Quotes about happiness (5345 quotes, page 8)

“What they teach in these acting schools is incredible, hair-raising crap. The Actors Studio in America is supposed to be the worst. There the students learn how to be natural - that is, they flop around, pick their noses, scratch their balls. This bullshit is known as "method acting." How can you "teach" someone to be an actor? How can you teach someone how and what to feel and how to express it? How can someone teach me how to laugh or cry? How to be glad and how to be sad? What pain is, or despair or happiness? What poverty and hunger are? What hate and love are? What desire is, and fulfillment? No, I don't want to waste my time with these arrogant morons.”

Klaus Kinski (1926–1991) German actor

Source: Kinski Uncut : The Autobiography of Klaus Kinski (1996), p. 59

Love , Hunger , Pain , Hate

“As when you were a child and some tremendous hurt
Was pulled over your head like a sack-
Glints of sunshine through the mesh
And the hum of the cherry trees.

But it doesn’t help, the great hurt
Covers head and torso and knees
And though you are able to move sometimes
Spring brings no happiness.

Yes, shimmering wool cap, pull it down over your face
Stare through the mesh.
Out on the bay, the rings of water multiply soundlessly
Green leaves darken the earth.”

Tomas Tranströmer (1931–2015) Swedish poet, psychologist and translator

As When You Were a Child.
För levande och döda (For the Living and the Dead) 1996

Happiness , Tree , Spring , Water

“But there is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is, the distinction of men into KINGS and SUBJECTS. Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and bad the distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth enquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

1770s, Common Sense (1776)

Men , World , Nature , Happiness

“At such moments I don't think about all the misery, but about the beauty that still remains. This is where Mother and I differ greatly. Her advice in the face of melancholy is: "Think about all the suffering in the world and be thankful you're not part of it." My advice is: "Go outside, to the country, enjoy the sun and all nature has to offer. Go outside and try to recapture the happiness within yourself; think of all the beauty in yourself and in everything around you and be happy."”

Anne Frank (1929–1945) victim of the Holocaust and author of a diary

Dan denk ik niet aan al de ellende, maar aan het mooie dat nog overblijft. Hierin ligt voor een groot deel het verschil tussen moeder en mij. Haar raad voor zwaarmoedigheid is: "Denk aan al de ellende in de wereld en wees blij, dat jij die niet beleeft!"
Mijn raad is: "Ga naar buiten, naar de velden, de natuur en de zon, ga naar buiten en probeer het geluk in jezelf te hervinden en in God. Denk aan al het mooie dat er in en om jezelf nog overblijft en wees gelukkig!"
7 March 1944
Variant translations:
:Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.
Think of all the beauty that is still left in and around you and be happy!
(1942 - 1944)

World , Beauty , Nature , Thinking

“Greek tragedy met her death in a different way from all the older sister arts: she died tragically by her own hand, after irresolvable conflicts, while the others died happy and peaceful at an advanced age. If a painless death, leaving behind beautiful progeny, is the sign of a happy natural state, then the endings of the other arts show us the example of just such a happy natural state: they sink slowly, and with their dying eyes they behold their fairer offspring, who lift up their heads in bold impatience. The death of Greek tragedy, on the other hand, left a great void whose effects were felt profoundly, far and wide; as once Greek sailors in Tiberius' time heard the distressing cry 'the god Pan is dead' issuing from a lonely island, now, throughout the Hellenic world, this cry resounded like an agonized lament: 'Tragedy is dead! Poetry itself died with it! Away, away with you, puny, stunted imitators! Away with you to Hades, and eat your fill of the old masters' crumbs!”

Friedrich Nietzsche book The Birth of Tragedy

Mit dem Tode der griechischen Tragödie dagegen entstand eine ungeheure, überall tief empfundene Leere; wie einmal griechische Schiffer zu Zeiten des Tiberius an einem einsamen Eiland den erschütternden Schrei hörten "der grosse Pan ist todt": so klang es jetzt wie ein schmerzlicher Klageton durch die hellenische Welt: "die Tragödie ist todt! Die Poesie selbst ist mit ihr verloren gegangen! Fort, fort mit euch verkümmerten, abgemagerten Epigonen! Fort in den Hades, damit ihr euch dort an den Brosamen der vormaligen Meister einmal satt essen könnt!"
Source: The Birth of Tragedy (1872), p. 54

Death , God , Age , World

“What produces the general good is always terrible or seems bizarre when begun too soon … The Revolution must stop itself at the perfection of public happiness and liberty through the laws.”

Louis Antoine de Saint-Just (1767–1794) military and political leader

Fragment 3 (1794). [Source: Saint-Just, Fragments sur les institutions républicaines]

Law , Perfection , Happiness

“Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer; there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness.”

Carl Sagan book Contact

Source: Contact (1985), Chapter 14 (p. 231, quoting George Santayana)

Youth , Happiness

“What surprises you, if a dream taught me this wisdom, and if I still fear I may wake up and find myself once more confined in prison? And even if this should not happen, merely to dream it is enough. For this I have come to know, that all human happiness finally ceases, like a dream.”

Pedro Calderón de la Barca Life is a Dream

¿Qué os espanta,
si fue mi maestro un sueño,
y estoy temiendo, en mis ansias,
que he de despertar y hallarme
otra vez en mi cerrada
prisión? Y cuando no sea,
el soñarlo sólo basta;
pues así llegué a saber
que toda la dicha humana,
en fin, pasa como sueño.
Segismundo, Act III, l. 1114.
La vida es sueño (Life is a Dream)

Wisdom , Fear , Dreams , Happiness

“The gospel freely admitted makes a man happy. It gives him peace with God, and makes him happy in God. It gives to industry a noble, contented look which selfish drudgery never wore; and from the moment that a man begins to do his work for his Saviour's sake, he feels that the most ordinary employments are full of sweetness and dignity, and that the most difficult are not impossible. And if any of you, my friends, is weary with his work, if dissatisfaction with yourself or sorrow of any kind disheartens you, if at any time you feel the dull paralysis of conscious sin, or the depressing influence of vexing thoughts, look to Jesus, and be happy. Be happy, and your joyful work will prosper well.”

William Wilberforce (1759–1833) English politician

Reported in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 368.

