Quotes about happiness
page 18

“If the Angels won, the entire Earth would be nothing but one giant Christmas frickin' morning, a choking wave of happiness and warmth and caring and sharing taking over everything.”

Jessica Bird book Covet

Source: Covet

Happiness, Angels, Christmas

“Happiness was like a green vine spreading through her, stretching fine tendrils, bearing flowers through her flesh.”

Patricia Highsmith book The Price of Salt

Source: The Price of Salt

Happiness, Flowers

“The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet

Happiness

“Be Yourself. Life is precious as it is. All the elements for your happiness are already here. There is no need to run, strive, search, or struggle. Just Be.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Life, Happiness, Search

“One is happy as a result of one's own efforts, once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness — simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self denial to a point, love of work, and, above all, a clear conscience.”

George Sand (1804–1876) French novelist and memoirist; pseudonym of Lucile Aurore Dupin

On est heureux par soi-même quand on sait s'y prendre, avoir des goûts simples, un certain courage, une certaine abnégation, l'amour du travail et avant tout une bonne conscience.
Letter to Charles Poney, (16 November 1866), published in Georges Lubin (ed.) Correspondance (Paris: Garnier Freres, 1964-95) vol. 20, p. 188; André Maurois (trans. Gerard Hopkins) Lélia: The Life of George Sand (New York: Harper, 1954) p. 418
Variant: One is happy once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness: simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self denial to a point, love of work, and above all, a clear conscience.
Source: Correspondance, 1812-1876, Volume 5

Love, Happiness, Courage, Effort

“What is your idea of earthly happiness? To be vindicated in my own lifetime.”

Christopher Hitchens (1949–2011) British American author and journalist

Source: Hitch-22: A Memoir

Happiness, Idea

“What are you reading?" Owen asks.
"Charlotte's Web," Liz says. "It's really sad. One of the main characters just died."
"You ought to read the book from end to beginning," Owen jokes. "That way, no one dies, and it's always a happy ending.”

Gabrielle Zevin book Elsewhere

Source: Elsewhere

Happiness, Books, Sadness, Way

“Dear Jack,

I love you, too.

And I think I know the secret to a long and happy marriage— just choose someone you can't live without.

For me, that would be you.

So if you insist on being traditional…

Yes.

—Ella”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Smooth Talking Stranger

Love, Marriage, Happiness, Secret

“Happy moments, PRAISE GOD
Difficult moments, SEEK GOD
Quiet moments, WORSHIP GOD
Painful moments, TRUST GOD
Every moment, THANK GOD”

Rick Warren (1954) Christian religious leader

God, Pain, Happiness

“All happy people are grateful. Ungrateful people cannot be happy. We tend to think that being unhappy leads people to complain, but it’s truer to say that complaining leads to people becoming unhappy.”

Dennis Prager (1948) American writer, speaker, radio and TV commentator, theologian

Happiness, People, Thinking

“But I think she would have been happy with Fabrice,' I said. 'He was the great love of her life, you know.'
Oh, dulling,' said my mother, sadly. 'One always thinks that. Every, every time.”

Nancy Mitford (1904–1973) British writer

Source: The Pursuit of Love & Love in a Cold Climate

Love, Life, Happiness, Thinking

“The basic mistake people make is to think that happiness is the goal!”

François Lelord book Hector and the Search for Happiness

Source: Hector and the Search for Happiness

Happiness, People, Thinking

“i held it up, and tried to channel happy dog thoughts toward Cerberus- Alpo commercials, cute little puppies, fire hydrants.”

Rick Riordan book The Lightning Thief

Source: The Lightning Thief

Happiness, Dogs

“Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government…”

Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826) 3rd President of the United States of America

1770s, Declaration of Independence (1776)
Context: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Life, Happiness, People

“There is no fundamental difference between man and animals in their ability to feel pleasure and pain, happiness, and misery.”

Charles Darwin (1809–1882) British naturalist, author of "On the origin of species, by means of natural selection"

Pain, Happiness, Pleasure, Feeling

“After all the world is indeed beautiful and if we were any other creature than man we might be continuously happy in it.”

Sebastian Barry book The Secret Scripture

Source: The Secret Scripture

Happiness, World, Beauty

“Happy or Unhappy, families are all mysterious.”

Gloria Steinem (1934) American feminist and journalist

Happiness, Family

“Being happy or unhappy - is that really the most important thing? Knowing the truth would be a different kind of happiness - a more satisfying kind, I think, even if it turned out to be a sad kind.”

Ira Levin book This Perfect Day

Source: This Perfect Day

Happiness, Truth, Sadness, Thinking

“No, my son, do not aspire for wealth and labor not only to be rich. Strive instead for happiness, to be loved and to love, and most important to acquire peace of mind and serenity.”

