Quotes about happiness
page 52

“Problems or successes, they all are the results of our own actions. Karma. The philosophy of action is that no one else is the giver of peace or happiness. One's own karma, one's own actions are responsible to come to bring either happiness or success or whatever... As you sow, so shall you reap. It's a very old proverb of mankind. As you sow, so shall you reap. Sometime you may have killed that man, and then sometime now he comes to kill you... What we have done, the result of that comes to us whenever it comes, either today, tomorrow, hundred years later, hundred lives later, whatever, whatever. And so, it's our own karma.
That is why that philosophy in every religion: Killing is sin. Killing is sin in every religion. Whosoever sins, whoever is killed, it doesn't matter. It's a sin. And sin.. is a punishable offense. Because when you sin, when you've killed some man, what you are killing? You are killing the cosmic potential within the individual. Individual is cosmic. Individual potential of life is cosmic potential. Individual is divine deep inside. Transcendental experience awakens that divinity in man...When you kill a man like that you deprive him from getting to his human right.”

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi (1917–2008) Inventor of Transcendental Meditation, musician

Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, in CNN Larry King Weekend:Interview With Maharishi Mahesh Yogi http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0205/12/lklw.00.html, (2002)

Life, Happiness, Peace, Religion

“The herdist instinct is furthermore not only personal, in the sense that it clamors for a personal collectivism; it creates also a longing and desire for the visual or acoustic contemplation of identitarian or uniformistic phenomena. The true herdist, the man truly dominated by that inferior instinct, will not only rejoice in marching amongst twenty thousand uniformly clad soldiers, all stepping rhythmically in one direction, but he will find an almost equal gratification in contemplating the show from a balcony. He will not only be happy in sitting amidst two hundred other bespectacled businessmen, drinking beer and humming one chant in unison, but the aspect of a skyscraper with a thousand identical windows will probably impress him more than a picture by Botticelli or Zurbarán.”

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn (1909–1999) Austrian noble and political theorist

Pg 16
The Menace of the Herd (1943)

Happiness, Drink, Beer, Sense

“A thousand departments of mental and physical activity foster and in turn are fostered by its achievement. People must be governed, and there must be those who govern. Laws must be made, and there must be those who study, and those who execute these laws. People must be taught, and there must be teachers. All these and the Church, the newspaper, the theatre, the fine arts are essential to the completeness of the State, to the happiness and safety of its people; but Commerce is the main stem, or trunk, where they are all branches, supplied with the sap of its far-reaching wealth. It is as necessary to the existence of any nation as blood to the physical man. That country in which trade flourishes is accounted happy, while that in which Commerce droops provokes shaking of heads and prophecies of downfall.”

Harry Gordon Selfridge (1858–1947) America born English businessman

The Romance of Commerce (1918), Concerning Commerce

Happiness, People, Law, Art

“I often made up these stories in my mind about people I idolized or wanted to be like. I always write happy endings for them and convinced myself that life would be so much easier if I could walk in their shoes. But I never realized that in those shoes their feet were scraped and bruised like mine.”

Ashlee Marie Preston American media personality, producer, and activist

As quoted in [Man, Chella, What It’s Like to Be Trans and Live With Gender Dysphoria, https://www.teenvogue.com/story/what-its-like-to-be-trans-and-live-with-gender-dysphoria, 29 January 2019, Teen Vogue, September 21, 2018]

Life, Happiness, People, Shoe

“Present excitement will at all times magnify present dangers, but true philosophy must teach us that none more threatening than the past can remain to be overcome; and we ought (for we have just reason) to entertain an abiding confidence in the stability of our institutions and an entire conviction that if administered in the true form, character, and spirit in which they were established they are abundantly adequate to preserve to us and our children the rich blessings already derived from them, to make our beloved land for a thousand generations that chosen spot where happiness springs from a perfect equality of political rights.”

