Quotes about happiness page 3
“Love is the condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”
Robert A. Heinlein book Stranger in a Strange Land
"Jubal Harshaw" in the first edition (1961); the later 1991 "Uncut" edition didn't have this line, because it was one Heinlein had added when he went through and trimmed the originally submitted manuscript on which the "Uncut" edition is based. Heinlein also later used a variant of this in The Cat Who Walks Through Walls where he has Xia quote Harshaw: "Dr. Harshaw says that 'the word "love" designates a subjective condition in which the welfare and happiness of another person are essential to one's own happiness.'"
Source: Stranger in a Strange Land (1961; 1991)
Albert Ellis (1913–2007) American psychologist
“When you wish someone joy, you wish them peace, love, prosperity, happiness… all the good things.”
Maya Angelou (1928–2014) American author and poet
Hugh Laurie (1959) British actor, comedian, writer, musician and director
Source: [2002-06-13, http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-920254-details/A+brighter+life+for+Hugh+Laurie/article.do;jsessionid=KnM3FNTSkpv0R3P22WrQBPZQ00jxPTkDtG2htfqq0LvwTtnLx4by!-81402767, A brighter life for Hugh Laurie, thisislondon.co.uk from the Evening Standard, 2006-08-21]
“Let everyone know, I lived a very happy life.”
Orhan Pamuk book The Museum of Innocence
Source: The Museum of Innocence
“Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.”
Albert Schweitzer (1875–1965) French-German physician, theologian, musician and philosopher
Variant: Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.
Paul McCartney (1942) English singer-songwriter and composer
Source: Blackbird Singing: Poems and Lyrics, 1965-1999
“Even if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it.”
Jacques Prevért (1900–1977) French poet, screenwriter
“Be happy, but never satisfied.”
Bruce Lee (1940–1973) Hong Kong-American actor, martial artist, philosopher and filmmaker
“With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy?”
Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish writer and poet
“Why should we build our happiness on the opinons of others, when we can find it in our own hearts?”
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher
Source: The Social Contract and Discourses
“My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.”
Rodney Dangerfield (1921–2004) American actor and comedian
Variant: My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.
“Happiness is having a loving, close knit family in another city.”
George Burns (1896–1996) American comedian, actor, and writer
As quoted in The Mammoth Book of Zingers, Quips, and One-Liners (2004) by Geoff Tibballs, p. 251
“I'm not basically a happy person, but I have all kinds of joy.”
Orson Welles (1915–1985) American actor, director, writer and producer
“I'd far rather be happy than right any day.”
Douglas Adams The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy pentalogy
Source: The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary
Source: The Diary of a Young Girl
Oprah Winfrey (1954) American businesswoman, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist
Source: What I Know For Sure
Tal Ben-Shahar (1970) American psychologist
Source: Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment
Marcel Pagnol (1895–1974) novelist, playwright and filmmaker from France
Variant: People see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is and the future less resolved than it’ll be.
“I count myself in nothing else so happy as in a soul remembering my good Friends”
William Shakespeare (1564–1616) English playwright and poet
“I'm so happy. Cause today I found my friends.
They're in my head.”
Kurt Cobain (1967–1994) American musician and artist
Source: Artwork.
Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player
As quoted in "Clemente Says He is Very Happy" https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=42oeAAAAIBAJ&sjid=QckEAAAAIBAJ&pg=1983%2C4221206 by the Associated Press, in The Daytona Beach Morning Journal (October 16, 1971), p. 1-C <br class="br">Other, <big><big>1970s</big></big>, <big>1971</big>
“People camouflage against the herd. People aren't after happiness, they're after not hurting.”
Jordan Peterson (1962) Canadian clinical psychologist, cultural critic, and professor of psychology
2017 Personality 21: Performance Prediction. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7GKmznaqsQ <br class="br">Personality Lectures
Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher
Origin unknown. Attributed to Sydney Smith in Speaker's Handbook of Epigrams and Witticisms (1955) by Herbert Prochnow, p. 190. Variant reported in Why Are You Single? (1949) by Hilda Holland, p. 49: «When asked by a young man whether to marry, Socrates is said to have replied: "By all means, marry. If you will get for yourself a good wife, you will be happy forever after; and if by chance you will get a common scold like my Xanthippe—why then you will become a philosopher."»
Misattributed
Variant: By all means, marry. If you get a good wife, you'll become happy; if you get a bad one, you'll become a philosopher.
Frédéric Chopin (1810–1849) Polish composer
As quoted in his letter to his father, dated December 6th 1817[citation needed]
Amos Oz (1939–2018) Israeli writer, novelist, journalist and intellectual
From a PBS interview with Amos Oz. The entire interview http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/jan-june02/oz_1-23.html
Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality
From interview with Rajeev Masand
Yanni (1954) Greek pianist, keyboardist, composer, and music producer
Yanni in Words. Miramax Books. Co-author David Rensin
“Let men be happy, informed, skillful, well behaved, and productive.”
