
Saturday Review
“Life is the dancer and you are the dance.”
Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer
A New Earth (2005)
Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
“There are no problems, only solutions.”
John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter
"Watching the Wheels"
Lyrics, Double Fantasy (1980)
“To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
1930s, The Conquest of Happiness (1930)
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher
Variant: Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
“Every strike brings me closer to the next home run.”
Babe Ruth (1895–1948) American baseball player
As quoted in Weird Ideas That Work : 11 1/2 practices for promoting, managing, and sustaining innovation (2001) by Robert I. Sutton, p. 95
“Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.”
John Stuart Mill book Autobiography
Source: Autobiography (1873), Ch. 5: A Crisis in My Mental History (p. 100)
“Happiness is a function of accepting what is.”
Werner Erhard (1935) Critical Thinker and Author
[Alan Aldridge, 2007, Religion in the Contemporary World: A Sociological Introduction, Cambridge, England, Polity, 53, 0745634044]
Attributed
“The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
From Marthe Troly-Curtin's Phrynette Married (1912). Misattributed to Bertrand Russell due to an ambiguous entry in Laurence J. Peter's Peter’s Quotations: Ideas for Our Time (1977) http://quoteinvestigator.com/2010/06/11/time-you-enjoy/ <br class="br">Misattributed
“…if it is art, it is not for all, and if it is for all, it is not art.”
Arnold Schoenberg book Style and Idea
from New Music, Outmoded Music, Style and Idea (1946); as quoted in Style and Idea (1985), p. 124
1940s
“Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.”
Hosea Ballou (1771–1852) American Universalist minister (1771–1852)
Manuscript, Sermons; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 350.
José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader
Martí : Thoughts/Pensamientos (1994)
Context: Happiness exists on earth, and it is won through prudent exercise of reason, knowledge of the harmony of the universe, and constant practice of generosity. He who seeks it elsewhere will not find it for, having drunk from all the glasses of life, he will find satisfaction only in those.
“The secret of happiness is freedom and the secret of freedom is courage.”
Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War
Book II, 2.43
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book II
“People are unreasonable, illogical and self-centered. Love them anyway!”
Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin
“Nothing is impossible, the word itself says: «I'm possible!»”
Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993) British actress
Laozi (-604) semi-legendary Chinese figure, attributed to the 6th century, regarded as the author of the Tao Te Ching and fou…
Source: yt
“I find hope in the darkest of days, and focus in the brightest. I do not judge the universe.”
Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet
“When the world is so complicated, the simple gift of friendship is within all of our hands.”
Maria Shriver (1955) journalist and author from the United States
Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People
Variant: It isn't what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.
Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People
“Happiness is an accident of nature, a beautiful and flawless aberration.”
Pat Conroy The Lords of Discipline
Source: The Lords of Discipline
“There are two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations.”
Jodi Picoult book Nineteen Minutes
Variant: There were two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations
Source: Nineteen Minutes
“I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.”
Jane Austen book Pride and Prejudice
Persuasion (1817)
Works, Persuasion
Source: Pride and Prejudice
Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist
Variant: Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and i learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.
“It was the kind of kiss that made
me know that I was never so happy in my whole life.”
Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
“The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.”
Chuck Palahniuk book Invisible Monsters
Source: Invisible Monsters
Dan Millman book Way of the Peaceful Warrior
Source: Way of the Peaceful Warrior
Logan Pearsall Smith (1865–1946) British American-born writer
Life and Human Nature.
Afterthoughts (1931)
“Life is a dream for the wise, a game for the fool, a comedy for the rich, a tragedy for the poor.”
Sholem Aleichem (1859–1916) Yiddish author and playwright
Dale Carnegie How to Win Friends and Influence People
Source: How to Win Friends and Influence People
“Letting go gives us freedom and freedom is the only condition for happiness”
Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist
“The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.”
Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist
“People rarely succeed unless they have fun in what they are doing.”
Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer
Dale Carnegie, quoted in Permission to Play : Taking Time to Renew Your Smile (2003) by Jill Murphy Long, p. 69
“Life is a journey, not a destination.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
“You can be right or you can be happy.”
Gerald G. Jampolsky (1925) American writer and psychiatrist
Source: Love Is Letting Go of Fear
“Maybe that's what life is… a wink of the eye and winking stars.”
Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer
Letter to Alan Harrington (23 April 1949) published in Kerouac: Selected Letters: Volume 1 1940-1956 (1996)
Source: Selected Letters, 1940-1956
“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”
Thornton Wilder (1897–1975) American playwright and novelist
“Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet
Hyperion http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5436, Bk. III, Ch. IV (1839). <br class="br">Variant: Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad. <br class="br">Context: "Ah! this beautiful world!" said Flemming, with a smile. "Indeed, I know not what to think of it. Sometimes it is all gladness and sunshine, and Heaven itself lies not far off. And then it changes suddenly; and is dark and sorrowful, and clouds shut out the sky. In the lives of the saddest of us, there are bright days like this, when we feel as if we could take the great world in our arms and kiss it. Then come the gloomy hours, when the fire will neither burn on our hearths nor in our hearts; and all without and within is dismal, cold, and dark. Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad."