Quotations about HappinessThe Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness.  You have to catch it yourself.  Benjamin FranklinEven if happiness forgets you a little bit, never completely forget about it.  Jacques PrévertIf you want to be happy, be.  Leo TolstoyHappiness is never stopping to think if you are.  Palmer SondrealMost people would rather be certain they're miserable, than risk being happy.  Robert AnthonyThe best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.  Mark TwainIf only we'd stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time.  Edith WhartonHappiness is excitement that has found a settling down place.  But there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around.  E.L. KonigsburgNobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy.  Cynthia NelmsHappiness is always a by-product.  It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular.  But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.  Robertson DaviesThose who can laugh without cause have either found the true meaning of happiness or have gone stark raving mad.  Norm PapernickMan is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys.  If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.  Fyodor DostoevskyWhat a wonderful life I've had!  I only wish I'd realized it sooner.  ColetteThe foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.  James OpenheimHappiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open.  John Barrymore"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best," and then he had to stop and think.  Because although Eating Honey was a very good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know what it was called.  A.A. MilnePeople take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness.  Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost.  H. Jackson BrowneIt's pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness.  Poverty and wealth have both failed.  Frank McKinney "Kin" HubbardOften people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier.  The way it actually works is the reverse.  You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.  Margaret YoungIndeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.  St. AugustineCan anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one's self?  Ralph Waldo EmersonThere are two things to aim at in life:  first, to get what you want; and after that, to enjoy it.  Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.  Logan Pearsall Smith, Afterthoughts, 1931This is my "depressed stance."  When you're depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand.  The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you'll start to feel better.  If you're going to get any joy out of being depressed, you've got to stand like this.  Charlie BrownPleasure is spread through the earthIn stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find.William Wordsworth, 1806Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.  Nathaniel HawthorneMost folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.  Abraham LincolnHappiness is a form of courage.  Holbrook JacksonWe must laugh before we are happy, for fear of dying without having laughed at all.  Jean de La BruyereTranquil pleasures last the longest; we are not fitted to bear the burden of great joys.  Christian Nestell BoveeWe tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.  Frederick KeonigHappiness pulses with every beat of my heart.  Emily Logan DecensIt's never too late to have a happy childhood.  Berke BreathedHappiness is the soundtrack of my life.  Grey LivingstonHappiness?  That's nothing more than health and a poor memory.  Albert SchweitzerHappiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.  Eleanor RooseveltHappiness is a direction, not a place.  Sydney J. HarrisOf all the things you wear, your expression is the most important.  Janet LaneA truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery while on a detour.  Author UnknownIf you want others to be happy, practice compassion.  If you want to be happy, practice compassion.  Dalai LamaHappiness held is the seed; happiness shared is the flower.  Author UnknownThere is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness.  Lady BlessingtonThe best vitamin to be a happy person is B1.  Author UnknownA great obstacle to happiness is to expect too much happiness.  Bernard de FontenelleIs it not clear, however, that bliss and envy are the numerator and denominator of the fraction called happiness?  Yevgeny ZamyatinHappiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.  Immanuel KantMan must search for what is right, and let happiness come on its own.  Johann PestalozziHe is rich or poor according to what he is, not according to what he has.  Henry Ward BeecherJust as a cautious businessman avoids investing all his capital in one concern, so wisdom would probably admonish us also not to anticipate all our happiness from one quarter alone.  Sigmund FreudThere are some days when I think I'm going to die from an overdose of satisfaction.  Salvador DaliThe secret of happiness is to find a congenial monotony. V.S. PritchettThe only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.  George Bernard ShawReal elation is when you feel you could touch a star without standing on tiptoe.  Doug LarsonWe are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.  Walter Savage LandorThe search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.  Eric Hoffer, The Passionate State of Mind, 1954If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years.  