God , Peace , Feeling , Time

“I thank warmly the friends who remained loyal to me through the most difficult hours of my life. I do not name anyone in particular because I cannot name them all.
However, I consider myself justified in making an exception in the case of my companion, Natalia Ivanovna Sedova. In addition to the happiness of being a fighter for the cause of socialism, fate gave me the happiness of being her husband. During the almost forty years of our life together she remained an inexhaustible source of love, magnanimity, and tenderness. She underwent great sufferings, especially in the last period of our lives. But I find some comfort in the fact that she also knew days of happiness.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Trotsky's Testament (1940)

Love , Life , Fate , Suffering

“There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1950s, The Russell-Einstein Manifesto (1955)

Death , Wisdom , Way , Knowledge

“Mr. MADISON said that he had brought with him into the Convention a strong bias in favor of an enumeration and definition of the powers necessary to be exercised by the national Legislature; but had also brought doubts concerning its practicability. His wishes remained unaltered; but his doubts had become stronger. What his opinion might ultimately be he could not yet tell. But he should shrink from nothing which should be found essential to such a form of Govt. as would provide for the safety, liberty and happiness of the community. This being the end of all our deliberations, all the necessary means for attaining it must, however reluctantly, be submitted to.”

James Madison (1751–1836) 4th president of the United States (1809 to 1817)

Madison's notes (31 May 1787)
1780s, The Debates in the Federal Convention (1787)

Exercises , Communication , Strong , Happiness

“Happiness is a function of accepting what is.”

Werner Erhard (1935) Critical Thinker and Author

[Alan Aldridge, 2007, Religion in the Contemporary World: A Sociological Introduction, Cambridge, England, Polity, 53, 0745634044]
Attributed

Happy , Happiness

“The great mass of society are far from being depraved; for if a large majority were criminal or inclined to break the laws, where would the force or power be to prevent or constrain them? And herein is the real blessing of civilization, because this happy result has its origin in her bosom, growing out of her very nature.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Law , Nature , Happiness

“Even in mathematics his whimsical fancy was sometimes suffered to peep out, and little girls who learnt the rudiments of calculation at his knee found the path they had imagined so thorny set about with roses by reason of the delightful fun with which he would turn a task into a joy. But when the fun was over the little girl would find that she had learnt the lesson (all unknowingly) just the same. Happy little girls who had such a master.”

Isa Bowman (1874–1958) British actress

Page 5.
The Story of Lewis Carroll (1899)

Imagination , Girl , Mathematics , Suffering

“And now I want to tell you about my late Uncle Alex. He was my father’s kid brother, a childless graduate of Harvard who was an honest life insurance salesman in Indianapolis. He was well-read and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is. So I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.”

Kurt Vonnegut book A Man Without a Country

A Man Without a Country (2005)

Life , Drink , Thinking , Tree

“I had always dreamt of participating in a beauty pageant and I got a chance to live my dream. It was a very good learning experience. However, due to my hectic schedule, I did not get enough time to prepare for the Talent round. But I am happy as I won the Miss Bollywood Diva.”

Sukirti Kandpal (1987) Indian actress

Beauty , Dreams , Learning , Chance

“Conservatives are fond of telling us what a wonderful, happy, prosperous nation this is. The only thing that matches their love of country is the remarkable indifference they show toward the people who live in it.”

Michael Parenti (1933) American academic

1 POLITICS AND ISSUES, Hidden Holocaust,USA, p. 2
Dirty truths (1996), first edition

Love , People , Country , Indifference

“Love's great (and sole) originality is to make happiness indistinct from misery.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Anathemas and Admirations (1987)

Love , Happiness

“I may not be walking with you all the way, or even much of the way, as I walk with you now. Don’t be angry with me if I am not there in person, alive and well, when you need me. I would like nothing more than to be with you always. Do not feel sorry for me if I am gone. When we were together, I loved you deeply and you gave me so much happiness I can never repay you. Camera, wherever I am when you feel sick at heart and weary of life, or when you stumble and fall and don’t know if you can get up again, think of me. I will be watching and smiling and cheering you on.”

Arthur Ashe (1943–1993) American tennis player

Message to his daughter Camera, p. 341
Days of Grace: A Memoir (1994)

Love , Life , Smile , Way

“I am deeply grateful for your welcome in the name of all Americans. As the son of an immigrant family, I am happy to be a guest in this country, which was largely built by such families.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

2010s, 2015, Address at the White House

Family , Country , Happiness

“Happiness, satisfaction, and success in life depend on making the right choices, the winning choices. There are forces in life working for you and against you. One must distinguish the beneficial forces from the malevolent ones and choose correctly between them.”

A. P. J. Abdul Kalam book Wings of Fire

Source: Wings of Fire, p. 106.

Life , Success , Dependency , Happiness

“You mustn't feel sorry for me. Don't you see I'm happy at last — free — free! — freed from the farm — free to wander on and on — eternally! Look! Isn't it beautiful beyond the hills? I can hear the old voices calling me to come — And this time I'm going! It isn't the end. It's a free beginning — the start of my voyage! I've won to my trip — the right of release — beyond the horizon! Oh, you ought to be glad — glad — for my sake!”

Eugene O'Neill Beyond the Horizon

Robert: Act 3, Scene 2
Beyond the Horizon (1918)

Beauty , Feeling , Time , Happiness

“A child of God should be a visible Beatitude, for joy and happiness, and a living Doxology, for gratitude and adoration.”

Charles Spurgeon (1834–1892) British preacher, author, pastor and evangelist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 104.

God , Joy , Gratitude , Happiness

“This striving becomes understood completely as an end in itself—to such an extent that it appears as fully outside the normal course of affairs and simply irrational, at least when viewed from the perspective of the "happiness" or "utility" of the single individual. Here, people are oriented to acquisition as the purpose of life; acquisition is no longer viewed as a means to the end of satisfying the substantive needs of life. Those people in possession of spontaneous, fun-loving dispositions experience this situation as an absolutely meaningless reversal of a "natural" condition (as we would say today). Yet this reversal constitutes just as surely a guiding principle of [modern] capitalism as incomprehension of this new situation characterizes all who remain untouched by [modern] capitalism's tentacles.”

Max Weber book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism

Source: The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism (1905; 1920), Ch. 2 : The "Spirit" of Capitalism

Love , Life , People , Nature

“An act of goodness is of itself an act of happiness. No reward coming after the event can compare with the sweet reward that went with it.”

Maurice Maeterlinck (1862–1949) Belgian playwright, poet, and essayist

As quoted in The New Dictionary of Thoughts: A Cyclopedia of Quotations (1960) by Tryon Edwards and C. N. Catrevas, p. 259

Happiness

“[on the possibility of contact with an alien civilization]: I think it would be a disaster. The extraterrestrials would probably be far in advance of us. The history of advanced races meeting more primitive people on this planet is not very happy, and they were the same species. I think we should keep our heads low.”

