Quotes about happiness
page 31

“Happiness in the ordinary sense is not what one needs in life, though one is right to aim at it. The true satisfaction is to come through and see those whom one loves come through.”

E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist

Letter 216, to Florence Barger, 11 February 1922
Selected Letters (1983-1985)

Love, Life, Happiness, Sense

“There are, of course, good happy endings as well as bad ones, but surely they are of a kind that in some way expresses happiness rather than glibly promises it.”

Louis Kronenberger (1904–1980) American critic and writer

http://books.google.com/books?id=cI1KAAAAMAAJ&q=%22There+are+of+course+good+happy+endings+as+well+as+bad+ones+but+surely+they+are+of+a+kind+that+in+some+way+expresses+happiness+rather+than+glibly+promises+it%22&pg=PA74#v=onepage
The Cart and the Horse (1964)

Happiness, Way

“And I made a rural pen,
And I stained the water clear,
And I wrote my happy songs
Every child may joy to hear.”

William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist

Introduction, st. 5
1780s, Songs of Innocence (1789–1790)

Happiness, Water, Joy

“When you think about a better tomorrow, you think about veganism in the world. I don’t need a dead animal or dead piece of flesh to go into my live body. There’s nothing on this planet that doesn’t want to live. I had animals as friends, they were happy to see me in their own animal way. I’m quite sure they did not want to be on my plate. I think hip-hop has become more conscious about diet… You are what you eat, so if this cow who is stressed, dumbfounded, sick becomes your meal, when you eat it, you are eating that stress and sickness. You are eating that fear. My peers and people that are related to me appreciate the vegan lifestyle, it’s really spreading.”

RZA (1969) American rapper, record producer, actor, screenwriter, author, director

From a PETA video (24 November 2014) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-T8l9a89efk&t=1s. Quoted in "Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA says he refuses to put ‘dead animals’ in his ‘live body’ in PETA advert", in NME.com (24 November 2014) http://www.nme.com/news/music/wu-tang-clan-14-1218001#WJmPuEwsm7yhA4ac.99.

Happiness, People, World, Fear

“That which is most excellent, and is most to be desired by all happy, honest and healthy-minded men, is dignified leisure.”
Id quod est praestantissimum, maximeque optabile omnibus sanis et bonis et beatis, cum dignitate otium.

Marcus Tullius Cicero (-106–-43 BC) Roman philosopher and statesman

Pro Publio Sestio; Chapter XLV

Men, Happiness

“The truth is that I have lived on an even keel. I don't go down, and I don't go up. I believe in living above the line. Above the line is happiness and love, you know. Below the line is all sadness and destruction and unhappiness. And I don't go down below the line for anything.”

Agnes Martin (1912–2004) American artist

after 2000, Agnes Martin: Between the Lines', 2002

Love, Happiness, Truth, Sadness

“At times he regarded the wounded soldiers in an envious way. He conceived persons with torn bodies to be peculiarly happy. He wished that he, too, had a wound, a red badge of courage.”

Stephen Crane book The Red Badge of Courage

Source: The Red Badge of Courage (1895), Ch. 9

Happiness, Way, Courage, Time

“Since ancient times, philosophers have maintained that to strive too hard for one's own happiness is self-defeating.”

Peter Singer (1946) Australian philosopher

Source: The Expanding Circle: Ethics, Evolution, and Moral Progress (1981), Chapter 5, Reason And Genes, p. 145

Happiness, Time

“Do I look like a happy-ending to you?”

Margaret Cho (1968) American stand-up comedian

From Her Tours and CDs, Beautiful Tour

Happiness

“Feeling that the world is wrong does not necessarily mean that we have a picture of a utopia to put in its place. Nor does is necessarily mean a romantic, some-day-my-prince-will-come idea that, although things are wrong now, one day we shall come to a true world, a promised land, a happy ending. We need no promise of a happy ending to justify our rejection of a world we feel to be wrong.”

John Holloway book Change the World Without Taking Power

Change the World Without Taking Power (2002)

Happiness, World, Feeling, Idea

“It happens that all those who have something of mine, painting, mobile, or static statue, say that it makes them very happy. For example, children adore mobile statues and understand their meaning immediately. I have seen children, here in France, in America or in Great Britain, run and shout with joy in my exhibitions. They like it instinctively.”

Alexander Calder (1898–1976) American artist

Calder, quoted in Calder: Gravity and Grace, eds. Giménez, Carmen, and Alexander S.C. Rower; Phaidon Press, New York 2004, p. 54
1950s - 1960s

Happiness, Children, Understanding, Joy

“He is a noble gentleman; withal
Happy in his endeavours: the general voice
Sounds him for courtesy, behaviour, language,
And every fair demeanour, an example:
Titles of honour add not to his worth;
Who is himself an honour to his title.”

John Ford (dramatist) (1586–1639) dramatist

Act I, sc. iii.
The Lady's Trial (1638)

Happiness

“So to sleep on the sleeping porch required preparation. First, you put on long underwear, pajamas, jeans, a sweatshirt, your grandfather’s old cardigan and bathrobe, two pairs of woolen socks on your feet and another on your hands, and a hat with earflaps tied beneath the chin. Then you climbed into bed and were immediately covered with a dozen bed blankets, three horse blankets, all the household overcoats, a canvas tarpaulin, and a piece of old carpet. I’m not sure that they didn’t lay an old wardrobe on top of that, just to hold everything down. It was like sleeping under a dead horse. For the first minute or so it was unimaginably cold, shockingly cold, but gradually your body heat seeped in and you became warm and happy in a way you would not have believed possible only a minute or two before. It was bliss. Or at least it was until you moved a muscle. The warmth, you discovered, extended only to the edge of your skin and not a micron farther. There wasn’t any possibility of shifting positions. If you so much as flexed a finger or bent a knee, it was like plunging them into liquid nitrogen.”