Martin Van Buren (1782–1862) American politician, 8th President of the United States (in office from 1837 to 1841)

Inaugural address (1837)

Happiness, Children, Making love, Confidence

“The aims and ideals of the Soviet revolution inspired the patriotic enthusiasm of millions of people in the 1930s, during World War II, and in the postwar reconstruction period. This explains the Soviet Union's great leap forward, the achievement of a high level of industrial capacity in a very short time, the transformation of the Soviet Union into a major power in terms of science and culture. The historic victory in the Great Patriotic War against Nazism, which was a surprise not only for Hitler but also for the Western democracies is also explained by what we have said above. All this is true. But the historical truth is also that the regime and the system abused the faith of the people in these high ideals, turning them to its own advantage. Rule by the people, equality, justice, and the promise of a happy future — all these ideas were utilized for the sake of maintaining and strengthening totalitarianism.”

Mikhail Gorbachev (1931) General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

1990s, On My Country and the World (1999)

War, Happiness, People, Truth

“Were I to pray for a taste which should stand me in stead under every variety of circumstances, and be a source of happiness and cheerfulness to me during life, and a shield against its ills, however things might go amiss and the world frown upon me, it would be a taste for reading... Give a man this taste, and the means of gratifying it, and you can hardly fail of making him a happy man; unless, indeed, you put into his hands a most perverse selection of books. You place him in contact with the best society in every period of history,—with the wisest, the wittiest, the tenderest, the bravest, and the purest characters who have adorned humanity. You make him a denizen of all nations, a contemporary of all ages. The world has been created for him.”

John Herschel (1792–1871) English mathematician, astronomer, chemist and photographer

Address on the opening of the Eton Library (1833) as quoted in A History of Inventions, Discoveries and Origins (1846) by John Beckmann, Tr. William Johnston, Vol. 1, frontispiece. https://archive.org/details/historyofinventi01unse/page/n5/mode/2up

Life, Happiness, Books, Age

“It is not given me to trace
The lovely laughter of that face,
Like a clear brook most full of light,
Or olives swaying on a height,
So silver they have wings, almost;
Like a great word once known and lost
And meaning all things. Nor her voice
A happy sound where larks rejoice,
Her body, that great loveliness,
The tender fashion of her dress,
I may not paint them.
These I see,
Blazing through all eternity,
A fire-winged sign, a glorious tree!”

Stephen Vincent Benét (1898–1943) poet, short story writer, novelist

Source: Young Adventure (1918), The Quality of Courage

Love, Happiness, Making love, Fashion

“I'm interested in truth, I like science. But truth's a menace, science is a public danger. As dangerous as it's been beneficent. … It's curious … to read what people in the time of Our Ford used to write about scientific progress. They seemed to imagine that it could go on indefinitely, regardless of everything else. Knowledge was the highest good, truth the supreme value; all the rest was secondary and subordinate. True, ideas were beginning to change even then. Our Ford himself did a great deal to shift the emphasise from truth and beauty to comfort and happiness. Mass production demanded the shift. Universal happiness keeps the wheels steadily turning; truth and beauty can't. And, of course, whenever the masses seized political power, then it was happiness rather than truth and beauty that mattered. Still, in spite of everything, unrestricted scientific resarch was still permitted. People still went on talking about truth and beauty as though they were sovereign goods. Right up to the time of the Nine Years' War. That made them change their tune all right. What's the point of truth or beauty or knowledge when the anthrax bombs are popping all around you? That was when science first began to be controlled — after the Nine Years' War. People were ready to have even their appetites controlled then. Anything for a quiet life. We've gone on controlling ever since. It hasn't been very good for truth, of course. But it's been very good for happiness. One can't have something for nothing. Happiness has got to be paid for.”

Aldous Huxley book Brave New World

Source: Brave New World (1932), Mustapha Mond, in Ch. 16

Life, War, Happiness, People

“I have always looked upon the interests of the labouring classes as essentially the most conservative interests of the country. The rights of labour have been to me always as sacred as the rights of property, and I have always thought that those who were most interested in the stability and even in the glory of a State are the great mass of the population, happy to enjoy the privileges of freemen under good laws, and proud at the same time of the country which confers on its inhabitants a name of honour and of glorious reputation in every quarter of the globe.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Speech in Edinburgh (30 October 1867), quoted in The Chancellor of the Exchequer in Scotland; Being Two Speeches Delivered by Him in the City of Edinburgh on 29th and 30th October, 1867 (1867), pp. 36-37

Happiness, Law, Time, Country

“Nothing troubled the charm and silence of this solitude. Making the most serious reflections on what we behold, and on our present position, I said to myself: Thus does life also pass away, now calm, now agitated, but at last the end is attained. Happy, ah, thrice happy they who can then look out to the never-ending future with calm and confidence, who can cast themselves on the bosom of God, the Center of our felicity.”