Og Mandino book The Greatest Salesman in the World

Source: The Greatest Salesman in the World

Love, Happiness, Peace, Wealth

“Why are we smiling when we loathe each other?’ ‘Why do we sell happiness to the readers of this magazine when we are profoundly unhappy ourselves, the slaves of fame?”

Paulo Coelho book The Zahir

Source: The Zahir

Happiness, Smile

“It isn’t only art that is incompatible with happiness, it’s also science. Science is dangerous, we have to keep it most carefully chained and muzzled.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World

Happiness, Art, Science

“People who say that money can't buy happiness just don't know where to shop.”

Kathy Lette (1958) Australian author

Money, Happiness, People, Funny

“Into my heart an air that kills
From yon far country blows:
What are those blue remembered hills,
What spires, what farms are those?

That is the land of lost content,
I see it shining plain,
The happy highways where I went
And cannot come again.”

A.E. Housman book A Shropshire Lad

No. 40.
Source: A Shropshire Lad (1896)

Happiness, Heart, Country

“All the suffering there is in this world arises from wishing our self to be happy. All the happiness there is in this world arises from wishing others to be happy.”

Šantidéva (685–763) 8th-century Indian Buddhist monk and scholar

Happiness, World, Suffering

“Beyond the picket fences and the oil wells, the happy endings, and the fairy tales, is the reality of shattered lives and broken dreams. We carry on.”

Tim McGraw (1967) American country singer

Happiness, Dreams, Reality

“How could you be heartbroken and happy at the same time?”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Happiness, Time

“I always thought I was happy being the dark star to your supernova.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire

Source: City of Heavenly Fire

Happiness, Star

“Here is my experience. Stay away from the ones you love too much. Those are the ones who will kill you. What you want to live and be happy in the world is a woman who has her own life and lets you have yours.”

Donna Tartt book The Goldfinch

Source: The Goldfinch

Love, Life, Happiness, World

“Sometimes one has suffered enough to have the right to never say: I am too happy.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Black Tulip

Source: The Black Tulip

Happiness, Suffering

“Happiness is not a feeling, it is a choice. To be happy, one must choose to be happy, not respond to a circumstance that now controls your happiness.”

Joyce Meyer (1943) American author and speaker

Happiness, Feeling

“Why'd you want to sing about sad things?" Candy had asked him.
"Because any fool can be happy," he'd said to her.
"It takes a man with real heart"
—he'd made a fist and laid it against his chest—
"to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep.”

Clive Barker Days of Magic, Nights of War

Source: Days of Magic, Nights of War

Happiness, Sadness, Beauty, Fools

“The fact that no one knows where I am is my only happiness. If only I could prolong this forever! It would be far more just than death. I am empty and futile in every corner of my being, even in my unhappiness.”

Franz Kafka book Letters to Felice

Source: Letters to Felice‎

Death, Happiness

“Happiness consists in frequent repetition of pleasure”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Happiness, Pleasure, Happy

“I'm not interested in creating a book that is read once and then placed on the shelf and forgotten. I am very happy when people have worn out my books, or that they're held together by Scotch tape.”

Richard Scarry (1919–1994) author and illustrator from the United States

Happiness, People, Books, Reading

“Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.”

Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899) Union United States Army officer

Happiness, Suffering

“If we are destined to be together again, be happy to know you’ll be getting the real me, not some blubbering half me.”

Jerry Spinelli book Love, Stargirl

Source: Love, Stargirl

Happiness

“Happiness is an imaginary condition, formerly attributed by the living to the dead, now usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

"Emotions", p. 36.
The Second Sin (1973)

Happiness, Children, Dead, Funny

“If you smile, even if you’re feeling bad, the action of the muscles will trick your brain into thinking you’re happy”

Candace Bushnell book The Carrie Diaries

Source: The Carrie Diaries

Happiness, Smile, Feeling, Thinking

“I was just thinking if the sex with you is one-tenth as fun as arguing with you. I'll be one happy bastard."

"You'll never find out. You--------"

He kissed me.

~ Jack Travis & Ella Varner”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Smooth Talking Stranger

Happiness, Sex, Kiss, Thinking

“My bones are brittle, my heart weak and erratic, my esophagus and stomach riddled with ulcers, my reproductive system shot, my immune system useless… I'm not going to have a happy ending.”

Marya Hornbacher book Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Source: Wasted: A Memoir of Anorexia and Bulimia

Happiness, Heart

“If only we'd stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time.”

