Quotes about happiness (5347 quotes, page 28)

“Silence accompanies the most significant expressions of happiness and unhappiness: those in love understand one another best when silent, while the most heated and impassioned speech at a graveside touches only outsiders, but seems cold and inconsequential to the widow and children of the deceased.”

Anton Chekhov (1860–1904) Russian dramatist, author and physician

Enemies (1887)

Love , Children , Understanding , Silence

“Agnes Martin often speaks of joy; she sees it as the desired condition of all life. Who would disagree with her?… No-one who has seriously spent time before an Agnes Martin, letting its peace communicate itself, receiving its inexplicable and ineffable happiness, has ever been disappointed. The work awes, not just with its delicacy, but with its vigor, and this power and visual interest is something that has to be experienced.”

Wendy Beckett (1930–2018) British Catholic nun and presenter of documentaries for the BBC on the history of art

Sister Wendy Beckett, in her book American Masterpieces, about American painter Agnes Martin.

Life , Peace , Disappointment , Communication

“Ah, happy world, where all things live
Creatures of one great law, indeed;
Bound by strong roots, the splendid flower,—
Swept by great seas, the drifting seed!”

Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford (1835–1921) American author

The Story of the Flower.

World , Law , Flowers , Strong

“What, for instance, induced me, when so far distant from my country, voluntarily to devote myself to her cause? Her commerce? I neither knew nor cared any thing about it. Her funds? I was so happy as hardly to understand the meaning of the word. Her lands? I could, alas! lay claim to nothing but the graves of my parents.—What, then, was the stimulus? What was I proud of? It was the name and fame of England. Her laws, her liberties, her justice, her might; all the qualities and circumstances that had given her renown in the world, but above all her deeds in arms, her military glory.”

William Cobbett (1763–1835) English pamphleteer, farmer and journalist

Political Register (27 October 1804).

World , Justice , Law , Understanding

“I grew up during communism, when comics books were prohibited as capitalist decadent propaganda, western movies were censored, any book that could be in conflict with socialist ideology was prohibited and you went to jail for saying what you think. So I am allergic to any kind of censorship in the name of any ideology. The road to hell is paved with good intentions. I would like to give all the ideologues a piece of advice – If you want something to be made, do it yourself. Everyone will be happy.”

Daniel Vávra (1975) Czech entrepreneur

An interview with Daniel Vavra: GamerGate and the gaming industry https://techraptor.net/content/interview-daniel-vavra (September 12, 2014)

Books , Communication , Hell , Thinking

“But there are motifs that would need three or four months' work, which could be done, as the vegetation doesn't change here. There are the olive trees and the pines that always keep their leaves. The sun is so fierce that objects seem to be silhouetted, not only in black or white, but in blue, red, brown, violet. I may be wrong, but this seems to be the very opposite of 'modeling'. How happy the gentle landscapists of Auvers would be here, and that [con, or 'bastard'? ] Guillemet.”

Paul Cézanne (1839–1906) French painter

Quote from Cezanne's letter to Camille Pissarro, from L'Estaque 2 July 1876, taken from Alex Danchev, The Letters of Paul Cézanne, 2013; as quoted in the 'Daily Beast' online, 13 Oct. 2013 https://www.thedailybeast.com/cezannes-letter-to-pissarro-picture-business-isnt-going-well
'The very opposite of 'modeling' meant roughly that Cézanne and Pissarro in their common painting-years in open air would lay down one plane or patch of color next to another in the painting, without any 'modeling' or shading between them - so that it looked as if each component part of the painting could be picked up from the canvas a little like a 'playing card from the table', as Cezanne explains here.
Quotes of Paul Cezanne, 1860s - 1870s

Tree , Change , Sun , Happiness

“A love-match was the only thing for happiness, where the parties could any way afford it.”

Maria Edgeworth book Castle Rackrent

Castle Rackrent, "Continuation of the Memoirs of the Rackrent Family"; Tales and Novels, vol. 1, p. 46.