Théodore Guérin (1798–1856) Catholic saint and nun from France

First Journal of Travel (1840)

Life, God, Happiness, Making love

“Contentment is...the root of all happiness.”

Swami Samarpanananda Monk, Author, Teacher

The Hindu Way ( Page 70 )

Happiness

“Let me shatter some illusions today. We are entertainers. We are not heroes. The heroes are our freedom fighters. We do not sacrifice anything for the cause of the nation. The freedom fighters did. Don't misunderstand me, cricket is not everything. What we try to do is to bring happiness to our nation.”

Mashrafe Mortaza (1983) Bangladeshi international cricketer and politician

https://www.clickittefaq.com/freedom-fighters-are-heroes-not-cricketers-mashrafe/

Happiness, Freedom

“When I first heard about meditation, I had zero interest in it. I wasn't even curious. It sounded like a waste of time.
What got me interested, though, was the phrase "true happiness lies within."”

David Lynch book Catching the Big Fish

At first I thought it sounded kind of mean, because it doesn't tell you where the "within" is, or how to get there. But still it had a ring of truth. And I began to think that maybe meditation was a way to go within.
The First Dive, p. 3
Catching the Big Fish (2006)

Happiness, Time

“So if I die today, I'll be the happy phantom,
And I'll go chasing the nuns out in the yard,
…And the atrocities of school I can forgive:
The happy phantom has no right to bitch.”

Tori Amos (1963) American singer

"Happy Phantom".
Songs

Happiness, School, Forgiveness, Bitch

“I think there has to be a mutual respect. If there is maturity, it should become apparent to them that you are happy doing it and this is what you want to do. As a second generation, we have all these resources: Do we do what we want or follow passion?”

Hannah Song American activist

LiNK’s Hannah Song: Forever Committed to a Cause https://web.archive.org/web/20160414025408/ttp://www.mochimag.com/article/links-hannah-song-forever-committed-to-a-cause (2010)

Happiness, Thinking, Passion

“Ay, soon upon the stage of life,
Sweet, happy children, you will rise,
To mingle in its care and strife,
Or early find the peaceful skies.
Then be it yours, while you pursue
The golden moments, quick to haste
Some noble work of love to do,
Nor suffer one bright hour to waste.”

Daniel Clement Colesworthy (1810–1893) American writer

School is out (1876); reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Love, Life, Happiness, Children

“Let your every moment be always better than the past, you live in the present for the future, you live with love, music, happiness and above all courage in difficult times.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Fa che ogni tuo istante sia sempre migliore di quello passato, si vive di presente per il futuro, si vive d'amore, musica, felicità e soprattutto coraggio nei momenti difficili.
Source: prevale.net

Love, Happiness, Making love, Music

“I do not delete any day of my life, the beautiful days have given me happiness, the bad ones have given me experience... the worst ones have taught me never to give up.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Non cancello nessun giorno della mia vita, i giorni belli mi hanno regalato felicità, quelli brutti mi hanno dato esperienza... i peggiori, mi hanno insegnato a non mollare mai.
Source: prevale.net

Life, Bad luck, Happiness, Beauty

“What! all of us, Christians, not only profess to love one another, but do actually live one common life; we whose social existence beats with one common pulse—we aid one another, learn from one another, draw ever closer to one another to our mutual happiness, and find in this closeness the whole meaning of life!—and to-morrow some crazy ruler will say some stupidity, and another will answer in the same spirit, and then I must go expose myself to being murdered, and murder men—who have done me no harm—and more than that, whom I love. And this is not a remote contingency, but the very thing we are all preparing for, which is not only probable, but an inevitable certainty.”