B.F. Skinner (1904–1990) American behaviorist
Freedom and the control of men (1955/1956) American Scholar, 25 (1), 47-65.
“When I'm happy I am sad, but everything's good
It's not that complicated, I'm just misunderstood.”
Pink (singer) (1979) American singer-songwriter
Missundaztood, written by Pink and Linda Perry
Song lyrics, Missundaztood (2001)
Ho Chi Minh (1890–1969) Vietnamese communist leader and first president of Vietnam
Those are undeniable truths.
Vietnamese Proclamation of Independence (2 September 1945), Ho Chi Minh, Selected Works (1960-1962), Vol. 3, pp. 17-21
“Knowledge comes only to those who despise happiness.”
Georg Trakl book Gedichte
Nur dem, der Glück verachtet, wird Erkenntnis.
Nachlass und Biographie: Gedichte, Briefe, Bilder, Essays (Author: Georg Trakl; editor: Wolfgang Schneditz; publisher: O. Müller, 1949, p. 8)
Justin Bieber (1994) Canadian singer-songwriter, record producer, and actor
Interview with V Magazine, as quoted in UsMagazine: Justin Bieber Talks Sex, Drugs and Turning 18 http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/justin-bieber-talks-sex-drugs-and-turning-18-2012101, January 2012
Václav Havel (1936–2011) playwright, essayist, poet, dissident and 1st President of the Czech Republic
New Year's Address to the Nation (1990)
Michael Jackson (1958–2009) American singer, songwriter and dancer
"Michael Jackson - Life in the magical kingdom" - Rolling Stone (February 17, 1983) http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/michael-jackson-life-in-the-magical-kingdom-19830217 <br class="br">"Michael Jackson - Life in the Magical Kingdom" Rolling Stone 1983
Shahrukh Khan (1965) Indian actor, producer and television personality
From interview with David Light
John of the Cross (1542–1591) Spanish mystic and Roman Catholic saint
En una noche oscura,
con ansias, en amores inflamada,
¡oh dichosa ventura!,
salí sin ser notada,
estando ya mi casa sosegada;
One dark night, fired with love's urgent longings — ah, the sheer grace! —
I went out unseen, my house being now all stilled.
In darkness, and secure, by the secret ladder, disguised, — ah, the sheer grace! — in darkness and concealment, my house being now all stilled.
Variant translation by Kieran Kavanaugh and Otilio Rodriguez (1991)
Upon a darkened night the flame of love was burning in my breast
And by a lantern bright I fled my house while all in quiet rest.
Shrouded by the night and by the secret stair I quickly fled.
The veil concealed my eyes while all within lay quiet as the dead
Variant adapted for music by Loreena McKennitt (1994)
Dark Night of the Soul
Diogenes Laërtius (180–240) biographer of ancient Greek philosophers
122, in Moral Exhortation (1986), p. 33
The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers (c. 200 A.D.), Book 10: Epicurus
“I am happy with my Bangladesh.”
Sheikh Mujibur Rahman (1920–1975) Bengali revolutionary, founder ("father") of Bangladesh
Replying to a question on whether he contemplated the Indian state of West Bengal joining his country and creating a "Greater Bangladesh". He was speaking to reporters at a press conference in London in January, 1972 after his release from prision in Pakistan. http://www.thedailystar.net/magazine/2009/08/02/tribute.htm <br class="br">Quote, Other
“There will always be a lost dog somewhere that will prevent me being happy.”
Jean Anouilh (1910–1987) French playwright
Il y aura toujours un chien perdu quelque part qui m'empêchera d'être heureux.
La Sauvage ["The Restless Heart"] (1938), Act 3.
Andrea Dworkin (1946–2005) Feminist writer
‘Suffering and Speech’ in Catherine A MacKinnon and Andrea Dworkin (eds) In Harm’s Way: The Pornography Civil Rights Hearings.
Rafael Nadal (1986) Spanish tennis player
After beating five time champion Roger Federer in the 2008 Men's Wimbledon Final
Peter Handke (1942) Austrian writer, playwright and film director
Source: Das Gewicht der Welt [The Weight of the World], p. 7
Muhammad Ali (1942–2016) African American boxer, philanthropist and activist
"Recipe of life" video clip http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7iPACdA1HQ <br class="br">Interview with David Frost (1974)
“Call no day happy 'til it is done; call no man happy til he is dead.”
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn book The Oak and the Calf
Solzhenitsyn here seems to be paraphrasing Sophocles who expresses similar ideas in Oedipus Rex. This is also a direct reference to Plutarch's line, "call no man fortunate until he is dead," from his "Parallel Lives".
The Oak and the Calf (1975)
Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825–1895) German jurist, writer and pioneer of LGBT human rights
Quoted in: Keith Stern (2013), Queers in History: The Comprehensive Encyclopedia of Historical Gays, Lesbians and Bisexuals. p. 460
Bk. 3, no. 51; pp. 70-71.
