Lewis Carroll book Through the Looking-Glass
Source: Through the Looking-Glass, and What Alice Found There
Quotes about happiness page 6
“Live, and be happy, and make others so.”
Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley Frankenstein, or the Modern Prometheus
Justine Moritz in Ch. 8
Frankenstein (1818)
Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957–1996) American artist
“Human happiness and moral duty are inseparably connected.”
George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States
Michael J. Fox (1961) Canadian-American actor
Source: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future...: Twists and Turns and Lessons Learned
“Whatever anybody says, the most important thing in life is to be happy.”
Orhan Pamuk book The Museum of Innocence
Source: The Museum of Innocence
“Happiness is a very pretty thing to feel, but very dry to talk about.”
Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) British philosopher, jurist, and social reformer
Source: The Panopticon Writings
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
“I do not exist to impress the world. I exist to live my life in a way that will make me happy.”
Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer
Source: Illusions: The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
Eckhart Tolle (1948) German writer
Variant: 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. Unhappiness covers up your natural state of wellbeing and inner peace, the source of true happiness.
Source: A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
John Powell (1645–1713) American Jesuit priest
Source: Will the Real Me Please Stand Up?: 25 Guidelines for Good Communication
“Oh, God, the lovebirds,” Magnus said, pulling the pillow off his face. “I hate happy couples.”
Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire
Source: City of Heavenly Fire
Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States
1900s, A Square Deal (1903)
“The difference between misery and happiness depends on what we do with our attention.”
Sharon Salzberg (1952) American writer
Source: Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness
Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer
Source: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass
“How little a thing can make us happy when we feel that we have earned it.”
Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist
Source: The Diaries of Adam and Eve
“I never was someone who was at ease with happiness.”
Hugh Laurie (1959) British actor, comedian, writer, musician and director
“A sound mind in a sound body, is a short but full description of a happy state in this world.”
John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education
Sec. 1
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
“As a day well spent procures a happy sleep, so a life well employed procures a happy death.”
Leonardo Da Vinci (1452–1519) Italian Renaissance polymath
The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci (1883), XIX Philosophical Maxims. Morals. Polemics and Speculations.
“It's never too late to have a happy childhood.”
Tom Robbins book Still Life with Woodpecker
Source: Still Life with Woodpecker (1980)
“I was so happy every morning when I woke up that I was pissing smiley faces.”
Nikki Sixx (1958) American musician
Source: The Heroin Diaries: A Year In The Life Of A Shattered Rock Star
“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)
Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005)
Context: I never thought about things at all, everything changed, the distance that wedged itself between me and my happiness wasn't the world, it wasn't the bombs and burning buildings, it was me, my thinking, my cancer of never letting go, is ignorance bliss, I don't know, but it's so painful to think, and tell me, what did thinking ever do for me, to what great place did thinking ever bring me? I think and think and think, I've thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it. (p. 17)
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.
“Pleasure is the only thing one should live for, nothing ages like happiness.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
“No one asked you to be happy. Get to work.”
Colette (1873–1954) 1873-1954 French novelist: wrote Gigi
“When one gets quiet, then something wakes up inside one, something happy and quiet like the stars.”
W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright
“It wasn't about being happy or unhappy. I just didn't want to be me anymore.”
Sarah Dessen book What Happened to Goodbye
Source: What Happened to Goodbye
“To be happy--one must find one's bliss”
Gloria Vanderbilt (1924–2019) American businesswoman, fashion designer, socialite and writer
“The best way to make children good is to make them happy.”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
Variant: The best way to make children good is to make them happy.
“Happiness does not depend on outward circumstances, but on the state of the heart.”
J.C. Ryle (1816–1900) Anglican bishop
Source: A Call to Prayer
Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) Yogi, a guru of Kriya Yoga and founder of Self-Realization Fellowship
“Happiness does not come from without, it comes from within”
Helen Keller (1880–1968) American author and political activist
“Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed.”
Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist
Attributed to Russell in Prochnow's Speakers Handbook of Epigrams and Witticisms (1955), p. 132
Disputed
“Sometimes the key to happiness is just expecting a little bit less”
Jodi Picoult (1966) Author
Source: Between the Lines
Thomas Paine book Rights of Man
Part 2.7 Chapter V. Ways and means of improving the condition of Europe, interspersed with miscellaneous observations
Source: 1790s, Rights of Man, Part 2 (1792)
Context: I speak an open and disinterested language, dictated by no passion but that of humanity. To me, who have not only refused offers, because I thought them improper, but have declined rewards I might with reputation have accepted, it is no wonder that meanness and imposition appear disgustful. Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.
“The one who would be constant in happiness must frequently change.”
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
Source: Awareness: Conversations with the Masters
“I have found that the key to being happy — well, one of the keys, anyway — is to be easily amused”
Wil Wheaton (1972) American actor and writer
“When you depart from me sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.”
William Shakespeare book Much Ado About Nothing
Source: Much Ado About Nothing
“Oh great star! What would your happiness be if you did not have us to shine for?”
Friedrich Nietzsche book Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Source: Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Wilhelm Von Humboldt (1767–1835) German (Prussian) philosopher, government functionary, diplomat, and founder of the University of Berlin
Source: The Limits of State Action (1792), Ch. 16
“The palace is not safe, when the cottage is not happy.”
Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister
Speech to Wynyard Horticultural Show (1848), quoted in William Flavelle Monypenny and George Earle Buckle, The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield. Volume II. 1860–1881 (London: John Murray, 1929), p. 709.
1840s
Fabio Lanzoni (1961) Italian model, actor and author
Fabio: confessions of the original male supermodel https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2015/jul/15/fabio-confessions-original-male-supermodel (July 15, 2015)
Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist
In a letter to her aunt Mary Hill, from Worpswede, June 1899; as quoted in Paula Modersohn-Becker – The Letters and Journals, ed: Günther Busch & Lotten von Reinken; (transl, A. Wensinger & C. Hoey; Taplinger); Publishing Company, New York, 1983, p. 135
1899
Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America
2009, First Inaugural Address (January 2009)
“Employment is Nature's physician, and is essential to human happiness.”
Galén (129–216) Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher
Latter day attributions
Source: Day's Collacon: an Encyclopaedia of Prose Quotations, (1884), p. 223.
Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer
http://www.popmonk.com/actors/leonardo-dicaprio/quotes-leonardo-dicaprio.htm
John Marks Templeton (1912–2008) stock investor, businessman and philanthropist
The Quotable Sir John
Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet
Ibid., p. 328
The Book of Disquiet
Original: Não há felicidade senão com conhecimento. Mas o conhecimento da felicidade é infeliz; porque conhecer-se feliz é conhecer-se passando pela felicidade, e tendo, logo já, que deixá-la atrás. Saber é matar, na felicidade como em tudo. Não saber, porém, é não existir.
“As long as the women I’m romancing are happy with me doing it then I’ll carry on.”
Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality
From interview with David Light
Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer
(Hiawatha seemed to think so,
Seemed to think it not unlikely.)</p>
Hiawatha's Photographing
Rhyme? and Reason? (1883)
Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright
No. 15 (March 17, 1711).
The Spectator (1711–1714)
Dean Koontz book Lightning
Part I, Chapter 1.2, the mysterious stranger's words to Bob Shane
Lightning (1988)
George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States
Sometimes rendered : "They (the Jews) work more effectively against us, than the enemy's armies. They are a hundred times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we are engaged in... It is much to be lamented that each state, long ago, has not hunted them down as pest to society and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America." <br class="br">Both of these are doctored statements that have been widely disseminated as genuine on many anti-semitic websites; They are distortions derived from a statement that was attributed to Washington in Maxims of George Washington about currency speculators during the Revolutionary war, not about Jews: "This tribe of black gentry work more effectually against us, than the enemy's arms. They are a hundred times more dangerous to our liberties, and the great cause we are engaged in. It is much to be lamented that each State, long ere this, has not hunted them down as pests to society, and the greatest enemies we have to the happiness of America." More information is available at Snopes. com: "To Bigotry, No Sanction" http://www.snopes.com/quotes/thejews.htm <br class="br">This quotation is a classic anti-semitic hoax, evidently begun during or just before World War Two by American Nazi sympathizers, and since then has been repeated, for example, in foreign propaganda directed at Americans. In fact it is knitted from two separate letters by Washington, in reverse chronology, neither of them mentioning Jews. The first part of this forgery are taken from Washington's letter to Edmund Pendleton, Nov. 1, 1779 {and the original can be found in the Library of Congress's online service at http://memory.loc.gov/mss/mgw/mgw3h/001/378378.jpg }. I have tried to reproduce Washington's spelling and punctuation exactly. In that letter Washington complains about black marketeers and others undermining the purchasing power of colonial currency:<br>: … but I am under no apprehension of a capital injury from ay other source than that of the continual depreciation of our Money. This indeed is truly alarming, and of so serious a nature that every other effort is in vain unless something can be done to restore its credit. .... Where this has been the policy (in Connecticut for instance) the prices of every article have fallen and the money consequently is in demand; but in the other States you can scarce get a single thing for it, and yet it is with-held from the public by speculators, while every thing that can be useful to the public is engrossed by this tribe of black gentry, who work more effectually against us that the enemys Arms; and are a hundd. times more dangerous to our liberties and the great cause we are engaged in.<br>The second part of this fabricated quote is from Washington's letter to Joseph Reed, Dec. 12, 1778 {and can be found at the Library of Congress using the same URL but ending in /193192.jpg}, which again condemns war profiteers (the parenthetical list in the quotation is Washington's own words which he put there in parentheses):<br>: It gives me very sincere pleasure to find that there is likely to be a coalition … so well disposed to second your endeavours in bringing those murderers of our cause (the monopolizers, forestallers, and engrossers) to condign punishment. It is much to be lamented that each State long ere this has not hunted them down as the pests of society, and the greatest Enemys we have to the happiness of America. I would to God that one of the most attrocious of each State was hung in Gibbets upons a gallows five times as high as the one prepared by Haman. No punishment in my opinion is too great for the Man who can build his greatness upon his Country's ruin. <br class="br">Misattributed, Spurious attributions
“All will be lost apart from happiness.”
Jacques Prevért (1900–1977) French poet, screenwriter
Attributed