Leo Tolstoy The Kingdom of God Is Within You

Source: The Kingdom of God is Within You (1894), Chapter V, Contradiction Between our Life and our Christian Conscience

Love, Life, Men, Happiness

“It is impossible for me to express my loathing and horror of the practice men have of killing things for pastime so-called 'hunting,' or 'sport. No one but a barbarian can engage in such pursuits, or can look upon them or know of them without pain and indignation. It makes me want to fight and cry whenever I think of them. And when I see men engaged in such execrable activities (the crippling, killing, and terrifying of whole communities of innocent and happy beings, shooting them down in cold blood, and with hellish enthusiasm), my feeling is that I must stop them at all hazards. And there have been times, when I have come upon men engaged in these fiendish doings, when I would have shot them down if I had been armed, the enormity of their crimes has come over me with such vividness and power.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Perils of Over-population, pp. 157–158

Men, Pain, Happiness, Making love

“Do I still need to tell you that I am not guided by selfish motives? No gentlemen, although Belgium is small, it is happy and content with its fate. I have no ambition other than to serve it. In this century, our civilized society imparts unprecedented values to barbarian communities in other parts of the world.
Leopold II, King of the Belgians in a speech at the Brussels Geographic Conference on September 12, 1876. Quoted from the book "Zaïre, Ketens van Koper (translated: Zaire, Chains of Copper)" Chapter 2: From Leopold II to Bwana Kitoko, page 16. Leuven, Kritak Fonds, 1978. ISBN 9063030185”

Leopold II of Belgium (1835–1909) King of the Belgians

Fate, Happiness, Books, World

“The function of punishment is to do good, to improve the universe, to add to the sum total of happiness. And punishment which does not do this is not justified. It is a crime in itself. The penal acts of society should be judged just as other acts of conduct are judged—by their utilities.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Perils of Over-population, p. 152

Happiness, Universe

“I feel like saying over and over and over, what I have said many times before, that we do not know the world of living, longing, suffering, enjoying life in the midst of which we have evolved. The inhabitants of our own fields and dooryards are strangers to us. We are so little, and proud, and selfish, we never think it worth while to stop and look into their faces and get acquainted with them. It never occurs to us what a great favour it would be to them if we would actually get over into their places occasionally and realise what tragedies are constantly being enacted in their lives as a result of our insensate natures. We treat them with no consideration or respect because we have no understanding of them; and we do not understand them because we do not care anything at all about the matter. We are too busy tossing bouquets at ourselves to have much time or thought left for anybody else. We have grown up in the belief that all those who have a different shape from what we have were intended, not for life and happiness and immortality, as we were, but for death and wretchedness and chymification, and we are too dull-minded and selfish to make any change now.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

Source: The New Ethics (1907), The Thesis of the New Ethics, p. 37

Life, Death, Happiness, World

“As a film composer it's not your symphony. You know, that's one of the things you have to get over right away; that you are, as you say, a hired gun. You know, you can inject a lot of yourself into it, but the bottom-line is that you are working for other people. The ideal situation is where you make you happy and you make them happy, and that's usually what happens. But, yeah, ultimately you are answering to someone else and the sooner you figure that out, the longer you'll be around.”

Jeff Danna (1964) film composer

Jeff Danna Interview https://www.ign.com/articles/2004/08/28/jeff-danna-interview (27 August 2004)

Happiness, People, Making love

“A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.”

Jane Austen book Mansfield Park

Mansfield Park (1814)
Works, Mansfield Park

Happiness

“I was quite happy standing there thundering about, playing whatever I could - that's "fun.”

Roger Waters (1943) English songwriter, bassist, and lyricist of Pink Floyd

And I see young bands occasionally now doing the same thing. I think it's called "thrash" now. It's the same thing: It's just kids who can't play, pissing about. It's terrific. That's all we were doing. I mean, Dave could play a little bit, but none of the rest of us could."
Musician, December 1992
Music

Happiness

“Happiness isn't a thing.”

Diana Wynne Jones book Fire and Hemlock

You can't go out and get it like a cup of tea. It's the way you feel about things."
Source: Fire and Hemlock (1985), p. 311.

Happiness

“Sir, there were other days, when England was the hope of freedom. Wherever in the world a high aspiration was entertained, or a noble blow was struck, it was to England that the eyes of the oppressed were always turned—to this favourite, this darling home of so much privilege and so much happiness, where the people that had built up a noble edifice for themselves would, it was well known, be ready to do what in them lay to secure the benefit of the same inestimable boon for others. You talk to me of the established tradition and policy in regard to Turkey. I appeal to an established tradition, older, wider, nobler far—a tradition not which disregards British interests, but which teaches you to seek the promotion of those interests in obeying the dictates of honour and of justice.”