Stephen Hawking (1942–2018) British theoretical physicist, cosmologist, and author

Appearance in the National Geographic Channel program Naked Science: Alien Contact, as quoted in The New York Times (24 November 2004) http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C00E2D8173EF937A15752C1A9629C8B63&sec=&spon= and a CNN transcript of an interview with Seth Shostak from Anderson Cooper 360 (26 November 2004) http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0411/26/acd.01.html

People , History , Thinking , Happiness

“O happy race of mortals,
if your hearts are ruled
as is the universe, by Love!”
O felix hominum genus, si uestros animos amor quo caelum regitur regat!

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480) philosopher of the early 6th century

Poem VIII, lines 28-30; translation by W. V. Cooper
Alternate translation:
: How happy is mankind
if the love that orders the stars above
rules, too, in your hearts.
The Consolation of Philosophy · De Consolatione Philosophiae, Book II

Love , Universe , Heart , Happiness

“Fellow citizens of New Haven, if the Republican Party of this nation shall ever have the national house entrusted to its keeping, it will be the duty of that party to attend to all the affairs of national housekeeping. Whatever matters of importance may come up, whatever difficulties may arise in the way of its administration of the government, that party will then have to attend to. It will then be compelled to attend to other questions, besides this question which now assumes an overwhelming importance — the question of Slavery. It is true that in the organization of the Republican party this question of Slavery was more important than any other; indeed, so much more important has it become that no other national question can even get a hearing just at present. The old question of tariff — a matter that will remain one of the chief affairs of national housekeeping to all time — the question of the management of financial affairs; the question of the disposition of the public domain — how shall it be managed for the purpose of getting it well settled, and of making there the homes of a free and happy people — these will remain open and require attention for a great while yet, and these questions will have to be attended to by whatever party has the control of the government. Yet, just now, they cannot even obtain a hearing, and I do not purpose to detain you upon these topics, or what sort of hearing they should have when opportunity shall come.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1860s, Allow the humblest man an equal chance (1860)

People , Way , Home , Question

“Furthermore, thanks to the Marxist religion, they (the Russians) have everything required to make them patient. They have been promised happiness on earth (a feature which distinguishes Marxism from the Christian religion)— but in the future. The Jew, Mardochee Marx, like the good Jew that he was, was awaiting the coming of the Messiah. He has placed the Messiah conception in a setting of historic materialism by asserting that terrestrial happiness is a factor in an almost endless process of evolution. "Happiness is within your reach," he says, "that I promise you. But you must let evolution take its course and not try to hurry matters." Mankind always falls for a specious trick of that sort… Lenin did not have the time, but Stalin will carry on the good work, and so on and so on… Marxism is a very powerful force. But how shall we assess Christianity, that other child of Judaism, which will not commit itself further than to promise the faithful happiness in another world? Believe me, it is incomparably stronger!”

Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) Führer and Reich Chancellor of Germany, Leader of the Nazi Party

25 February 1945.
Disputed, The Testament of Adolf Hitler (1945)

World , Faith , Religion , Time

“Happy, thrice happy shall they be pronounced hereafter, who have contributed any thing, who have performed the meanest office in erecting this stupendous fabrick of Freedom and Empire on the broad basis of Independency; who have assisted in protecting the rights of humane nature and establishing an Asylum for the poor and oppressed of all nations and religions.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

General Orders (18 April 1783)
1780s

Religion , Nature , Freedom , Happiness

“Joy and happiness are the indicators of balance in a human machine, just as a change in the familiar hum in a mechanism immediately indicates an abnormalcy to the practiced ear of the mechanic. An inner joyousness, amounting to ecstasy, is the normal condition of the genius mind. Any lack of that joyousness develops body-destroying toxins. That inner ecstasy of the mind is the secret fountain of perpetual youth and strength in any man. He who finds it finds omnipotence and omniscience.”

Walter Russell (1871–1963) American philosopher

The Man who Tapped the Secrets of the Universe

Secret , Youth , Change , Joy

“In fact, contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people's happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1950s, Portraits from Memory and Other Essays (1956), p. 198

People , Happiness

“There is not less wit nor invention in applying rightly a thought one finds in a book, than in being the first author of that thought. Cardinal du Perron has been heard to say that the happy application of a verse of Virgil has deserved a talent.”

Pierre Bayle (1647–1706) French philosopher and writer

Pierre Bayle, Works, Volume II, p. 779; in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 653-54: About quotation.

Books , Happiness

“The Declaration of Independence was formed by the representatives of American liberty from thirteen States of the confederacy; twelve of which were slaveholding communities. We need not discuss the way or the reason of their becoming slaveholding communities. It is sufficient for our purpose that all of them greatly deplored the evil and that they placed a provision in the Constitution which they supposed would gradually remove the disease by cutting off its source. This was the abolition of the slave trade. So general was conviction, the public determination, to abolish the African slave trade, that the provision which I have referred to as being placed in the Constitution, declared that it should not be abolished prior to the year 1808. A constitutional provision was necessary to prevent the people, through Congress, from putting a stop to the traffic immediately at the close of the war. Now, if slavery had been a good thing, would the Fathers of the Republic have taken a step calculated to diminish its beneficent influences among themselves, and snatch the boon wholly from their posterity? These communities, by their representatives in old Independence Hall, said to the whole world of men: "We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." This was their majestic interpretation of the economy of the Universe. This was their lofty, and wise, and noble understanding of the justice of the Creator to His creatures… Yes, gentlemen, to all His creatures, to the whole great family of man. In their enlightened belief, nothing stamped with the Divine image and likeness was sent into the world to be trodden on, and degraded, and imbruted by its fellows. They grasped not only the whole race of man then living, but they reached forward and seized upon the farthest posterity. They erected a beacon to guide their children and their children's children, and the countless myriads who should inhabit the earth in other ages. Wise statesmen as they were, they knew the tendency of prosperity to breed tyrants, and so they established these great self-evident truths, that when in the distant future some man, some faction, some interest, should set up the doctrine that none but rich men, or none but white men, were entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, their posterity might look up again to the Declaration of Independence and take courage to renew the battle which their fathers began, so that truth, and justice, and mercy, and all the humane and Christian virtues might not be extinguished from the land; so that no man would hereafter dare to limit and circumscribe the great principles on which the temple of liberty was being built…”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

1850s, Speech at Lewistown, Illinois (1858)

Life , Men , War , Children

“Love doesn’t go away because we want it to, but remains even when it becomes a searing pain, leaving the heart a desert of bitter remorse and grief for joy, a happiness that once has been and now never could return. There had been a time when simply to touch this little bit of linen he held now so casually brought every aching moment of that love back. The sense of desolate pain-drenched loss traveled up his arm, enclosing his heart like a set of icy fingers. A time when to look upon what it held was unbearable”

Alice Borchardt (1939–2007) American fiction writer

Unknown

Love , Pain , Travel , Sense

“The thirst after happiness is never extinguished in the heart of man.”

Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) Genevan philosopher

Source: Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1765-1770; published 1782), Books VIII-XII, IX

Heart , Happiness

“Happiness lies only in a divine unrest; and if you are lapped in comfort you stagnate and miss it.”

John Buchan book A Lodge in the Wilderness

Source: A Lodge in the Wilderness (1906), Ch. I, p. 23

Happiness

“Again, in regard to actual human existence, I have found myself giving honour to those who feel its tragedy, who think truly about Death, who are oppressed by ignoble things even when they are inevitable; yet these qualities appear to me to militate against happiness, not only to the possessors, but to all whom they affect. And, generally, the best life seems to me one which thinks truly and feels greatly about human things, and which, in addition, contemplates the world of beauty and of abstract truths. This last is, perhaps, my most anti-utilitarian opinion: I hold all knowledge that is concerned with things that actually exist – all that is commonly called Science – to be of very slight value compared to the knowledge which, like philosophy and mathematics, is concerned with ideal and eternal objects, and is freed from this miserable world which God has made.
[Utilitarians] have been strangely anxious to prove that the life of the pig is not happier than that of the philosopher – a most dubious proposition…”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Letter to Gilbert Murray, April 3, 1902
1900s

Life , Death , God , Truth

“Taking a year off and going to school was the best thing I could have done after The Princess Diaries. It taught me that I don't need Hollywood or a job to make me happy.”

Anne Hathaway (1982) American actress

As quoted at Teenpeople.com (May 2002)

School , Princess , Happiness

“[Women's] boarding schools, as we know, hold the three principal subjects which constitute the basis of human virtue to be the French language (a thing indispensable to the happiness of married life), piano-playing (a thing wherewith to beguile a husband’s leisure moments), and that particular department of housewifery which is comprised in the knitting of purses and other “surprises.” Nevertheless changes and improvements have begun to take place, since things now are governed more by the personal inclinations and idiosyncracies of the keepers of such establishments. For instance, in some seminaries the regimen places piano-playing first, and the French language second, and then the above department of housewifery; while in other seminaries the knitting of “surprises” heads the list, and then the French language, and then the playing of pianos—so diverse are the systems in force!”

Nikolai Gogol book Dead Souls

Vol. 1, ch. 2
Dead Souls (1842)

Life , Women , School , Change

“Song, if you find a man at peace with love,
say: 'Die while you're happy,
since early death is no grief, but a refuge:
and he who can die well, should not delay.”

Francesco Petrarca Il Canzoniere

Canzon, s'uom trovi in suo amor viver queto,
di': Muor' mentre se' lieto,
ché morte al tempo è non duol, ma refugio;
et chi ben pò morir, non cerchi indugio.
Canzone 331, st. 6 ( tr. A. S. Kline http://petrarch.petersadlon.com/canzoniere.html?poem=331)
Il Canzoniere (c. 1351–1353), To Laura in Death

Love , Death , Peace , Happiness

“Certain forms of sex which do not lead to children are at present punished by the criminal law: this is purely superstitious, since the matter is one which affects no one except the parties directly concerned… The peculiar importance attached, at present, to adultery is quite irrational… Moral rules ought not to be such as to make instinctive happiness impossible.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1920s, What I Believe (1925)

Children , Law , Sex , Happiness

“The philosophy of nature must not be unduly terrestrial; for it, the earth is merely one of the smaller planets of one of the smaller stars of the Milky Way. It would be ridiculous to warp the philosophy of nature in order to bring out results that are pleasing to the tiny parasites of this insignificant planet. Vitalism as a philosophy, and evolutionism, show, in this respect, a lack of sense of proportion and logical relevance. They regard the facts of life, which are personally interesting to us, as having a cosmic significance, not a significance confined to the earth's surface. Optimism and pessimism, as cosmic philosophies, show the same naive humanism; the great world, so far as we know it from the philosophy of nature, is neither good nor bad, and is not concerned to make us happy or unhappy. All such philosophies spring from self-importance and are best corrected by a little astronomy.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1920s, What I Believe (1925)

Life , World , Way , Star

“I think people who are unhappy are always proud of being so, and therefore do not like to be told that there is nothing grand about their unhappiness. A man who is melancholy because lack of exercise has upset his liver always believes that it is the loss of God, or the menace of Bolshevism, or some such dignified cause that makes him sad. When you tell people that happiness is a simple matter, they get annoyed with you.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Letter to W. W. Norton, 17 February, 1931
1930s

God , People , Sadness , Exercises

“If yogis are to come to the realization of the interconnectedness of life, then we must free ourselves from the conditioning that has caused us to think it is all right to exclude all the other animals from our own goals of peace, freedom, and happiness. … By working to alleviate the suffering of animals you are working at the cause level of human suffering.”

Sharon Gannon (1951) American yoga teacher

“Sharon Gannon on Veganism”, in JivamuktiYoga.com (16 November 2016) https://jivamuktiyoga.com/community-journal/sharon-gannon-veganism.

Life , Peace , Thinking , Freedom

“I am so happy I want to be there. I know Saudi Arabia will never be the same again, women will have easy access to transportation and that means they will be more part of the workforce.”

Manal al-Sharif (1979) Saudi Arabian activist

About lifting of the ban on women driving in Saudi Arabia. As quoted in Saudi women 'still enslaved', says activist as driving ban ends http://news.trust.org/item/20180622172634-f882k/ (22 June 2018) by Heba Kanso, Thomson Reuters Foundation.

Women , Parting , Happiness

“I think it a very happy accident.”

Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright

Source: Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605–1615), Part II (1615), Book III, Ch. 58.

Thinking , Happiness

“If I have to use an adjective to define myself, then I might use ‘cute’ but I don’t think I’m sexy. If people think that I’m sexy, then I’m happy.”

Drashti Dhami (1985) Indian television actress and model

Adjective to define herself http://m.hindustantimes.com/tv/drashti-dhami-is-open-to-reality-shows-but-not-interested-in-bigg-boss/story-prlzmiCOca54M2jMwkchgM.html

People , Thinking , Happiness

“Tho' lost to sight, to memory dear
Thou ever wilt remain;
One only hope my heart can cheer,—
The hope to meet again.

Oh, fondly on the past I dwell,
And oft recall those hours
When, wandering down the shady dell,
We gathered the wild-flowers.

