Quotes about happiness page 5
“Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.”
Ingrid Bergman (1915–1982) Film actress from Sweden
“To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.”
Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
As quoted in Think, Vol. 27 (1961), p. 32
Disputed
Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States
Sylvia Plath (1932–1963) American poet, novelist and short story writer
Source: The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
“Melancholy is the happiness of being sad.”
Victor Hugo (1802–1885) French poet, novelist, and dramatist
Joel Osteen (1963) American televangelist and author
Source: Your Best Life Now: 7 Steps to Living at Your Full Potential
Joe Hill (1879–1915) Swedish-American labor activist, songwriter, and member of the Industrial Workers of the World
Source: NOS4A2
“Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.”
Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian writer
Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship
Source: Where There is Light: Insight and Inspiration for Meeting Life's Challenges
“The secret of happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible.”
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Said in conversation with Mrs. Alan Wood; quoted in Alan Wood's Bertrand Russell, the Passionate Sceptic (Allen and Unwin, 1957), pp. 236-7
1950s
“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)
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Source: Sceptical Essays
Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
“Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.”
Joseph Campbell (1904–1987) American mythologist, writer and lecturer
Variant: Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.
“After all, a woman who doesn't love cats is never going to be make a man happy.”
Orhan Pamuk book The Museum of Innocence
Source: The Museum of Innocence
“Woman is not made to be the admiration of all, but the happiness of one.”
Edmund Burke (1729–1797) Anglo-Irish statesman
“To be of use to the world is the only way to be happy.”
Hans Christian Andersen (1805–1875) Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet
“Pardon me, my friends, I have ventured to paint my happiness on the wall.”
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Sec. 56
The Gay Science (1882)
Source: Masterpiece
“Every moment spent in unhappiness is a moment of happiness lost.”
Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer
Source: The Fall of Freddie the Leaf: A Story Of Life For All Ages
Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist
Attributed to Karl Marx, a composer with the same name.
Misattributed
“It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.”
Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore
Source: Kafka on the Shore (2002)
“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.
Caprice Crane (1970) American writer
Source: Stupid and Contagious
“I've found what makes children happy doesn't always prepare them to be courageous, engaged adults.”
Brené Brown (1965) US writer and professor
Source: Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead
“Happy endings are all I can do. I wouldn't know how to write anything else.”
Julia Quinn (1970) American novelist
Source: Romancing Mister Bridgerton
“Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.”
Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet
Title of poem (1942)
1940s
“Lesson no. 5: Sometimes happiness is not knowing the whole story”
François Lelord book Hector and the Search for Happiness
Variant: Sometimes happiness is not knowing the whole story.
Source: Hector and the Search for Happiness
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
When asked "Does philosophy contribute to happiness?" (SHM 76), as quoted in The quotable Bertrand Russell (1993), p. 149
Attributed from posthumous publications
“Dogmatism is the greatest of mental obstacles to human happiness.”
Bertrand Russell book The Conquest of Happiness
Source: The Conquest of Happiness
“Children aren't happy with nothing to ignore,
And that's what parents were created for.”
Ogden Nash (1902–1971) American poet
"The Parent"; paraphrased variants:
Children aren't happy without something to ignore, and that's what parents were created for.
Parents were invented to make children happy by giving them something to ignore.
Happy Days (1933)
“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)
Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary
7 May 1944
(1942 - 1944)
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl
“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.
“You have everything you need for complete peace and total happiness right now.”
Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer
“It’s not the good that die young, it’s the lucky.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
“Don't give up on your own happy-evers.”
Nora Roberts (1950) American romance writer
Source: Genuine Lies
Source: J'accuse! (1898)
Context: In making these accusations I am aware that I am making myself liable to articles 30 and 31 of the law of 29/7/1881 regarding the press, which make libel a punishable offence. I expose myself to that risk voluntarily.
As for the people I am accusing, I do not know them, I have never seen them, and I bear them neither ill will nor hatred. To me they are mere entities, agents of harm to society. The action I am taking is no more than a radical measure to hasten the explosion of truth and justice.
I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul. Let them dare, then, to bring me before a court of law and let the enquiry take place in broad daylight! I am waiting.
Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl
“Every man's happiness is his own responsibility.”
Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States
Aristotle (-384–-321 BC) Classical Greek philosopher, student of Plato and founder of Western philosophy
“Happy are those who hear their detractions and can put them to mending.”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet
“Money doesn't buy happiness, Gytha."
"I only wanted to rent it for a few weeks!”
Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author
Virginia Woolf book Orlando: A Biography
Source: Orlando: A Biography (1928), Ch. 3
Context: No passion is stronger in the breast of man than the desire to make others believe as he believes. Nothing so cuts at the root of his happiness and fills him with rage as the sense that another rates low what he prizes high. Whigs and Tories, Liberal party and Labour party — for what do they battle except their own prestige?
“Optimism is the one quality more associated with success and happiness than
any other.”
Brian Tracy (1944) American motivational speaker and writer
“The world of the happy is quite different from the world of the unhappy.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-British philosopher
6.43
Die Welt des Glücklichen ist eine andere als die des Unglücklichen
1920s, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)
“The journey is what brings us happiness not the destination.”
Dan Millman (1946) American self help writer
Source: Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives
“Create all the happiness you are able to create: remove all the misery you are able to remove.”
Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) British philosopher, jurist, and social reformer
Advise to a young girl (22 June 1830)
Context: Create all the happiness you are able to create: remove all the misery you are able to remove. Every day will allow you to add something to the pleasure of others, or to diminish something of their pains. And for every grain of enjoyment you sow in the bosom of another, you shall find a harvest in your own bosom; while every sorrow which you pluck out from the thoughts and feelings of a fellow creature shall be replaced by beautiful peace and joy in the sanctuary of your soul.
“Happiness is just how you feel when you don't feel miserable.”
John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter
Source: The Beatles Anthology (2000), p. 171
“A sensible woman can never be happy with a fool.”
George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States
“Silence is the perfectest herault of joy. I were but little happy if I could say how much.”
William Shakespeare book Much Ado About Nothing
Source: Much Ado About Nothing
“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