William Ewart Gladstone (1809–1898) British Liberal politician and prime minister of the United Kingdom

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1877/may/07/postponement-of-orders-of-the-day#column_437 in the House of Commons (7 May 1877) <br class="br">1870s

Happiness, People, World, Justice

“Both Stoicism and Epicureanism — the apathetic acceptance of defeat, and the effort to forget defeat in the arms of pleasure — were theories as to how one might yet be happy though subjugated or enslaved; precisely as the stoicism of Schopenhauer and the despondent epicureanism of Renan were in the nineteenth century the symbols of a shattered revolution and a broken France.”

Will Durant book The Story of Philosophy

The Story of Philosophy (1926)

Happiness, Pleasure, Effort, Forgetting

“Be happy thinking about what you have that money cannot buy. Life is also made of this.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

From the Quotes http://www.prevale.net/quotes.html page of the official website of Prevale <br class="br">Original: (it) Sii felice pensando a ciò che hai che i soldi non possano comprare. La vita è fatta anche di questo. <br class="br">Source: prevale.net

Life, Money, Happiness, Thinking

“Happiness is the indication that man has found the answer to the problem of human existence: the productive realization of his potentialities and thus, simultaneously, being one with the world and preserving the integrity of his self. In spending his energy productively he increases his powers, he "burns without being consumed.“”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Source: Man for Himself (1947), p.189

Happiness, World, Problem, Self-confidence

“After all, it is not the pursuit of happiness but the enlargement of freedom which is socialism's aim.”

Richard Crossman (1907–1974) British Member of Parliament

‘Introduction’, New Fabian Essays (1952), p. 29

Happiness, Freedom

“Most of us have managed to hang on to a few good friends. They may not be battle buddies, but they've found a way to stay in our lives, and we're in theirs for the long haul. When that's the case, we have certain responsibilities to them. Sometimes we have the pleasure of applauding their accomplishments or sharing happy occasions with them. But, when necessary, we also owe it to them to be truth-tellers. And we have to hope they'll be equally straightforward with us.”

William G. Boykin (1948) Recipient of the Purple Heart medal

Source: Man to Man: Rediscovering Masculinity in a Challenging World (2020), p. 119

Happiness, Pleasure, Truth, Hope

“God has filled our hearts with desires so vast and so magnificent that nothing in creation is capable of satisfying them. Thus it is that in the hope of finding some pleasure, we attach ourselves to created objects and that we have no sooner possessed and sampled that which we have so ardently desired than we turn to something else, hoping to find what we wanted. We are, then, through our own experience, constrained to admit that it is but useless for us to want to derive our happiness here below from transient things. If we hope to have any consolation in this world, it will only be by despising the things which are passing and which have no lasting value and in striving towards the noble and happy end for which God has created us. Do you want to be happy, my friends? Fix your eyes on Heaven; it is there that your hearts will find that which will satisfy them completely.”

John Vianney (1786–1859) French priest and saint

Do You Want to Be Happy?

God, Happiness, Pleasure, World

“Never make friends with people who are above or below you in status. Such friendships will never give you any happiness.”

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

Friendship, Happiness, People

“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”

Mahatma Gandhi (1869–1948) pre-eminent leader of Indian nationalism during British-ruled India

Happiness, Thinking, Happy, Life

“Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others.”

Gautama Buddha (-563–-483 BC) philosopher, reformer and the founder of Buddhism

Happiness

“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

Happiness, Motivational, Deep, Success

“All I required to be happy was friendship and people I could admire.”

Christian Dior (1905–1957) French fashion designer

Friendship, Happiness, People

“All of our technology is completely unnecessary to a happy life.”

Tom Hodgkinson (1968) British writer

Life, Happiness

“Happiness mainly comes from our own attitude, rather than from external factors.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

Happiness, Happy, Attitude

“True happiness means forging a strong spirit that is undefeated, no matter how trying our circumstances.”

Daisaku Ikeda (1928) Japanese writer

Happiness, Strong

“Sometimes I am happy and sometimes not. I am, after all, a human being, you know. And I am glad that we are sometimes happy and sometimes not. You get your wisdom working by having different emotions.”

Yoko Ono (1933) Japanese artist, author, and peace activist

Wisdom, Happiness

“There is no duty we so underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world.”