Bill Bryson (1951) American author

Source: The Life And Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (2006), p. 140

Happiness, Way, Sleep, Horse

“I conceive it is a vulgar error in translating poets, to affect being fidus interpres… [for] poetry is of so subtile a spirit, that in the pouring out of one language into another, it will all evaporate; and if a new spirit be not added in the transfusion, there will remain nothing but a caput mortuum, there being certain graces and happinesses peculiar to every language, which give life and energy to the words… therefore if Virgil must needs speak English, it were fit he should speak not only as a man of this nation, but as [a] man of this age.”

John Denham (1615–1669) English poet and courtier

The Destruction of Troy (1656), Preface.

Life, Happiness, Age, Error

“Is happiness real?
Or am I so jaded
I can't see or feel - like a man been tainted.
Numbed by the effect - aware of the muse
Too in touch with myself - I light the fuse.”

Paul Weller (singer) (1958) English singer-songwriter, Guitarist

The Changingman, from Stanley Road (1995)

Happiness, Feeling, Light

“I think I'm getting into the real mood and atmosphere of Worpswede now. What I used to call my Sunken Bell mood, the spell I was under when I first got here, was sweet, very sweet – but it was really only a dream, and one that couldn't last long in any sort of active life. Then came the reaction to it, and after that something truer – serious work and serious living for my art, a battle I must fight with all my strength. I am filled with the sun, every part of me, and with the breezy air, intoxicated with the moonlight on the bright snow... Nature was speaking with me and I listened to her, happy and vibrant. Life.”

Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876–1907) German artist

excerpt of her Journal, Worpswede 1897; as quoted in Voicing our visions, – Writings by women artists; ed. Mara R. Witzling, Universe New York, 1991, pp. 193-194
1897

Life, Happiness, Dreams, Art

“Management is not a matter of pressing a button, pulling a lever, issuing orders, scanning profit and loss statements, promulgating rules and regulations. Rather, management is the power to determine what shall happen to the personalities and to the happiness of entire peoples, the power to shape the destiny of a nation and of all the nations which make up the world. Executive work, therefore, is statesmanship and the techniques which the executive employs are only incidental to the forces which he sets in motion and helps to direct. It is no exaggeration, therefore, to say that the management of the nation's large institutions, both in business and in government, determines the fate of millions of individual lives as well as the lives of generations unborn.”

Marshall E. Dimock (1903–1991) American writer

Source: The Executive in Action, 1945, p. 3-4, as cited in Albert Lepawsky (1949), Administration, p. 419

Fate, Happiness, People, World

“T is happy for him that his father was before him.”

Jonathan Swift (1667–1745) Anglo-Irish satirist, essayist, and poet

Polite Conversation (1738), Dialogue 3

Happiness

“Souls of Poets dead and gone,
What Elysium have ye known,
Happy field or mossy cavern,
Choicer than the Mermaid Tavern?”

John Keats (1795–1821) English Romantic poet

"Lines on the Mermaid Tavern", l. 1–4
Poems (1820)

Happiness, Soul, Dead

“All men are my children. What I desire for my own children, and I desire their welfare and happiness both in this world and the next, that I desire for all men. You do not understand to what extent I desire this, and if some of you do understand, you do not understand the full extent of my desire.”

Ashoka (-304–-232 BC) Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty

Edicts of Ashoka (c. 257 BC)

Men, Happiness, Children, World

“We all know that election reform takes time. That’s because those who have benefited from the system are the ones who fight hardest to preserve it. So if we’re going to succeed, we need an independent coalition of citizens who believe in reform, who believe that our election laws should treat every voter equally, who believe that low levels of competition and participation are not healthy for democracy. The Independence Party is helping to build that coalition and I am happy to join you in doing so.”

Michael Bloomberg (1942) American businessman and politician, former mayor of New York City

http://www.independentvoting.org/Bloomberg.html
Politics

Happiness, Law, Democracy, Time

“What was that teacher trying to do?
That teacher was trying to break her spirit.
But why would school do that? So you could become someone like her parents and believe in the things they believe in. So you won’t believe in the things they don’t believe in. And believe you’re a happy person whose life has meaning. So you will go to your job and do whatever gross thing someone tells you to do and get drunk on Friday and Saturday nights and pay taxes and bills. That’s why.”

Lisa Mason book Summer of Love

Source: Summer of Love (1994), Chapter 4 “Foxy Lady” (pp. 81-82)

Life, Happiness, School, Parent

“I said to him [Hugh Dowding], "Well, as you eat meat, as you are a peer and have a seat in the House of Lords, could you do something about getting it humanely killed?" He said, "Well, isn't it?" I said, "I'm asking you." Well, we had a very, very happy marriage, and he never went anywhere without telling me where he was going. He'd nearly always say, "Look, can't you get out of what you are doing and come too?" And on three occasions he didn't tell me where he was going, he had just gone. He came back very depressed and didn't seem to want to talk about whatever it was. I wondered what was worrying him. When Sunday came, his usual salted beef was served, a dish that he liked very much. And he stood up to carve it, then he sat down, and he said, "What is it you're eating?" "Oh," I said, "well, as you know, it's a vegetarian dish." He said, "Would you have enough for me to have some? And don't ever get meat in this house for me again!" And he became a vegetarian then and there, and was one for about seventeen years till his death. … Well, if you're going to speak in the House of Lords, you've jolly well got to know your facts. Yes, he'd been to three slaughterhouses and was appalled.”

Muriel Dowding, Baroness Dowding (1908–1993) British noble

Source: Interview by Rynn Berry, pp. 137-38

Death, Marriage, Happiness, Housing

“I was once — and only once — asked if I could have had a writing career without the movies. That stopped me, and I was very happy to have to think about it, and decide I knew the answer. Yes; not this career, but a career. Without movie money, either from writing screenplays or selling rights to novels, I could still have enough of a career that I could support myself and not have to work at some other job, but it would be, shall we say, a less lavish lifestyle.”