Yes, life then seemed one pure delight,
Tho' now each spot looks drear;
Yet tho' thy smile be lost to sight,
To memory thou art dear.

Oft in the tranquil hour of night,
When stars illume the sky,
I gaze upon each orb of light,
And wish that thou wert by.

I think upon that happy time,
That time so fondly loved,
When last we heard the sweet bells chime,
As thro' the fields we roved.”

George Linley (1798–1865) British writer

Song, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). This song was written and composed by Linley for Mr. Augustus Braham, and sung by him. It is not known when it was written,—probably about 1830. Another song, entitled "Though lost to Sight, to Memory dear," was published in London in 1880, purporting to have been written by Ruthven Jenkyns in 1703 and published in the "Magazine for Mariners". That magazine, however, never existed, and the composer of the music acknowledged, in a private letter, that he copied the words from an American newspaper. The reputed author, Ruthven Jenkyns, was living, under another name, in California in 1882.

Love , Life , Smile , Hope

“First, without reference to England, looking at all countries, I say that it is the first duty of the Minister, and the first interest of the State, to maintain a balance between the two great branches of national industry; that is a principle which has been recognised by all great Ministers for the last two hundred years…Why we should maintain that balance between the two great branches of national industry, involves political considerations—social considerations, affecting the happiness, prosperity, and morality of the people, as well as the stability of the State. But I go further; I say that in England we are bound to do more—I repeat what I have repeated before, that in this country there are special reasons why we should not only maintain the balance between the two branches of our national industry, but why we should give a preponderance…to the agricultural branch; and the reason is, because in England we have a territorial Constitution. We have thrown upon the land the revenues of the Church, the administration of justice, and the estate of the poor; and this has been done, not to gratify the pride, or pamper the luxury of the proprietors of the land, but because, in a territorial Constitution, you, and those whom you have succeeded, have found the only security for self-government—the only barrier against that centralising system which has taken root in other countries.”

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

Speech http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1846/feb/20/commercial-policy-customs-corn-laws in the House of Commons (20 February 1846).
1840s

People , Justice , Country , Happiness

“There is a constitutional right for people to own guns, but there's also a constitutional right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness…”

Hillary Clinton (1947) American politician, senator, Secretary of State, First Lady

Interview with Steve Harvey, quoted in "Clinton confuses Constitution with Declaration of Independence in gun pitch" http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/02/25/clinton-confuses-constitution-with-declaration-independence-in-gun-pitch.html, FoxNews.com (25 February 2016)
Presidential campaign (April 12, 2015 – 2016)

Life , People , Happiness

“Happiness is beneficial for the body but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.”

Marcel Proust book In Search of Lost Time

Le bonheur est salutaire pour le corps, mais c'est le chagrin qui développe les forces de l'esprit.
Source: In Search of Lost Time, Remembrance of Things Past (1913-1927), Vol. VII: The Past Recaptured (1927), Ch. III: "An Afternoon Party at the House of the Princesse de Guermantes"

Happiness

“"Neither this world, nor the next, nor happiness are for the being abandoned to doubt." - This point in the Gita is my death sentence.”

Emil M. Cioran (1911–1995) Romanian philosopher and essayist

Drawn and Quartered (1983)

Death , World , Happiness

“Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself. They are the American people’s Liberty teeth and keystone under Independence. The church, the plow, the prairie wagon, and citizens’ firearms are indelibly related. From the hour the Pilgrims landed, to the present day, events, occurrences and tendencies prove that to insure peace, security and happiness, the rifle and pistol are equally indispensable. Every corner of this Land knows firearms and more than 99 99/100 per cent of them by their silence indicate they are in safe and sane hands. The very atmosphere of firearms anywhere and everywhere restrains evil interference and they deserve a place of honor with all that’s good. When firearms go all goes, therefore we need them every hour.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

This is the conclusion to an article entitled "Older Ideas of Firearms" by C. S. Wheatley; it was published in the September 1926 issue of Hunter, Trader, Trapper (vol. 53, no. 3), p. 34. Wheatley had referred to George Washington's address to the second session of the first Congress immediately before this passage, which may have given rise to the mistaken attribution. See this piece http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/02/26/firearm/ at Quote Investigator
Misattributed

People , Peace , Silence , Evil

“Account no man happy till he dies.”

Euripidés (-480–-406 BC) ancient Athenian playwright

Sophocles in Oedipus Rex
Variant in Herodotus 1.32: Count no man happy until he is dead.
Misattributed

Happiness

“You must give heed unto virtue, O men, which swims forth even with a man who has suffered shipwreck, and, on his coming naked to land, will render him more honoured than the happy Phaeacians.”

Basil of Caesarea (329–379) Christian Saint

Source: On Greek Literature, p. 397

Men , Suffering , Happiness

“There are some things in life that make you happy, and make you like your life. Then there are some things in life that you witness, that make you not like your life as much. I think that's one of them. I'm sorry, Juan.”

Patrick Stump (1984) American musician

after Juan takes the "Triple Pepper Threat" in the Release the Bats DVD
Release the Bats DVD

Life , Thinking , Happiness

“What happens when everyone in a society is finally beautiful (and healthy)? When the final aesthetic surgery is developed that will make all visages and bodies "perfect"? Will everyone in that society be happy? In examining the discourses of the late nineteenth century on this question, we are confronted with the paradox of François Xavier Bichat, as paraphrased by Charles Darwin: "If everyone were cast in the same mould, there would be no such thing as beauty. If all our women were to become as beautiful as the Venus de’ Medici (de Milo), we should for a time be charmed; but we should soon wish for variety; and as soon as we had obtained variety, we should wish to see certain characters a little exaggerated beyond the then existing common standard.””

Sander Gilman (1944) American historian

The very search for the improvement of the body (and the concomitant “happiness” of the psyche) must lead to further discontent.
page 39.
Creating Beauty to Cure the Soul (1998)

Women , Beauty , Search , Question

“Well, I just want him to grow up happy. That's the main thing.”

John Lennon (1940–1980) English singer and songwriter

Talking about his son, Julian Lennon, in Ticket to Ride : Inside the Beatles' 1964 Tour That Changed the World (2003) by Larry Kane http://books.google.com/books?id=5MYmhGAmfUkC&pg=PA258&lpg=PA258&dq=%22well+i+just+want+him+to+grow+up+happy+that's+the+main+thing%22&source=web&ots=o-UOaUrmcr&sig=svkKFzayFfeFgYVwxKn0GsDysPU

Happiness

“The Gods sell when they give.
Glory is paid for with disgrace.
Poor are the happy, for they are
Just what passes.”