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

Happiness, World

“It is difficult to achieve a spirit of genuine cooperation as long as people remain indifferent to the feelings and happiness of others.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

Happiness, People, Feeling, Indifference

“Marriage is the highest state of friendship. If happy, it lessens our cares by dividing them, at the same time that it doubles our pleasures by mutual participation.”

Samuel Richardson (1689–1761) English writer and printer

Friendship, Marriage, Happiness, Pleasure

“In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge.”

François de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680) French author of maxims and memoirs

Love, Friendship, Happiness, Knowledge

“Experts on romance say for a happy marriage there has to be more than a passionate love. For a lasting union, they insist, there must be a genuine liking for each other. Which, in my book, is a good definition for friendship.”

Marilyn Monroe (1926–1962) American actress, model, and singer

Love, Friendship, Marriage, Happiness

“Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.”

Sophocles (-496–-406 BC) ancient Greek tragedian

Wisdom, Happiness, Parting

“The trick is in what one emphasizes. We either make ourselves miserable, or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.”

Carlos Castaneda (1925–1998) Peruvian-American author

Source: The Wheel of Time: Shamans of Ancient Mexico, Their Thoughts About Life, Death and the Universe, (1998), Quotations from "Journey to Ixtlan" (Chapter 8)

Happiness

“True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.”

Joseph Addison (1672–1719) politician, writer and playwright

Friendship, Happiness

“When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

Love, Happiness, Peace, Feeling

“The truest greatness lies in being kind, the truest wisdom in a happy mind.”

Ella Wheeler Wilcox (1850–1919) American author and poet

Wisdom, Happiness

“Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. (1841–1935) United States Supreme Court justice

Love, Happiness, Wise, Wedding

“There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

Happiness, Way, Deep, Happy

“The greatest part of our happiness depends on our dispositions, not our circumstances.”

Martha Washington (1731–1802) First Lady of the United States

Happiness, Parting, Dependency

“Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open.”

John Barrymore (1882–1942) American actor of stage, screen and radio

Happiness, Motivational, Wise, Deep

“The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.”

Thich Nhat Hanh (1926) Religious leader and peace activist

Happiness, Freedom, Heart, Dependency

“Happiness resides not in possessions, and not in gold, happiness dwells in the soul.”

Democritus Ancient Greek philosopher, pupil of Leucippus, founder of the atomic theory

Happiness, Soul, Inspirational

“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”

G. K. Chesterton (1874–1936) English mystery novelist and Christian apologist

Happiness, Gratitude

“People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.”

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

Happiness, People, Winter, Summer

“Every gift from a friend is a wish for your happiness.”

Richard Bach (1936) American spiritual writer

Happiness, Happy, For Friend

“Democracy's premise rests on the notion that the collective wisdom of the majority will prove right more often than it's wrong; that given sufficient opportunity in the pursuit of happiness, your population will develop its talents, its intellect, its better judgment; that over time its capacity for discernment and self-correction will be enlarged.”

Ben Fountain (1958) American writer

Wisdom, Happiness, Democracy, Time

“There is a difference between happiness and wisdom: he that thinks himself the happiest man is really so; but he that thinks himself the wisest is generally the greatest fool.”

Francis Bacon (1561–1626) English philosopher, statesman, scientist, jurist, and author

Wisdom, Happiness, Fools, Thinking

“The world is miserable because men live beneath themselves; the error of modern man is that he wants to reform the world without having either the will or the power to reform man, and this flagrant contradiction, this attempt to make a better world on the basis of a worsened humanity, can only end in the very abolition of what is human, and consequently in the abolition of happiness too. Reforming man means binding him again to Heaven, reestablishing the broken link; it means tearing him away from the reign of the passions, from the cult of matter, quantity and cunning, and reintegrating him into the world of the spirit and serenity, we would even say: into the world of sufficient reason.”

Frithjof Schuon book Understanding Islam

[1998, Understanding Islam, World Wisdom, 26, 0-941532-24-0]
Miscellaneous, Modernity

Men, Happiness, World, Error

“The most important thing is to enjoy your life – to be happy – it’s all that matters.”

Audrey Hepburn (1929–1993) British actress

Life, Happiness, Happy, Life

“The utilitarian doctrine is, that happiness is desirable, and the only thing desirable, as an end; all other things being only desirable as means to that end.”