Donald E. Westlake (1933–2008) American novelist

Blogcritics interview (2007)

Money, Happiness, Support, Thinking

“Not a step can we take in any direction without perceiving the most extraordinary traces of design; and the skill everywhere conspicuous is calculated in so vast a proportion of instances to promote the happiness of living creatures, and especially of ourselves, that we feel no hesitation in concluding that, if we knew the whole scheme of Providence, every part would appear to be in harmony with a plan of absolute benevolence.”

Henry Brougham, 1st Baron Brougham and Vaux (1778–1868) English barrister, politician, and Lord Chancellor of Great Britain

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 261.

Happiness, Feeling, Appearance, Parting

“There are two great uses of antiquarian studies. One of them is to enable us to conjure up as if by the magician's wand the dress, furniture, architecture, &c., of past ages, so that we can live, as it were, in many centuries almost at the same moment. This is a very great and a very pleasant species of knowledge, but it is not particularly useful in this work-a-day world; and it sometimes, like other knowledge, renders its possessor far from happy, more especially when he goes to the theatre, and sees all sorts of anachronisms and impossibilities a. The other use of antiquarian studies is to restore disused arts, and to get all the good we can out of them for our own improvement.”

William Burges (1827–1881) English architect

Source: Art applied to industry: a series of lectures, 1865, p. 13

Happiness, Age, World, Art

“Freedom from suffering is a great happiness.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Old Path White Clouds : Walking in the Footsteps of the Buddha (1991) Parallax Press ISBN 81-216-0675-6

Happiness, Freedom, Suffering

“"Money! Money in Oz!" cried the Tin Woodman. "What a queer idea! Did you suppose we are so vulgar as to use money here?"
"Why not?" asked the shaggy man.
"If we used money to buy things with, instead of love and kindness and the desire to please one another, then we should be no better than the rest of the world," declared the Tin Woodman. "Fortunately money is not known in the Land of Oz at all. We have no rich, and no poor; for what one wishes the others all try to give him, in order to make him happy, and no one in all Oz cares to have more than he can use."
"Good!" cried the shaggy man, greatly pleased to hear this. "I also despise money — a man in Butterfield owes me fifteen cents, and I will not take it from him. The Land of Oz is surely the most favored land in all the world, and its people the happiest. I should like to live here always."”

L. Frank Baum book The Road to Oz

The Road to Oz (1909)
Later Oz novels

Love, Money, Happiness, People

“Happiness in it's uncut form
Is the feeling that I get, you're warm, warm
Happy's what I get when we do what we do
Happiness, mama, is being with u
Good lord.”

Prince (1958–2016) American pop, songwriter, musician and actor

Girls & Boys
Song lyrics, Parade Under the Cherry Moon (1986)

Happiness, Feeling

“If you do not have the capacity for happiness with a little money, great wealth will not bring it to you.”

William Feather (1889–1981) Publisher, Author

The Business of Life (1949)

Money, Happiness, Wealth

“I wanted your songs.
You wanted my songs more than you wanted my happiness. So you took my happiness, and stole my songs.”

Orson Scott Card Songmaster

Songmaster (1979)

Happiness

“Happy is the house that shelters a friend!”

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

1840s, Essays: First Series (1841), Friendship

Happiness, Housing

“Four times, under our educational rules, the human pack is shuffled and cut – at eleven-plus, sixteen-plus, eighteen-plus and twenty-plus – and happy is he who comes top of the deck on each occasion, but especially the last. This is called Finals, the very name of which implies that nothing of importance can happen after it.”

David Lodge book Changing Places

Changing Places ([1975] 1978), ch. 1, p. 16. ISBN 0140046569

Happiness, Education, Time

“Other sages have spoken to me of God. But from whom could I have learned the essence of Divine perfection, as from Him, who was in a peculiar sense the Son, representative, and image of God — who was especially an incarnation of the unbounded love of the Father? And from what other teacher could I have learned to approach the Supreme Being with that filial spirit, which forms the happiness of my fellowship with Him? From other seers I might have heard of heaven; but when I behold in Jesus the spirit of heaven, dwelling actually on earth, what a new comprehension have I of that better world!”

William Ellery Channing (1780–1842) United States Unitarian clergyman

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 62

Love, God, Happiness, World

“Capitalism subordinates men to machines instead of using machines to liberate men from the burden of mechanical and repetitive work. it subordinates all, inherent in every commodity, fully unfolds itself in this contradictory nature of capitalist machinery. When capitalism is not overthrown once it has created the material and social preconditions for a classless society of associated producers, this contradiction implies the possibility of a steadily increasing transformation of the forces of production into forces of destruction, in the most literal sense of the word: not only forces of destruction of wealth (crises and wars), of human wealth and human happiness, but also forces of destruction of life tout court.”

Ernest Mandel (1923–1995) Belgian economist and Marxist philosopher

Introduction to Capital. Introduction to volume 1 (1976)

Life, Men, War, Happiness

“She watched the lights upon the shore. The glare that was Plymouth in the distance. She thought, the dance is over. The girls are going out of the overheated hall into the cold air. They shiver; their young men hurry after them. Some have got home and find their dresses stained or torn; yet they've enjoyed themselves. Which is the more important? Wallflowers think of the young men who haven't danced with them; probably each has a dream-day hero. Remember the lieutenant to whom I never spoke a word; yet I married him and had children and grandchildren, though he never knew it. And there are others, madly happy, look in their mirrors and smile and wonder. Even the latest home has a warm bed to go to.”

Arthur Calder-Marshall (1908–1992) English novelist, essayist, critic, memoirist and biographer

Calder-Marshall, Arthur. At Sea. London: Jonathan Cape. 1934.

Men, Happiness, Children, Smile

“There is but one mode by which man can possess in perpetuity all the happiness which his nature is capable of enjoying, — that is by the union and co-operation of all for the benefit of each.
Union and co-operation in war obviously increase the power of the individual a thousand fold. Is there the shadow of a reason why they should not produce equal effects in peace; why the principle of co-operation should not give to men the same superior powers, and advantages, (and much greater) in the creation, preservation, distribution and enjoyment of wealth?”