Fernando Pessoa book Mensagem

Poem "O das quinas", first couples.
Message
Original: Os Deuses vendem quando dão.
Compra-se a glória com desgraça.
Ai dos felizes, porque são
Só o que passa!

God , Happiness

“In some ways, though, the securing of civil rights, voting rights, the eradication of legalized discrimination -- the very significance of these victories may have obscured a second goal of the March. For the men and women who gathered 50 years ago were not there in search of some abstract ideal. They were there seeking jobs as well as justice, not just the absence of oppression but the presence of economic opportunity. For what does it profit a man, Dr. King would ask, to sit at an integrated lunch counter if he can’t afford the meal? This idea -- that one’s liberty is linked to one’s livelihood; that the pursuit of happiness requires the dignity of work, the skills to find work, decent pay, some measure of material security -- this idea was not new. Lincoln himself understood the Declaration of Independence in such terms -- as a promise that in due time, “the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men, and that all should have an equal chance.””

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, "Let Freedom Ring" Ceremony (August 2013)

Women , Men , Justice , Way

“We go back home. We wait and then have dinner. We live these few hours. And we see ourselves alone in the house, facing each other, as never we saw ourselves, and we do not know what to do! It is a real drama of vacancy which is breaking loose. We are living together; our movements are in harmony, they touch and mingle. But all of it is empty. We do not long for each other, we can no longer expect each other, we have no dreams, we are not happy. It is a sort of imitation of life by phantoms, by beings who, in the distance are beings, but close by — so close — are phantoms!”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XIX - Ghosts

Life , Dreams , Home , Waiting

“"Trotter its all wrong. Nothing turned out the way it was supposed to." "How do you mean supposed to? Life ain't supposed to be nothing, 'cept maybe tough." [.. ] "If life is so bad, how come you're so happy?" "Did I say bad? I said it was tough. Nothing to make you happy like doing good on a tough job, now is there?"”

Katherine Paterson book The Great Gilly Hopkins

Gilly Hopkins and Trotter
The Great Gilly Hopkins (1978)

Life , Way , Happiness

“When we respect the faiths practiced in our churches and synagogues, our mosques and our temples, we're more secure. When we welcome the immigrant with his talents or her dreams, we are renewed. When we stand up for our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters and treat their love and their rights equally under the law, we defend our own liberty as well. We are more free when all people can pursue their own happiness. And as long as walls exist in our hearts to separate us from those who don’t look like us, or think like us, or worship as we do, then we're going to have to work harder, together, to bring those walls of division down.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2013, Brandenburg Gate Speech (June 2013)

Love , People , Faith , Law

“I am not dreaming about Bollywood as of now but if I get a role in a film, I am open to doing it. I am not obsessed with the idea of being a part of Bollywood. I am happy with television. Television, today, isn’t just bread and butter; it is wine and cheese. TV actors are very well paid, happy and go abroad to spend their holidays. I do not just like TV, I love it.”

Sukirti Kandpal (1987) Indian actress

On Bollywood and Television http://www.tellychakkar.com/tv/interviews/television-today-isnt-just-bread-and-butter-also-wine-and-cheese-sukirti-kandpal/

Love , Dreams , Idea , Wine

“If they (children) smash, the flower vase assumes a smile
while turning into pieces.
For a chance to be spilled by their hands,
anything they hold gets spilled itself full of happiness.
For a chance to play with them,
water forgets about its own colourlessness.”

Suman Pokhrel (1967) Nepali poet, lyricist, playwright, translator and artist

<span class="plainlinks"> Children http://www.occupypoetry.net/children_1/</span>
From Poetry

Children , Smile , Flowers , Water

“Very much screwed in the head by trying to get Roger's marriage chapter into shape; and also warmed by L. saying last night that he was fonder of me than I of him. A discussion as to which would mind the other's death most. He said he depended more upon our common life than I did. He gave the garden as an instance. He said I live more in a world of my own. I go for long walks alone. So we argued. I was very happy to think I was so much needed. Its strange how seldom one feels this: yet 'life in common' is an immense reality.”

Virginia Woolf (1882–1941) English writer

Friday 28 April, 1939
A Moment's Liberty (1990)

Life , Death , Marriage , World

“As long as I breathe I hope. As long as I breathe I shall fight for the future, that radiant future, in which man, strong and beautiful, will become master of the drifting stream of his history and will direct it towards the boundless horizons of beauty, joy and happiness!”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

"On Optimism and Pessimism, on the Twentieth Century, and on Many Other Things" (1901), as quoted in The Prophet Armed : Trotsky, 1879-1921 (2003) by Isaac Deutscher , p. 45

Beauty , Hope , History , Strong

“Unhappy it is though to reflect, that a Brother's Sword has been sheathed in a Brother's breast, and that, the once happy and peaceful plains of America are either to be drenched with Blood, or Inhabited by Slaves. Sad alternative! But can a virtuous Man hesitate in his choice?”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Letter to Mr. George William Fairfax (31 May 1775) George Washington Papers http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/mgw:@field(DOCID+@lit(gw030206)) at the Library of Congress
1770s

Sadness , Peace , Happiness

“I now make it my earnest prayer, that God would have you, and the State over which you preside, in his holy protection; that he would incline the hearts of the citizens to cultivate a spirit of subordination and obedience to Government; to entertain a brotherly affection and love for one another, for their fellow citizens of the United States at large; and, particularly, for their brethren who have served in the Geld; and finally, that he would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacifick temper of the mind, which were the characteristicks of the divine Author of our blessed religion; without an humble imitation of whose example, in these things, we can never hope to be a happy Nation.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Circular Letter to the Governours of the several States (18 June 1783). Misreported as "I make it my constant prayer that God would most graciously be pleased to dispose us all to do justice, to love mercy, and to demean ourselves with that charity, humility, and pacific temper of mind, which were the characteristics of the Divine Author of our blessed religion; without a humble imitation of whose example in these things, we can never hope to be a happy nation", in Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 315
1780s

Love , God , Religion , Justice

“He gains wisdom in a happy way, who gains it by another’s experience.”
Feliciter is sapit, qui alieno periculo sapit.

Plautus Mercator

Mercator, Act IV, scene 7, line 40
Mercator (The Merchant)

Wisdom , Way , Happiness

“Love is a cruel conqueror.
Happy is he who knows him through stories
And not by his blows!”

Jean De La Fontaine (1621–1695) French poet, fabulist and writer.