Edith Wharton (1862–1937) American novelist, short story writer, designer

Happiness, Time

“Rain falls on everyone, lightning strikes some. What cannot be changed is best forgotten. God made the world, and He saw that it was good. Not fair. Not happy. Not perfect. Good.”

Mary Doria Russell Children of God

Source: Children of God

God, Happiness, World, Change

“While experiencing happiness, we have difficulty in being conscious of it. Only when the happiness is past and we look back on it we do suddenly realize — sometimes with astonishment — how happy we had been.”

Nikos Kazantzakis book Zorba the Greek

Source: Zorba the Greek (1946), Ch. 6

Happiness, Past

“The happy and powerful do not go into exile, and there are no surer guarantees of equality among men than poverty and misfortune.”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Source: Democracy in America

Men, Happiness

“Each moment is a chance for us to make peace with the world, to make peace possible for the world, to make happiness possible for the world.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Source: Teachings on Love

Happiness, World, Peace, Chance

“My happiness has to come from within myself or it is too fragile a thing to be of any use to me and too much of a burden to benefit any of my loved ones.”

Mary Balogh (1944) Welsh-Canadian novelist

Source: First Comes Marriage

Love, Happiness

“Maybe there was no happily ever after […] but there was happiness sometimes and she had it now, doing what she knew she was born for.”

Jeanne DuPrau The Diamond of Darkhold

Source: The Diamond of Darkhold

Happiness

“Catherine […] enjoyed her usual happiness with Henry Tilney, listening with sparkling eyes to everything he said; and, in finding him irresistible, becoming so herself.”

Jane Austen book Northanger Abbey

Source: Northanger Abbey

Happiness

“You are happy even if you are afraid to admit it.”

David Levithan The Realm of Possibility

Source: The Realm of Possibility

Happiness

“Happiness is German engineering, Italian cooking, and Belgian chocolate.”

Patricia Briggs book Moon Called

Source: Moon Called

Happiness, Cooking

“Plutarch rushes to reassure me. "Oh, no, Katniss. Not your wedding. Finnick and Annie's. All you need to do is show up and pretend to be happy for them."
"That's one of the few things I won't have to pretend, Plutarch," I tell him.”

Suzanne Collins book Mockingjay

Source: Mockingjay

Happiness, Wedding

“Please believe him. Keep your heart open to him. He can make you happy. He has always loved you, and you once loved him with all your heart.”

Ann Brashares book My Name is Memory

Source: My Name Is Memory

Love, Happiness, Heart

“Most people would rather be certain they're miserable, than risk being happy.”

Robert Anthony (1982) professional wrestler

Happiness, People

“Happy is entirely up to you and always has been.”

Janette Rallison (1966) American writer

Source: My Fair Godmother

Happiness

“You will find joy, frustration and sorrow in your quest. Never forget that friendship and loyalty are more precious than riches… Happiness can be brief, but it knows no time in the land of dreams.”

Brian Jacques (1939–2011) British fiction writer known for Redwall animal fantasy novels

Source: Pearls of Lutra

Friendship, Happiness, Dreams, Time

“I know it's not fair to ask you to be with me when we can't even sleep in the same bed, but I'll love you better than anyone else could. I'll take care of you and make you happy. I know I can.”

Sylvia Day (1973) American writer

Source: Entwined with You

Love, Happiness, Sleep

“‎"But that's the price we have to pay for stability. You've got to choose between happiness and what people used to call high art. We've sacrificed the high art.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World

Happiness, People, Art

“Perhaps we can win, he thought. But there will be no happy ending”

Eoin Colfer (1965) Irish author of children's books

Source: The Last Guardian

Happiness

“Sorrow fully accepted brings its own gifts. For there is alchemy in sorrow. It can be transmitted into wisdom, which, if it does not bring joy, can yet bring happiness.”

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer

Source: The Child Who Never Grew

Wisdom, Happiness, Joy

“He was uncomplicated and upbeat and easy. At one point, I might have thought these traits made him a simpleton, but now I think they just translate to happiness.”

Emily Giffin (1972) American writer

Source: Baby Proof

Happiness, Thinking

“I wrote somewhere once that the third-rate mind was only happy when it was thinking with the majority, the second-rate mind was only happy when it was thinking with the minority, and the first-rate mind was only happy when it was thinking.”

A.A. Milne (1882–1956) British author

War with Honour http://books.google.com/books?id=QmQDAAAAMAAJ&q=&quot;I+wrote+somewhere+once+that+the+third+rate+mind+was+only+happy+when+it+was+thinking+with+the+majority+the+second+rate+mind+was+only+happy+when+it+was+with+the+minority+and+a+first+rate+mind+was+only+happy+when+it+was+thinking&quot;, Macmillan War Pamphlets, Issue 2 (1940).