Robert Owen (1771–1858) Welsh social reformer

The Social System (1826)

Men, War, Happiness, Peace

“Before us, art relied on memory, an anxious re-evocation of an Object lost (happiness, love, a landscape), and hence was nostalgic, static, charged with suffering and distance. With Futurism, instead, art is turning into art-action, which is to say, into will, optimism, aggression, possession, penetration, delight, brutal reality within art (example: onomatopoiea; —example: noise-tuners = motors), geometrical splendor of forces, projections forward. Thus, art is becoming Presence, new Object, new reality created with the abstract elements of the universe. The hands of the passéist artist used to suffer for the sake of the lost Object; our hand will twitch for the new Object to be created. That is why the new Object (the plastic complex) has miraculously appeared in your hands.”

Filippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876–1944) Italian poet and editor, founder of the Futurist movement

Quote in: Fortunato Depero & Giacomo Balla 'The Futurist Reconstruction of the Universe' in: Direzione del Movimento Futurista, March 11, 1915. Transl. Caroline Tisdall, 1973.
1910's

Love, Happiness, Art, Optimism

“I hold to faith in the divine love — which, so many years ago for a brief moment in a little corner of the earth, walked about as a man bearing the name of Jesus Christ — as the foundation on which alone my happiness rests.”

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German writer, artist, and politician

(1773), translated by Albert Schweizer in Goethe: Five Studies http://archive.is/tOo5z (1961), Beacon Press, p. 53

Love, Happiness, Faith, Christ

“It's in the fight, in the striving, in the mountains unclimbed that fulfillment lies, so if you have nothing to strive for, you have nothing to make you happy. When it comes to "for better" or "for worse," "for better" is often harder on a marriage.”

Merle Shain (1935–1989) Canadian writer

Some Men are More Perfect Than Others (1973)

Marriage, Happiness, Mountain, Fight

“As the original Mary Poppins budget of five million dollars continued to grow, I never saw a sad face around the entire Studio. And this made me nervous. I knew the picture would have to gross 10 million dollars for us to break even. But still there was no negative head-shaking. No prophets of doom. Even Roy was happy. He didn't even ask me to show the unfinished picture to a banker. The horrible thought struck me — suppose the staff had finally conceded that I knew what I was doing.”

Walt Disney (1901–1966) American film producer and businessman

Statement of 1 October 1966, used in The Walt Disney Story (1973) https://waltdatedworld.com/id140.htm

Happiness, Sadness

“I was born without muscles in my mouth, so I can't smile. But, I'm real happy. I'm super happy right now. I'm ecstatic.”

Joe Trohman (1984) American musician

My Heart Will Always Be The B-Side To My Tongue (2004), Honda Civic Tour (2007)

Happiness, Smile

“We have to keep everybody happy. This is a house full of big egos.”

Helen Reddy (1941) Australian actress

On the counterfeit gold record of her 1974 single "You and Me Against the World", as quoted in "Helen Reddy Sings Out for Women's Lib—but Jeffrey Calls the Tune" by Robert Windeler, People Magazines, 3 February 1975 http://people.com/archive/helen-reddy-sings-out-for-womens-lib-but-jeffrey-calls-the-tune-vol-3-no-4/

Happiness, Housing

“The invigorating air did them both good, and much exercise worked wholesome changes in minds as well as bodies. They seemed to get clearer views of life and duty up there among the everlasting hills. The fresh winds blew away desponding doubts, delusive fancies, and moody mists. The warm spring sunshine brought out all sorts of aspiring ideas, tender hopes, and happy thoughts. The lake seemed to wash away the troubles of the past, and the grand old mountains to look benignly down upon them saying, "Little children, love one another."”

Louisa May Alcott book Little Women

Source: Little Women (1868), Ch. 41 : Learning To Forget

Love, Life, Happiness, Children

“In persevering through my own darkness, I found, I call it my immortal soul, and sanctuary, who can survive whatever life throws at me. Life's so short. To get up every morning and take a good look around in a way that takes nothing for granted. Every day is a gift. Never treat life casually. Never let the bitterness and devilry steal your sweetness, happiness. DRA-2015.”

Linh Nga (1982) American-Vietnamese film director, film producer, actress, screenwriter, and news anchor

Vnexpress. Giai tri page http://giaitri.vnexpress.net/sao/nguyen-linh-nga-93701/tieu-su.html 2015

Life, Happiness, Way, Soul

“She walked and walked, daring to be happy, risking the wrath of the Gods. She raised her large smiling face to the sun and when she was not struck down, dared to hope for herself again.”

Susan Ruth Johnson (1959)

Page 145.
Hungry Ghosts (1996)

God, Happiness, Smile, Hope

“I believe in all-wise-and all-loving God, named by whatever name, and that the individuals highest fulfillment, greatest happiness, and widest usefulness are to be found in living in harmony with His will.”

John D. Rockefeller, Jr. (1874–1960) American financier and philanthropist

I Believe

Love, God, Happiness

“McDonald: Now a lot of people find great comfort from religion. Not everybody is as you are – well-favored, handsome, wealthy, with a good job, happy family life. I mean, your life is good – not everybody's life is good, and religion brings them comfort.Dawkins: There are all sorts of things that would be comforting. I expect an injection of morphine would be comforting – it might be more comforting, for all I know. But to say that something is comforting is not to say that it's true.”

Richard Dawkins (1941) English ethologist, evolutionary biologist and author

An Interview by Sheena McDonald (1995)

Life, Happiness, People, Family

“I really am a happy, amusing fellow at heart. Trouble is I seem the only one left.”