John Stuart Mill book Utilitarianism

Source: Utilitarianism (1861), Ch. 4

Happiness

“I've always been a happy priest; I plan on being a happy bishop.”

Mark O'Connell (bishop) (1964)

Bishop Mark O'Connell: 'I plan on being a happy bishop https://thebostonpilot.com/article.asp?ID=177277 (2016)

Happiness

“The wise man is joyful, happy and calm, unshaken, he lives on a plane with the gods.”

Seneca the Younger book Epistulae morales ad Lucilium

Epistulae Morales ad Lucilium (Moral Letters to Lucilius), Letter LIX: On Pleasure and Joy

God, Happiness

“Stay close to those who are by your side in happy times, because they do not harbour jealousy or envy in their hearts, only joy to see you happy.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), What should survivors tell their children?

Happiness, Jealousy, Time, Heart

“Joy. That is one of the main blessings of the All-Powerful. If we are happy, we are on the right road.”

Paulo Coelho book Manuscript Found in Accra

Manuscript Found in Accra (2012), Afraid to Change

Happiness, Joy

“Of music and happiness, always make your lifestyle.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Di musica e felicità, fanne sempre il tuo stile di vita.
Source: prevale.net

Happiness, Music

“Live so that happiness is your priority.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Vivi in modo che la felicità sia la tua priorità.
Source: prevale.net

Happiness

“Love fascinates when your happiness becomes its necessity.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) L'amore affascina quando la tua felicità diventa la sua necessità.
Source: prevale.net

Love, Happiness

“Under the covers, before falling asleep I always become curious and happy because I know I can dream of you.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) Sotto le coperte, prima di addormentarmi divento sempre curioso e felice perché so di poterti sognare.
Source: prevale.net

Happiness, Dreams

“The woman is a divinity. First of all: her happiness.”

Prevale (1983) Italian DJ and producer

Original: (it) La donna è una divinità. Prima di tutto: la sua felicità.
Source: prevale.net

Happiness

“Man is born to be happy and free, and everywhere he is enslaved and unhappy! Society exists for the purpose of conserving his rights and perfecting his being, and everywhere society degrades and oppresses him! The time has come to remind him of his true destiny.”

Maximilien Robespierre (1758–1794) French revolutionary lawyer and politician

Quoting Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Misc Quotes

Happiness, Time, Perfection

“A genuine era of happiness is only possible when we aren’t clouded by the uncertainties of aging and when bearing and raising children is truly considered a blessing. No citizen should be left to fear that he or she might not be able to meet the basic requirements of life.”

Park Geun-hye (1952) eleventh President of South Korea

Excerpts from inaugural address (February 25, 2013)

Life, Happiness, Children, Age

“To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labour tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.”

Samuel Johnson The Rambler

No. 68 (10 November 1750)
The Rambler (1750–1752)

Happiness, Home

“I've always been very happy as a priest and I expect to be very happy in just kind of getting to know people. I think one of the most important things a priest does is that he has an opportunity to spend time with people and I'm looking forward to that.”

Daniel E. Flores (1961) Catholic bishop

Youngest bishop in the U.S. ready to “propose the mystery” of the Church to Detroit https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/8177/youngest-bishop-in-the-us-ready-to-propose-the-mystery-of-the-church-to-detroit (November 29, 2006)

Happiness, People, Thinking, Time

“You try to cope with the mass audience, but in fact you are not doing something for them—I would be fighting with myself. I thought, I don’t have to make big films, I can make small films that I can be happy with. I can find my own audience.”

Wong Kar-wai (1958) Hong Kong screenwriter, film producer and film director

"Wong Kar-wai by Han Ong" in Bomb Magazine (1 Janaury 1998) https://bombmagazine.org/articles/wong-kar-wai-1/

Happiness, Fight

“When you willingly give up your own happiness for someone else, that is the sign of true love.”

Yasir Qadhi (1975) Pakistani-American preacher and imam

Love, Happiness

“Loving someone who doesn't love me back is like loving the wind, which is felt but cannot be seen. The lover does not love the feeling of getting love in return, but sacrifices himself for his happiness.”

Shabdon Ka Jahan

Original: What's your?