Amour est un étrange maître!
Heureux qui peut ne le connaître
Que par récit, lui ni ses coups!
Book IV (1668), fable 1 (Le lion amoureux).
Fables (1668–1679)

Love , Happiness

“Someone who's on top of the world isn't much of an observer: happy people are poor psychologists. But someone who's troubled about something is on the alert. The perceived threat sharpens his senses - he takes in more than he usually does.”

Stefan Zweig book The Post Office Girl

The Post Office Girl (published posthumously in 1982)

People , World , Sense , Happiness

“America could carry on a two years' war by the confiscation of the property of disaffected persons, and be made happy by their expulsion. Say not that this is revenge, call it rather the soft resentment of a suffering people, who, having no object in view but the good of all, have staked their own all upon a seemingly doubtful event. Yet it is folly to argue against determined hardness; eloquence may strike the ear, and the language of sorrow draw forth the tear of compassion, but nothing can reach the heart that is steeled with prejudice.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

The Crisis No. I.
1770s, The American Crisis (1776–1783)

War , People , Revenge , Tear

“I’m very happy that so many children are learning the piano because of me.”

Li Yundi (1982) Chinese pianist

telegraph.co.uk http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/classicalmusic/10863146/Lang-Lang-Weve-never-met.html

Children , Learning , Happiness

“It was wonderful, a stunning happy ending to what began as just another tragic rock & roll story, as if Bob Dylan had been arrested in Miami for jacking off in a seedy little XXX theater while stroking the spine of a fat young boy.”

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

2000s, Kingdom of Fear: Loathsome Secrets of a Star-crossed Child in the Final Days of the American Century (2004)

Boy , Happiness

“When I contemplate the natural dignity of man, when I feel (for Nature has not been kind enough to me to blunt my feelings) for the honour and happiness of its character, I become irritated at the attempt to govern mankind by force and fraud, as if they were all knaves and fools, and can scarcely avoid disgust at those who are thus imposed upon.”

Thomas Paine book Rights of Man

Part 1.3 Rights of Man
1790s, Rights of Man, Part I (1791)

Fools , Feeling , Fraud , Nature

“When I calmly consider this, the flame of anxiety burns my body. Towards the public, I am deeply ashamed of my lack of discretion… I would like to apologise to successive emperors and people by doing my best for reconstruction of the nation and people's happiness.”

Hirohito (1901–1989) Emperor of Japan from 1926 until 1989

Draft of undelivered speech (1948); published in the magazine Bungeishunju as quoted in the Sydney Morning Herald (11 June 2003).

People , Success , Happiness

“When you are happy it is harder to write”

Gloria Estefan (1957) Cuban-American singer-songwriter, actress and divorciada

songs
Gayle King XM satellite radio program (October 23, 2006)
2007, 2008

Depressing , Happiness

“I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my Country can inspire: since there is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the oeconomy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity: Since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained: And since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

First Inaugural Address (30 April 1789), published in The Writings of George Washington, edited by John C. Fitzpatrick, Vol. 30, pp. 294-5
1780s

Love , People , Truth , Smile

“I have a very good handwriting, and when I was 15 year old I was selected from my college to be a ghost writer in the exams for this girl who had injured her hand. I received a pay check of Rs 2500 and was extremely happy.”

Sukirti Kandpal (1987) Indian actress

On her first pay cheque http://www.tellychakkar.com/tv/lifestyle/i-am-impulsive-when-it-comes-buying-clothes-and-jewellery-sukirti-kandpal/

Girl , Happiness

“He went; his piping took a troubled sound
Of storms that rage outside our happy ground;
He could not wait their passing, he is dead!”

Matthew Arnold Thyrsis

St. 5
Thyrsis (1866)

Rage , Waiting , Dead , Happiness

“Happy slaves are the bitterest enemies of freedom”

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian writer

Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 77.

Freedom , Happiness

“Justice is primarily a possible, but not a necessary, quality of a social order regulating the mutual relations of men. Only secondarily it is a virtue of man, since a man is just, if his behavior conforms to the norms of a social order supposed to be just. But what does it really mean to say that a social order is just? It means that this order regulates the behavior of men in a way satisfactory to all men, that is to say, so that all men find their happiness in it. The longing for justice is men's eternal longing for happiness. It is happiness that men cannot find alone, as an isolated individual, and hence seeks in society. Justice is social happiness. It is happiness guaranteed by a social order.”

Hans Kelsen (1881–1973) Austrian lawyer

"What Is Justice?" (1952), published in What is Justice? (1957)

Men , Justice , Way , Behavior

“Life is not governed by chance; it is not random. Your very existence has been willed by God, blessed and given a purpose! Life is not just a succession of events or experiences. It is a search for the true, the good and the beautiful. It is to this end that we make our choices; it is for this that we exercise our freedom; it is in this - in truth, in goodness, and in beauty - that we find happiness and joy.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

2008, Papal Welcome (17 July 2008)

Life , God , Truth , Beauty

“If one is to take Lulu's twelve-tone chord as the integral totality of complementary harmony, then Berg's allegorical genius proves itself within a historical perspective which makes the brain reel: just as Lulu in the world of total illusion longs for nothing but her murderer and finally finds him in that sound, so does all harmony of unrequited happiness long for its fatal chord as the cipher of fulfillment — twelve-tone music is not to be separated from dissonance. Fatal: because all dynamics come to a standstill within it without finding release. The law of complementary harmony already implies the end of the musical experience of time, as this was heralded in the dissociation of time according to Expressionistic extremes.”

Theodor W. Adorno (1903–1969) German sociologist, philosopher and musicologist known for his critical theory of society

Philosophy of Modern Music (1973) as translated by Anne G. Mitchell and Wesley V. Blomster

World , Law , Music , Time

“Voluptuaries of all ages, of every sex, it is to you only that I offer this work; nourish yourselves upon its principles: they favor your passions, and these passions, whereof coldly insipid moralists put you in fear, are naught but the means Nature employs to bring man to the ends she prescribes to him; harken only to these delicious promptings, for no voice save that of the passions can conduct you to happiness.”

Marquis de Sade Philosophy in the Bedroom

To Libertines
Philosophy in the Bedroom (1795)

Age , Fear , Sex , Nature

“It is time that we labored for the happiness of the people. Legislators who are to bring light and order into the world must pursue their course with inexorable tread, fearless and unswerving as the sun.”