Cary Grant (1904–1986) British-American film and stage actor

As quoted in "Cary Grant is puzzled because you have No Time for Laughs" by Robert Ottaway in Picturegoer magazine (4 January 1958)

Happiness, Heart

“Thank you for your news, Princess. It is none of it happy, but only a fool desires cheerful ignorance and I try not to be a fool. That is my heaviest burden.”

Tad Williams (1957) novelist

Source: Memory, Sorrow, and Thorn, Stone of Farewell (1990), Chapter 9, “Cold and Curses” (p. 237).

Happiness, Fools, Princess

“For the moment we will put aside the consideration of the effect upon others — which is so infinitely more important — and think only of the results for the man himself. It is necessary to do this because one of the objections frequently brought against vegetarianism is that it is a beautiful theory, but one the working of which is impracticable, since it is supposed that a man cannot live without devouring dead flesh. That objection is irrational, and is founded upon ignorance or perversion of facts. I am myself an example of its falsity; for I have lived without the pollution of flesh food — without meat, fish or fowl — for the last thirty-eight years, and I not only still survive, but have been during all that time in remarkably good health. Nor am I in any way peculiar in this, for I know some thousands of others who have done the same thing. I know some younger ones who have been so happy as to be unpolluted by the eating of flesh during the whole of their lives; and they are distinctly freer from disease than those who partake of such things.”

Charles Webster Leadbeater (1854–1934) English theosophist

Source: Vegetarianism and Occultism (1913), p. 4-5

Happiness, Health, Disease, Food

“When I did TV shows and movies, the studios did demographic research. They were shocked to find that my audience isn't just men who are too drunk to turn off the TV after football. It's women, too. I don't know exactly why, other than that I've tried to remain true to myself for all these years. I have gone through a lot, and I've been open about it. Maybe they look at me and can see how you can grow up, have children, continue to be sexy, get married and divorced and, though you grew up poor, live the American dream. I'm very blessed. I'm happy for it all.”

Pamela Anderson (1967) Canadian-American model, producer, author, former showgirl

Playboy, May 2004.

Women, Men, Happiness, Children

“The lesson Buddha and Marcus Aurelius had taught centuries earlier: "Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it."”

Jonathan Haidt (1963) American psychologist

Source: The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom (2005), p. 25.

Happiness, Thinking

“Do we have the right now to tell them that when Saint Francis begged the Lord to teach him to want to console instead of seeking to be consoled — to teach him to want to love instead of desiring to be loved — that he was really being selfish? Because he knew the only way to be fulfilled and pleased and happy was to give instead of trying to get.”

Mario Cuomo (1932–2015) American politician, Governor of New York

Address at Iona College (1984)

Love, Happiness, Way, Selfishness

“…in Palau I seemed to be the perfect princess, this time I was competitive and sometimes the bad guy. I played competitively both times. I think there is a happy medium to me. I'm not perfect or horrible. I've always had to work hard for everything I've gotten in life. I went in to bust my butt and I hope people can respect me for that. I played the game the way it was designed to be played…”

Stephenie LaGrossa (1978) American television personality

"I Played the Game the Way It Was Designed to Be Played": An Interview with Survivor: Guatemala's Stephenie http://www.realitynewsonline.com/cgi-bin/ae.pl?mode=1&article=article5924.art&page=1, Reality News Online, 12 December 2005.

Life, Happiness, People, Hope

“Trump's kid-gloves coddling of anti-Semites and their vicious works have served him in good stead. Now the haters will be only too happy to return the favor by stepping up their attacks.”

Bradley Burston israeli journalist

Trump's Win, the Greatest Victory for anti-Semitism in America Since 1941 (2016)

Happiness

“And as I ponder the madness of Vietnam and search within myself for ways to understand and respond in compassion, my mind goes constantly to the people of that peninsula. I speak not now of the soldiers of each side, not of military government in Saigon, but simply of the people who have been under the curse of war for almost three continuous decades now. I think of them too because it is clear to me that there will be no meaningful solution until some attempt is made to know these people and hear their broken cries. Now let me tell you the truth about it. They must see Americans as strange liberators. Do you realize that the Vietnamese people proclaimed their own independence in 1945, after a combined French and Japanese occupation. And incidentally, this was before the communist revolution in China. They were led by Ho Chi Minh. And this is a little known fact, these people declared themselves independent in 1945, they quoted our Declaration of Independence in their document of freedom. And yet our government refused to recognize, President Truman said they were not ready for independence. So we failed victim as a nation at that time of the same deadly arrogance that has poisoned the international situation for all of these years. France then set out to reconquer its former colony. And they fought eight long, hard, brutal years, trying to reconquer Vietnam. You know who helped France? It was the United States of America, it came to the point that we were meeting more than 80% of the war cost. And even when France started despairing of its reckless action, we did not. And in 1954, a conference was called at Geneva, and an agreement was reached, because France had been defeated at Dien Bien Phu. But even after that and even after the Geneva Accord, we did not stop. We must face the sad fact that our government sought in a real sense to sabotage the Geneva Accord. Well, after the French were defeated, it looked as if independence and land reform would come through the Geneva agreement. But instead the United States came and started supporting a man named Diem, who turned out to be one of the most ruthless dictators in the history of the world. He set out to silence all opposition, people were brutally murdered merely because they raised their voices against the brutal policies of Diem. And the peasants watched and cringed as Diem ruthlessly rooted out all opposition. The peasants watched as all this was presided over by United States influence, and then by increasing numbers of United States troops, who came to help quell the insurgency that Diem's methods had aroused. When Diem was overthrown they may have been happy, but the long line of military dictatorships seemed to offer no real change, especially in terms of their need for land and peace. And who are we supporting in Vietnam today? It's a man by the name of General Ky, who fought with the French against his own people, and who said on one occasion that the greatest hero of his life is Hitler. This is who we're supporting in Vietnam today. Oh, our government, and the press generally, won't tell us these things, but God told me to tell you this morning. The truth must be told.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam (1967)

Life, God, War, Happiness

“And honoured among foxes and pheasants by the gay house
Under the new made clouds and happy as the heart was long,
In the sun born over and over,
I ran my heedless ways.”