Variae
Julian Assange (1971) Australian editor, activist, publisher and journalist
Mayawati controversy: Text of Julian Assange's statement, The Hindu, September 6, 2011, September 9, 2011 http://www.thehindu.com/news/article2430172.ece,
“You have to live with the people in hypocrisy for them to stay happy with you.”
Shams-i Tabrizi (1185–1248) 1185-1248, spiritual instructor of Mewlānā Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Balkhi.
Me & Rumi (2004)
“If money can't buy happiness, I guess I'll have to rent it.”
"Weird Al" Yankovic (1959) American singer-songwriter, music producer, accordionist, actor, comedian, writer, satirist, and parodist
"This Is the Life", Dare to Be Stupid (1984).
Song lyrics
Xi Jinping (1953) General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and paramount leader of China
As quoted in "Xi Jinping meets model workers" http://english.cntv.cn/20130501/102444.shtml in cctv.com English (1 May 2013). <br class="br">2010s
Paul Robeson (1898–1976) American singer and actor
"’I Love Above All, Russia,’ Robeson Says," Afro-American, (25 June 1949), p. 7
François-René de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) French writer, politician, diplomat and historian
As quoted in Dictionary of Quotations from Ancient and Modern, English and Foreign Sources (1893) selected and compiled by James Wood.
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756–1791) Austrian Romantic composer
Letter to Leopold Mozart (4 April 1787), from The Mozart-Da Ponte Operas by Andrew Steptoe [Oxford University Press, 1988, ISBN 0-198-16221-9], p. 84.
Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876) Russian revolutionary, philosopher, and theorist of collectivist anarchism
Letter http://dwardmac.pitzer.edu/anarchist_archives/bakunin/letters/toherzenandogareff.html to Aleksandr Ivanovich Herzen and Ogareff from San Francisco (3 October 1861); published in Correspondance de Michel Bakounine (1896) edited by Michel Dragmanov
George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London
Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 17
Claire Holt (1988) Australian actress and model
Exclusive: The Australian Actress Hollywood Can't Get Enough Of (June 10, 2016)
Daniel Radcliffe (1989) English actor
Interview with Bravo Magazine 2007 http://www.danradcliffe.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=23&Itemid=28
Leonardo DiCaprio (1974) American actor and film producer
Interview: "Leonardo DiCaprio: 'wealth and success don't make you happy'" http://www.telegraph.co.uk/film/the-revenant/leonardo-dicaprio-interview/ by Chloe Fox, The Telegraph (9 January 2016)
Simón Bolívar (1783–1830) Venezuelan military and political leader, South American libertador
As quoted in The World’s Great Speeches, Lewis Copeland and Lawrence Lamm, edit., Dover Publications Inc. (1958) p. 388
The Angostura Address (1819)
George Orwell (1903–1950) English author and journalist
"Why Socialists Don't Believe in Fun" http://www.k-1.com/Orwell/site/work/essays/fun.html, Tribune (20 December 1943) <br class="br">Context: Nearly all creators of Utopia have resembled the man who has toothache, and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having toothache. They wanted to produce a perfect society by an endless continuation of something that had only been valuable because it was temporary. The wider course would be to say that there are certain lines along which humanity must move, the grand strategy is mapped out, but detailed prophecy is not our business. Whoever tries to imagine perfection simply reveals his own emptiness.
Grover Cleveland (1837–1908) 22nd and 24th president of the United States
As quoted in American Magazine (September 1908)
Context: A sensitive man is not happy as President. It is fight, fight, fight all the time. I looked forward to the close of my term as a happy release from care. But I am not sure I wasn't more unhappy out of office than in. A term in the presidency accustoms a man to great duties. He gets used to handling tremendous enterprises, to organizing forces that may affect at once and directly the welfare of the world. After the long exercise of power, the ordinary affairs of life seem petty and commonplace. An ex-President practicing law or going into business is like a locomotive hauling a delivery wagon. He has lost his sense of proportion. The concerns of other people and even his own affairs seem too small to be worth bothering about.
Hunter S. Thompson (1937–2005) American journalist and author
Rolling Stone (1976)
1970s
Context: I have never felt comfortable around people who talk about their feelings for Jesus, or any other deity for that matter, because they are usually none too bright... Or maybe "stupid" is a better way of saying it; but I have never seen much point in getting heavy with either stupid people or Jesus freaks, just as long as they don't bother me. In a world as weird and cruel as this one we have made for ourselves, I figure anybody who can find peace and personal happiness without ripping off somebody else deserves to be left alone. They will not inherit the earth, but then neither will I... And I have learned to live, as it were, with the idea that I will never find peace and happiness, either. But as long as I know there's a pretty good chance I can get my hands on either one of them every once in a while, I do the best I can between high spots.