Love, Happiness, Feeling, Lovers

“You are like a star who's twinkling all the time at the night. When you light up yourself it show your happiness and when you're not it's look like you're sad. It's depends on you want to want be in your life glowing star who's spread happiness or dim star who's spread sadness. If i were a star I'll spreads happiness all around and when someone had a wish to me I'll fall down for their wish come true.”

Shabdon Ka Jahan

Life, Happiness, Sadness, Star

“The negro workers are still unaware of the force that can give them union organization; happy industrialists.”

Albert I of Belgium (1875–1934) third King of the Belgians

The visit of King Albert I to the Belgian Congo in 1928. Between propaganda and reality. https://www.congoforum.be/Upldocs/Het_bezoek_van_koning_Albert_I_aan_Belgi.compressed.pdf

Happiness

“I die happy for at least the world will be able to say that I have employed every effort to destroy the enemies of the Muhammedan faith.”

Aurangzeb (1618–1707) Sixth Mughal Emperor

Aurangzeb, just before his death, as quoted from Niccolao Manucci, Storia do Mogor; or, Mogul India 1653-1708 https://archive.org/details/storiadomogororm04manu/page/398/mode/2up, Vol. 4, p. 398.

Happiness, World, Faith, Effort

“My family supports the show but succession is not all about being on the show. I love what I do and would be happy for it to be more vibrant even after my departure hence there is need to cast the net even outside the family.”

Mai Chisamba (1952)

Love, Happiness, Family, Departure

“The surest way to be unhappy is try to be happy all the time.”

Rudy Rucker book Master of Space and Time

Source: Master of Space and Time (1984), Chapter 23, “The Way Uptown” (p. 180)

Happiness, Way, Time

“Everyone was polite; no one was happy.”

Charles Sheffield book Summertide

Source: The Heritage Universe, Summertide (1990), Chapter 11, “Summertide Minus Thirteen” (p. 126)

Happiness

“Happiness is the illusion of being happy, unhappiness is the fear of being it. A little bit of fear helps you to live in the light, too much strangles you in the dark.”

Menotti Lerro (1980) Italian poet

Donna Giovanna, Act I, scene iii.
Theater Quotes

Happiness, Fear, Light, Help

“I want to follow the instinct, the passion of my desire, once unspeakable. The moments of love serve to remind us that our condition tends to happiness!”

Menotti Lerro (1980) Italian poet

Donna Giovanna, Act I, scene iii.
Theater Quotes

Love, Happiness, Passion

“When men feel happy, they think of men who love; when they feel sad they think and pray to God.”

Menotti Lerro (1980) Italian poet

Gli uomini quando si sentono felici pensano agli uomini che amano, quando si sentono tristi pensano e pregano Dio.

Love, Men, God, Happiness

“My belief is that, the mystics will never be happy nor sad because I took their side. Indeed, this is the right path that does not allow any type of fanaticism to penetrate the mind. In my noble opinion, these are the wisest human beings ever to exist.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Happiness, Sadness

“Giving is doing exactly the same work as God, thus making Him happy in return.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God, Happiness

“Many rebelled against God. But no one, including atheists and the devil, can ever rebel against happiness. It is the final destination for all.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

God, Happiness

“Now is the time to take the key of all illusions in your hands and achieve pure happiness in life.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Life, Happiness, Time

“You are not happy because of your location, but because of your mindset.”

Mwanandeke Kindembo (1996) Congolese author

Happiness

“We have to continue to tell our stories. And if we change one mind, it’s one mind that we changed and I’m happy with that.”

Tzi Ma (1962) Hong Kong American actor

As quoted in "‘Tigertail’s Tzi Ma Transcends Role As Hollywood’s Go-To Asian Father To Become Trailblazing Icon" in Deadline (8 April 2020) https://deadline.com/2020/04/tzi-ma-tigertail-asian-american-hollywood-diversity-inclusion-representation-1202900973/

Happiness, Change

“If I seem happy to you . . . You could never say anything that would please me more. For men are made for happiness, and anyone who is completely happy has a right to say to himself, 'I am doing God's will on earth.'”

Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1821–1881) Russian author

All the righteous, all the saints, all the holy martyrs were happy.
Book II, ch. 4 (trans. Constance Garnett)
General, The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)

Men, God, Happiness

Quotes about happiness page 52

Quotes about happiness
page 52