Dylan Thomas Fern Hill

St. 5
Fern Hill (1946)

Happiness, Way, Sun, Heart

“We have much studied and much perfected, of late, the great civilized invention of the division of labour; only we give it a false name. It is not, truly speaking, the labour that it divided; but the men: — Divided into mere segments of men — broken into small fragments and crumbs of life; so that all the little piece of intelligence that is left in a man is not enough to make a pin, or a nail, but exhausts itself in making the point of a pin or the head of a nail. Now it is a good and desirable thing, truly, to make many pins in a day; but if we could only see with what crystal sand their points were polished, — sand of human soul, much to be magnified before it can be discerned for what it is — we should think that there might be some loss in it also. And the great cry that rises from our manufacturing cities, louder than their furnace blast, is all in very deed for this, — that we manufacture everything there except men; we blanch cotton, and strengthen steel, and refine sugar, and shape pottery; but to brighten, to strengthen, to refine, or to form a single living spirit, never enters into our estimate of advantages. And all the evil to which that cry is urging our myriads can be met only in one way: not by teaching nor preaching, for to teach them is but to show them their misery, and to preach at them, if we do nothing more than preach, is to mock at it. It can only be met by a right understanding, on the part of all classes, of what kinds of labour are good for men, raising them, and making them happy; by a determined sacrifice of such convenience or beauty, or cheapness as is to be got only by the degradation of the workman; and by equally determined demand for the products and results of healthy and ennobling labour.”

John Ruskin book The Stones of Venice

Volume II, chapter VI, section 16.
The Stones of Venice (1853)

Life, Men, Happiness, Beauty

“I do not think that any sorrow of youth or manhood equalled in intensity or duration the black and hopeless misery which followed the wrench of transference from a happy home to a school.”

Henry George Liddell (1811–1898) Headmaster, lexicographer, classical scholar, and dean

Source: Colin Gordon, Beyond the Looking Glass (1982), P.29.

Happiness, Youth, School, Home

“Now I've been happy lately
Thinking about the good things to come
And I believe it could be
Something good has begun. Oh, I've been smiling lately
Dreaming about the world as one
And I believe it could be
Someday it's going to come.”

Cat Stevens (1948) British singer-songwriter

Peace Train - Earth Tour performance (1976) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sjSHazjrWg - 2006 performance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7wEctHyuc0 - Nobel Concert (2006) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7iLPnDCQ1g Song lyrics, Teaser and the Firecat (1971)

Happiness, World, Smile, Dreams

“To believe is to be happy; to doubt is to be wretched. To believe is to be strong. Doubt cramps energy. Belief is power. Only so far as a man believes strongly, mightily, can he act cheerfully, or do any thing that is worth the doing.”

Frederick William Robertson (1816–1853) British writer and theologian

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 23.

Happiness, Strong

“Respect for intellectual excellence, the restoration of vigor and discipline to our ideas of study, curricula which aim at strengthening intellectual fiber and stretching the power of young minds, personal commitment and responsibility — these are the preconditions of educational recovery in America today; and, I believe, they have always been the preconditions of happiness and sanity for the human race.”

Adlai Stevenson (1900–1965) mid-20th-century Governor of Illinois and Ambassador to the UN

Speech to the United Parents Association, as quoted in The New York Times (6 April 1958)

Happiness, Education, Idea, Study

“Has knowledge of birth control, so carefully guarded and so secretly practiced by the women of the wealthy class – and so tenaciously withheld from the working women – brought them misery? Rather, has it not promoted greater happiness, greater freedom, greater prosperity and more harmony among them? The women who have this knowledge are the women who have been free to develop, free to enjoy in its best sense, and free to advance the interests of the community.”

Margaret Sanger (1879–1966) American birth control activist, educator and nurse

"Morality and Birth Control", February-March, 1918, pp. 11,14.
Birth Control Review, 1918-32

Women, Happiness, Communication, Birth

“No man is happy who does not think himself so.”

Publilio Siro Latin writer

Maxim 584
Sentences, The Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, a Roman Slave

Happiness, Thinking

“True love goes ever straight forward, not in its own strength, but esteeming itself as nothing. Then indeed we are truly happy. The cross is no longer a cross when there is no self to suffer under it.”

François Fénelon (1651–1715) Catholic bishop

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 396.

Love, Happiness, Suffering

“The kids were both adolescents, at that happy stage where they could simultaneously make him confident about the future while they were sabotaging the present.”

Jack McDevitt (1935) American novelist, Short story writer

Source: Academy Series - Priscilla "Hutch" Hutchins, Cauldron (2007), Chapter 22 (p. 190)

Happiness, Confidence, Future

“Righteousness is the root of happiness.”

Chanakya (-375–-283 BC) Ancient Indian statesman and philosopher

Maxims of Chanakya

Happiness

“Money doesn't make you confident, material things don't make you confident. Your work ethic makes you confident; your achievements make you confident. It's about setting goals, and it's about whether or not you reach them. I know a lot of people with money who are not happy, who are insecure, who are basically train wrecks.”

Erika Jayne (1969) American singer, actress and television personality

Interview to Cosmopolitan (2016)

Money, Happiness, People, Confidence

“There is no permanent equilibrium in human affairs. Faith, wisdom, and art allow one to attain it for a time; then outside influences and the souls' passions destroy it, and one must climb the rock again in he same manner. This vacillation round a fixed point is life, and the certainty that such a point exists is happiness. As the most ardent love, of one analyses its separate moments, is made up of innumerable minute conflicts settled invariably by fidelity, so happiness, if one reduces it to its important elements, is made up of struggles and anguish, and always saved by hope.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Happiness

Love, Life, Wisdom, Happiness

“Atheism ensures morality. Morality is a social necessity. The immorality of one disturbs the happiness of another in social relations. So checks and counter-checks maintain morality.”