Love , Way , Happiness

“Such people who choose to depress are not mentally ill; their brain chemistry is not abnormal. It is changed from what it is when they are happy, but that change is perfectly normal for the total behavior, depressing, they are choosing…. The brain chemistry no more causes his depressing than sweating causes running. It is the choice to depress or to run that results in both.”

William Glasser (1925–2013) American psychiatrist

Source: Choice Theory (1997), p. 85

People , Behavior , Change , Happiness

“Happiness and Prosperity are now within our Reach; but to attain and preserve them must depend upon our own Wisdom and Virtue.”

George Mason (1725–1792) American delegate from Virginia to the U.S. Constitutional Convention

Letter to William Cabell (6 May 1783)

Wisdom , Dependency , Happiness

“You said in that moment on the beach you were entirely happy.”

Martin Firrell (1963) British artist and activist

"The Question Mark Inside" (2008)

Happiness

“Here I am, because of the People of Paris [ Paris Commune ], up to my neck in politics. President of the Federation of Artists, member of the Commune committee, city council delegate and delegate for Public Education: the four most important posts in Paris. I get up, I have breakfast, and I preside and sit on committees twelve hours a day. Now my head is starting to spin. But in spite of all this worry and trying to understand unfamiliar things, I am really happy..”

Gustave Courbet (1819–1877) French painter

Quote from a letter to his parents (30th April 1870); as cited in 'Courbet Speaks', 'Courbet-dossier', Musée-dOrsay http://www.musee-orsay.fr/en/collections/courbet-dossier/courbet-speaks.html
1870s

People , Education , Communication , Understanding

“Every age has its happiness and troubles.”

Jeanne Calment (1875–1934) French supercentenarian who had the longest confirmed human life span in history

Source: Jeanne Calment: From Van Gogh's Time to Ours : 122 Extraordinary Years, 1998, p. 48: response to the question whether the birth of her daughter was the happiest time of her life

Age , Happiness

“A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Un homme heureux est trop content du présent pour trop se soucier de l'avenir.
From "Mes Projets d'Avenir", a French essay written at age 17 for a school exam (18 September 1896). The Collected Papers of Albert Einstein Vol. 1 (1987) Doc. 22.
1890s
Variant: A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.

Future , Happiness

“I see so many people wanting to make YouTube videos because they want to get famous - they want to make money, which is all great stuff, and YouTube is really an amazing place for that, but make YouTube videos because you enjoy making them. If you don't enjoy making them, you are not going to keep making them. You are just going to fall off at some point, and you are going to get frustrated it didn't turn out the way you wanted it to be. If you make videos that you enjoy making, then you can't lose. It doesn't matter if you don't get a lot of subscribers. I was equally happy when I had a couple of hundred subscribers - I thought that was equally fun to have some people watching them. If you make videos that you enjoy making, other people will enjoy watching them. I really, really, strongly believe in that, so if you're not enjoying making videos, then don't make videos.”

PewDiePie (1989) Swedish YouTuber and video game commentator

How To Get Started On YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVu8OWN90eY (10 August 2017)
2017, How To Get Started On YouTube

Money , People , Way , Happiness

“I believe in manicures. I believe in overdressing. I believe in primping at leisure and wearing lipstick. I believe in pink. I believe that loving is the best calorie-burner. I believe in kissing. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls… and I believe in miracles.”

Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993) British actress

Unidentified ‘member’ of MySpace.com circa 2007–08, quoted in Richard Kennedy The Disgrace of MySpace (self-published [Lulu.com] 23 August 2008, ISBN 9781435760042, page 123. This passage and slight variants of it have been widely attributed to Audrey Hepburn long after her death (for example, in Glamour March 2012, page 78); but no evidence of its existence has been found during Hepburn’s lifetime, attributed to Hepburn or anyone else. It has not been found in print before 2008.
Misattributed

Love , Girl , Kiss , Happiness