Happiness, Thinking

“It takes too much imagination to see the sorrows of people we take for happy. Their real battles take place, like those of the stars, in some realm of light imperceptible to the human eye. It is a feat of the mind to guess another's heart.”

Andrew Sean Greer (1970) Novelist, short story writer

Source: Confessions Of Max Tivoli

Happiness, People, Imagination, Star

“It's good to be just plain happy, it's a little better to know that you're happy; but to understand that you're happy and to know why and how and still be happy, be happy in the being and the knowing, well that is beyond happiness, that is bliss.”

Henry Miller (1891–1980) American novelist

Happiness, Understanding

“I could but esteem this moment of my departure as among the most happy of my life.”

Meriwether Lewis (1774–1809) American explorer

Life, Happiness, Departure

“We must have courage to bet on our ideas, to take the calculated risk, and to act. Everyday living requires courage if life is to be effective and bring happiness.”

Maxwell Maltz (1889–1975) Plastic surgeon, self-help author

Life, Happiness, Idea, Courage

“It is proved by surveys that happiness does not come from love, wealth, or power but the pursuit of attainable goals.”

Helen Fielding book Bridget Jones's Diary

Source: Bridget Jones's Diary

Love, Happiness, Wealth

“I really don't think I need buns of steel. I'd be happy with buns of cinnamon.”

Ellen DeGeneres (1958) American stand-up comedian, television host, and actress

Happiness, Thinking, Funny

“If you aren't unhappy sometimes you don't know how to be happy.”

Madeleine L'Engle book A Wrinkle in Time

Source: A Wrinkle in Time

Happiness

“From childhood I had never believed in permanence, and yet I had longed for it. Always I was afraid of losing happiness. This month, next year… death was the only absolute value in my world. Lose life and one would lose nothing again forever.”

Graham Greene book The Quiet American

Source: The Quiet American

Life, Death, Happiness, World

“Happiness is a habit—cultivate it.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

Happiness

“Good sex isn’t just fun, it keeps us sane and happy. Having sex with someone makes us feel wanted, alive and potent”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Happiness, Sex, Feeling

“Love is not an equation… It is not a contract, and it's not a happy ending. It is the slate under the chalk and the ground buildings rise from and the oxygen in the air.”

Jodi Picoult (1966) Author

Source: Vanishing Acts

Love, Happiness

“You want me to say something? Okay. Sometimes I think I am what you made me. And sometimes I don’t know who I am at all. And either way I’m not happy.”

Holly Black book Black Heart

Source: Black Heart

Happiness, Way, Thinking

“Be happy, honey. No
one deserves it more. But don't forget… I'm
keeping one little piece of your heart for myself.
And if you ever want it back… you know
where to find it.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Sugar Daddy

Happiness, Heart, Forgetting

“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.”

Charles Kingsley (1819–1875) English clergyman, historian and novelist

Life, Happiness

“A vital part of the happiness formula is self-discipline. Whoever conquers himself knows deep happiness that fills the heart with joy.”

Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American writer

Happiness, Heart, Joy, Parting

“You can't test courage cautiously, so I ran hard and waved my arms hard, happy.”

Annie Dillard (1945) American writer

Source: An American Childhood

Happiness, Courage

“Be happy -- if you're not even happy, what's so good about surviving?”

Tom Stoppard book Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Source: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead

Happiness

“Going to trial with a lawyer who considers your whole life-style a Crime in Progress is not a happy prospect.”

Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author

Life, Happiness

“She was experiencing the same odd happiness and odd sadness as then. The sadness meant: We are at the last station. The happiness meant: We are together. The sadness was form, the happiness content. Happiness filled the space of sadness.”

Milan Kundera book The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Source: The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Happiness, Sadness

“There is a common emotion we all recognize and have not yet named—the happy anticipation of being able to feel contempt.”

Thomas Harris book Hannibal

Source: Hannibal

Happiness, Feeling

“He was right in saying that the only certain happiness in life is to live for others.”

Leo Tolstoy book Family Happiness

Part 1, chapter 2 http://books.google.com/books?id=eWU4AAAAYAAJ&q=%22there+is+only+one+enduring+happiness+in+life+to+live+for+others%22&pg=PA22#v=onepage <br class="br">Family Happiness (1859) <br class="br">Variant: There is only one enduring happiness in life&mdash; to live for others.

Life, Happiness

“There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Chapter 117 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Count_of_Monte_Cristo/Chapter_117 <br class="br">The Count of Monte Cristo (1845–1846)

Happiness, World, Wise, Hope

“It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else.”

Arthur Schopenhauer (1788–1860) German philosopher

Happiness