Goparaju Ramachandra Rao (1902–1975) Indian activist

The Need of Atheism

Happiness

“Many beautiful women have been made happy by their own beauty, but no intelligent woman has ever been made happy by her own intelligence.”

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Women & men

Women, Happiness, Beauty, Intelligence

“A life by choice is one that is filled with love, happiness, and an appreciation of each day.”

Steve Maraboli (1975)

Source: Life, the Truth, and Being Free (2010), p. 78

Love, Life, Happiness

“While I'm generally silent on the affairs of my biological mother, her recent tirade has taken a gross turn. I have never been approached by Dave Grohl in more than a platonic way. I'm in a monogamous relationship and very happy. Twitter should ban my mother.”

Frances Bean Cobain (1992) American artist

" Frances Bean Cobain Says Dave Grohl Never Creeped on Her http://www.spin.com/articles/frances-bean-cobain-says-dave-grohl-never-creeped-her" (2012)

Happiness, Way

“Now, when our Lord was come to eighteen years,
The King commanded that there should be built
Three stately houses, one of hewn square beams
With cedar lining, warm for winter days;
One of veined marbles, cool for summer heat;
And one of burned bricks, with blue tiles bedecked,
Pleasant at seed-time, when the champaks bud--
Subha, Suramma, Ramma, were their names.
Delicious gardens round about them bloomed,
Streams wandered wild and musky thickets stretched,
With many a bright pavilion and fair lawn
In midst of which Siddartha strayed at will,
Some new delight provided every hour;
And happy hours he knew, for life was rich,
With youthful blood at quickest; yet still came
The shadows of his meditation back,
As the lake's silver dulls with driving clouds.”

Edwin Arnold book The Light of Asia

Book The Second.
The Light of Asia (1879)

Life, Happiness, Youth, Winter

“Were I to buy this life of pleasure and this only chance at happiness with a few little dangers, where would be the harm? And wouldn’t it still be fortunate to find a weak excuse to give her proof of my love?”

Stendhal book The Charterhouse of Parma

Quand je devrais acheter cette vie de délices et cette chance unique de bonheur par quelques petits dangers, où serait le mal? Et ne serait-ce pas encore un bonheur que de trouver ainsi une faible occasion de lui donner une preuve de mon amour?
Source: La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma) (1839), Ch. 20

Love, Life, Happiness, Pleasure

“Is it not the interest of the human race, that every one should be so taught and placed, that he would find his highest enjoyment to arise from the continued practice of doing all in his power to promote the well-being, and happiness, of every man, woman, and child, without regard to their class, sect, party, country or colour?”

Robert Owen (1771–1858) Welsh social reformer

Paper Dedicated to the Governments of Great Britain, Austria, Russia, France, Prussia and the United States of America (1841) 17th of "20 Questions to the Human Race".

Happiness, Country

“Happy is the man who avoids dissension, but how fine is the man who is afflicted and shows endurance.”

Muhammad (570–632) Arabian religious leader and the founder of Islam

Sunah of Abu Dawood, Hadith 1996
Sunni Hadith

Happiness, Affliction

“And the same applies to the spouse. You know you love them, but you need to say it again and again. Like we got to the food, moments ago, and you need to say: "This food is – mashallah – it's really, really great". Even if the salt is a little bit more. Because sometimes, as I was saying, she spent so much time bringing it in front of us – and we are worried about how it's smelling, number one, and number two is we say, as we taste it, "The salt is too much, no?" What are you talking about? She just looks at you and her face flops. «I've been at it for three hours here, four hours I've been busy with this for so many months…» And what does she even say? "Next time I'll try a bit harder" – that's if she's a good woman; if not, she will say: "Never gonna cook this again!" It's typical. And if you have someone who is very witty: "The next time there's salt to be put in, I'll call you to put it." So we need to praise the cooking of our wives, we need to praise their dress code, especially… For example, I can let you know something that has worked, for some people. When you find some women, you know, they don't like to dress appropriately, so the husband sometimes wants to tell them something. There're two, three ways of doing it. You can either say, "This is very bad, I don't want you to wear this." And, you know, you might have a response. But if you want a response from the heart, what you do is, you tell them: "The other dress looked much better than this." You see, so you are praising one thing, and that praise is not there when the other thing is there. So, you have told them, in a way, that «this is what I really love». And go beyond the limits in praise – that's your wife, don't worry, you can say whatever you want, mashallah, in terms of goodness. Like the food, when you eat, even if it is a little bit this way or that way, just praise it, mashallah. See what it is. Praise the effort, at least. Let me tell you what has happened once. They say the imam in the mosque had said: "You need to praise the cooking of your wife". Just like I said now. So the man went home, and he had this meal, and he was looking at it, and looking at his wife, and smiling, all happy, mashallah, excited and everything. And when he finishes, he says: "Oh! It was awesome!" And the wife says, "What? I've been cooking for you for 21 years, you never said that! Today, when the food came from the neighbor, you want to say it was awesome?"”

Ismail ibn Musa Menk (1975) Muslim cleric and Grand Mufti of Zimbabwe.

"The Fortunate Muslim Family: Divine Solution to the Fragmented Family" (20 February 2012), lecture at the University of Malaya ( YouTube video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-QaeZcV_azE) Lectures

Love, Women, Happiness, People

“Man was formed with an understanding for the obtainment of knowledge; and happy is he who is employed in the pursuit of it. Ignorance is in its nature unprofitable; but every kind of knowledge may be turned to use. Diligence is generally rewarded with the discovery of that which it seeks after; sometimes of that which is more valuable.”

George Horne (1730–1792) English churchman, writer and university administrator

Prose Quotations from Socrates to Macaulay, 1880

Happiness, Understanding, Nature, Knowledge

“How happy he whose toil
Has o'er his languid pow'rless limbs diffus'd
A pleasing lassitude; he not in vain
Invokes the gentle Deity of dreams.
His pow'rs the most voluptuously dissolve
In soft repose; on him the balmy dews
Of Sleep with double nutriment descend.”