Louis Antoine de Saint-Just (1767–1794) military and political leader

Travaillons enfin pour le bonheur du peuple, et que les legislateurs qui doivent éclairer le monde prennent leur course d'un pied hardi, comme le soleil.
Speech to the National Convention (December 27, 1792). [Source: Oeuvres Complètes de Saint-Just, Vol. 1 (2 vols., Paris, 1908), p. 383]

People , World , Light , Time

“Her majesty, being now in possession of her imperial crown and estate pertaining to it, cannot forsake that faith that the whole world knows her to have followed and practiced since her birth; she desires, rather, by God's grace, to preserve it till her death; and she desires greatly that her subjects may come to embrace the same faith quietly and with charity, whereby she shall receive great happiness.”

Mary I of England (1516–1558) Queen of England and Ireland

Proclamation concerning Religion (1553-08-18).

Death , God , World , Faith

“Nothing is miserable but what is thought so, and contrariwise, every estate is happy if he that bears it be content.”
Adeo nihil est miserum nisi cum putes, contraque beata sors omnis est aequanimitate tolerantis.

Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius (480) philosopher of the early 6th century

Prose IV, line 18
The Consolation of Philosophy · De Consolatione Philosophiae, Book II

Happiness

“Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness POSITIVELY by uniting our affections, the latter NEGATIVELY by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first a patron, the last a punisher.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

Opening lines.
1770s, Common Sense (1776)

Happiness

“Priestley was the first (unless it was Beccaria) who taught my lips to pronounce this sacred truth — that the greatest happiness of the greatest number is the foundation of morals and legislation.”

Jeremy Bentham (1748–1832) British philosopher, jurist, and social reformer

"Extracts from Bentham's Commonplace Book", in Collected Works, x, p. 142; He credits Priestley in his Essay on the First Principles of Government (1768) or Beccaria with inspiring his use of the phrase, often paraphrased as "The greatest good for the greatest number", but the statement "the greatest happiness for the greatest number" actually originates with Francis Hutcheson, in his Inquiry concerning Moral Good and Evil (1725), sect. 3. In an unpublished manuscript on utilitarianism, written for James Mill, he later criticized this formulation: "Greatest happiness of the greatest number. Some years have now elapsed since, upon a closer scrutiny, reason, altogether incontestable, was found for discarding this appendage. On the surface, additional clearness and correctness given to the idea: at bottom, the opposite qualities. Be the community in question what it may, divide it into two equal parts, call one of them the majority, the other minority, layout of the account of the feelings of the minority, include in the account no feelings but those in the majority, the result you will find is that of this operation, that to the aggregate stock of happiness of the community, loss not profit is the result of the operation. Of this proposition the truth will be the more palpable, the greater the ration of the number of the minority to that of the majority: in other words, the less difference between the two unequal parts: and suppose the condivident part equal, the quantity of the error will then be at its maximum." — as quoted in The Classical Utilitarians : Bentham and Mill (2003) by John Troyer, p. 92;

Truth , Happiness

“Reason tells us that creation never can be perfectly happy. So long as it is incomplete it must put up with imperfection and sorrow. It can only be perfect when it ceases to be creation, and is God. Do our prayers dare go so far?”

Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) Bengali polymath

Glimpses of Bengal http://www.spiritualbee.com/tagore-book-of-letters/ (1921)

God , Perfection , Happiness

“All unprejudiced persons objectively surveying the grim events in Bangladesh since March 25 have recognized the revolt of 75 million people, a people who were forced to the conclusion that neither their life, nor their liberty, to say nothing of the possibility of the pursuit of happiness, was available to them.”

Indíra Gándhí (1917–1984) Indian politician and Prime Minister

Referring to the fundamental rights of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" in the United States Declaration of Independence in a letter to Richard Nixon (December 15, 1971). http://www.thehindu.com/thehindu/mag/2005/07/03/stories/2005070300090100.htm.

Life , People , Personality , Happiness

“A long decade ago economic growth was the reigning fashion of political economy. It was simultaneously the hottest subject of economic theory and research, a slogan eagerly claimed by politicians of all stripes, and a serious objective of the policies of governments. The climate of opinion has changed dramatically. Disillusioned critics indict both economic science and economic policy for blind obeisance to aggregate material "progress," and for neglect of its costly side effects. Growth, it is charged, distorts national priorities, worsens the distribution of income, and irreparably damages the environment. Paul Erlich speaks for a multitude when he says, "We must acquire a life style which has as its goal maximum freedom and happiness for the individual, not a maximum Gross National Product."”

James Tobin (1918–2002) American economist

Nordhaus, William D., and James Tobin. " Is growth obsolete? http://www.nber.org/chapters/c7620.pdf." Economic Research: Retrospect and Prospect Vol 5: Economic Growth. Nber, 1972. 1-80.
1970s and later

Life , Fashion , Freedom , Science

“For what man has sought for is, indeed, neither pain nor pleasure, but simply Life. Man has sought to live intensely, fully, perfectly. When he can do so without exercising restraint on others, or suffering it ever, and his activities are all pleasurable to him, he will be saner, healthier, more civilised, more himself. Pleasure is Nature's test, her sign of approval. When man is happy, he is in harmony with himself and his environment.”

Oscar Wilde book The Soul of Man under Socialism

The Soul of Man Under Socialism (1891)

Life , Pain , Pleasure , Exercises

“I believe that every human being has the right to his life and to his liberty, and to act in this world so as to secure his own happiness.”

Henry Wilson (1812–1875) Union Army officer, Vice president, politician, historian

"Debate with Jefferson Davis"

Life , World , Happiness

“The happiness of one man and one woman is the greatest thing in all the world.”

Agatha Christie book The Mysterious Affair at Styles

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1920)

World , Happiness

“Your favourite virtue … Simplicity
Your favourite virtue in man … Strength
Your favourite virtue in woman … Weakness
Your chief characteristic … Singleness of purpose
Your idea of happiness … To fight
Your idea of misery … Submission
The vice you excuse most … Gullibility
The vice you detest most … Servility
Your aversion … Martin Tupper
Favourite occupation … Book-worming
Favourite poet … Shakespeare, Aeschylus, Goethe
Favourite prose-writer … Diderot
Favourite hero … Spartacus, Kepler
Favourite heroine … Gretchen [Heroine of Goethe's Faust]
Favourite flower … Daphne
Favourite colour … Red
Favourite name … Laura, Jenny
Favourite dish … Fish
Favourite maxim … Nihil humani a me alienum puto [Nothing human is alien to me, Terence]
Favourite motto … De omnibus dubitandum”

Karl Marx (1818–1883) German philosopher, economist, sociologist, journalist and revolutionary socialist

Everything must be doubted
Marx's replies to a set of questions given to him by his daughters Jenny and Laura in 1865 http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1865/04/01.htm

Books , Flowers , Idea , Fish

Quotes about happiness page 8

Quotes about happiness
page 8