John Armstrong (1709–1779) British poet

Book III, line 385.
The Art of Preserving Health (1744)

Happiness, Dreams, Sleep

“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.”

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer

An Apology for Idlers.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)

Happiness

“He that sympathizes in all the happiness of others, perhaps himself enjoys the safest happiness.”

Charles Caleb Colton (1777–1832) British priest and writer

Vol. I; XXXIII
Lacon (1820)

Happiness

“I had hoped that out of so many stories you would at least have produced one or two, which could hardly be questioned, and which would clearly show that ghosts or spectres exist. The case you relate… seems to me laughable. In like manner it would be tedious here to examine all the stories of people, who have written on these trifles. To be brief, I cite the instance of Julius Caesar, who, as Suetonius testifies, laughed at such things and yet was happy. …And so should all who reflect on the human imagination, and the effects of the emotions, laugh at such notions; whatever Lavater and others, who have gone dreaming with him in the matter, may produce to the contrary.”

Baruch Spinoza (1632–1677) Dutch philosopher

Letter to Hugo Boxel (October 1674) The Chief Works of Benedict de Spinoza https://books.google.com/books?id=Nz1kRKDMbUMC (1891) Tr. R. H. M. Elwes, Vol. 2, Letter 58 (54).

Happiness, People, Dreams, Hope

“Pity would be no more
If we did not make somebody Poor;
And Mercy no more could be
If all were as happy as we.”

William Blake The Human Abstract

The Human Abstract, st. 1
1790s, Songs of Experience (1794)

Happiness

“The second childhood of a saint is the early infancy of a happy immortality, as we believe.”

William Mountford (1816–1885) English Unitarian preacher and author

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 438.

Happiness, Childhood

“I don't want Cambodia to be a carbon copy of the Philippines, Formosa, South Vietnam or South Korea. I don't even want a Cambodia which exports cameras like Japan. I want a decent Cambodia, a Cambodia like China. If that makes it a bit too austere, too bad. If this takes away the happiness I cultivated with my films and my songs, too bad. But, they say, there's the problem of individual freedom, freedom of thought. Yes, that's true. But where's the alternative? Nowhere. Let's use our common sense here: even if there was another solution, the Cambodian communists would never relenquish power.”

Norodom Sihanouk (1922–2012) Cambodian King

Said during his exile in Peking, as quoted by Oriana Fallaci (June 1973), Intervista con la Storia (sixth edition, 2011). page 128.
Interviews

Happiness, Problem, Sense, Freedom

“You can't be happy that fire cooks your food and be mad it burns your fingertips.”

Chris Rock (1965) American comedian, actor, screenwriter, television producer, film producer, and director

In regards to fame https://web.archive.org/web/20070314185437/http://www.craveonline.com/humor/articles/04647576/everybody_loves_chris.html Miscellaneous

Happiness, Food, Madness, Cooking

“People seem to find it hard to believe, but I'm a very serious person. It wasn't luck that I became a ballplayer. I never wanted to be anything else and I never considered anything else and I worked my tail off for it. To say that I don't have any worries or nerves is the opposite of the truth. I worry about not being able to get around on the fast ball any more, I worry about getting hurt and having to quit playing before my time. I worry about the bowling alley I own with Phil Rizzuto making money. I worry about keeping Carm happy so she won't be sorry she married me, about the kids growing up good, and about keeping out of trouble with God. I worry a lot. I'm nobody's mascot, either. Sure, I like to get along with people and I hope I've made friends, but that's different.”

Yogi Berra (1925–2015) American baseball player, manager, coach

From Yogi: The Autobiography of a Professional Baseball Player; reproduced in "Berra Dispels Li'l Abner Myth."

Money, God, Happiness, People

“A person who is on his way to spiritual growth must try to reduce his own selfishness and his strong desire for acquiring more and more. He should reduce his strong attachment to possessions which, if he is not mindful, can enslave him to greed. What he owns or has should instead be used for the benefit and happiness of others: his loved ones as well as those who need his help.”

K. Sri Dhammananda Maha Thera (1919–2006) Sri Lankan Buddhist monk

"Real Charity"
What Buddhists Believe (1993)

Love, Happiness, Way, Strong

“The comedy is always the same. In the first act the hero imagines a place where happiness exists. In the second he strives towards that goal. In the third he comes up short or what amounts to the same thing he achieves his goal only to find that happiness lies a little further down the road.”

James Branch Cabell (1879–1958) American author

Horvendile, in The High Place : A Comedy of Disenchantment (1923), Ch. XVI: Some Victims of Flamberge.

Happiness, Imagination

“I am convinced that those societies (as the Indians) which live without government enjoy in their general mass an infinitely greater degree of happiness than those who live under the European governments.”

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

Letter to Colonel Edward Carrington, Paris, (16 January 1787)
1780s

Happiness

“"Oh, Richard!" exclaimed she, on one occasion, "if you would but dismiss such gloomy subjects from your mind, you would live as long as any of us; at least you would live to see the girls married, and yourself a happy grandfather, with a canty old dame for your companion."”

Anne Brontë book Agnes Grey

Source: Agnes Grey (1847), Ch. VI : The Parsonage Again

Happiness, Girl

“118. Happy is the spirit which, praying with distraction, goes on increasing its desire for God.”

Evagrius Ponticus (345–399) Christian monk

Chapters on Prayer

God, Happiness

“I have sometimes suspected that the only thing that holds no mystery is happiness, because it is its own justification.”

Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) Argentine short-story writer, essayist, poet and translator, and a key figure in Spanish language literature

He sospechado alguna vez que la única cosa sin misterio es la felicidad, porque se justifica por sí sola.
"Unworthy", in Brodie's Report (1970); tr. Andrew Hurley, Collected Fictions (1998)
Variant: I have thought from time to time that the only thing without mystery is happiness, since it justifies itself.

Happiness