Bertrand RussellThe world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment.  Doug LarsonCheerfulness is what greases the axles of the world.  Don't go through life creaking.  H.W. BylesWhat I'm looking for is a blessing that's not in disguise.  Kitty O'Neill CollinsMy crown is called content, a crown that seldom kings enjoy.  William ShakespeareAsk yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so.  John Stuart Mill, Autobiography, 1873We are seldom happy with what we now have, but would go to pieces if we lost any part of it.  Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960The happiness which is lacking makes one think even the happiness one has unbearable.  Joseph RouxAs people spin faster and faster in the pursuit of merely personal happiness, they become exhausted in the futile effort of chasing themselves.  Andrew DelbancoHappiness is the feeling you're feeling when you want to keep feeling it.  Author UnknownJoy is a flower that blooms when you do.  Author UnknownSo long as we can lose any happiness, we possess some.  Booth TarkingtonJumping for joy is good exercise.  Author UnknownShe thinks that happiness is a mat that sits on her doorway.  Rob Thomas, "3 A.M."Happiness is a by-product of an effort to make someone else happy.  Gretta Brooker PalmerHappiness is a way station between too little and too much.  Channing Pollock, Mr. MoneypennyThe happy have whole days,and those they choose.The unhappy have but hours,and those they lose.Colley CibberWhen I do not walk in the clouds I walk as though I were lost.  Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. MerwinThe art of living does not consist in preserving and clinging to a particular mode of happiness, but in allowing happiness to change its form without being disappointed by the change; happiness, like a child, must be allowed to grow up.  Charles L. MorganHappiness is a matter of one's most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.  Iris MurdochHappiness is. usually attributed by adults to children, and by children to adults.  Thomas SzaszWhen neither their property nor their honor is touched, the majority of men live content.  Niccolo MachiavelliYou cannot always have happiness, but you can always give happiness.  Author UnknownThe happiness of most people is not ruined by great catastrophes or fatal errors, but by the repetition of slowly destructive little things.  Ernest DimnetOne joy scatters a hundred griefs.  Chinese ProverbWe have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.  George Bernard Shaw, Candida, 1898One should be either sad or joyful.  Contentment is a warm sty for eaters and sleepers.  Eugene O'NeillA man's as miserable as he thinks he is.  SenecaOne filled with joy preaches without preaching.  Mother TeresaMisery is almost always the result of thinking.  Joseph JoubertMy advice to you is not to inquire why or whither, but just enjoy your ice cream while it's on your plate.  Thornton WilderBe happy.  It's one way of being wise.  Colette Precisely the least, the softest, lightest, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a flash, a moment - a little makes the way of the best happiness.  Frederich Nietzsche, Thus Spake ZarathustraThe greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.  William SaroyanPeople don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy.  Anton ChekhovHappiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in strangers' gardens.  Douglas JerroldUnhappiness is not knowing what we want and killing ourselves to get it.  Don HeroldIf you are not happy here and now, you never will be.  Taisen DeshimaruIt is strange what a contempt men have for the joys that are offered them freely.  Georges DuhamelIf the day and night be such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more immortal - that is your success.  All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause momentarily to bless yourself.  Henry David Thoreau, WaldenThe fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid.  J.D. SalingerThe only time I was truly happy was as a child, before I knew what happiness was - or wasn't.  D.H. MondfleurEden is that old-fashioned house we dwell in every dayWithout suspecting our abode until we drive away.Emily DickinsonHappiness is a function of accepting what is.  Werner ErhardHappiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.  Maxim GorkyUnquestionably, it is possible to do without happiness; it is done involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths of mankind.  John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, 1863Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.  Joseph AddisonPleasure is very seldom found where it is sought.  Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.  Samuel JohnsonThere can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.  Freya Stark, The Journey's EchoEnjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.  Robert BraultIn order to have great happiness you have to have great pain and unhappiness - otherwise how would you know when you're happy?  Leslie CaronOn the whole, the happiest people seem to be those who have no particular cause for being happy except that they are so.  William R. IngeI hate being happy.  It pisses me off.  Because I know if I try to grab it, it will slip away, like one of those goddamn water snakes.  And I hate just looking.  I always try to grab.  D.H. MondfleurTo be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.  Albert Camus, The Fall, 1956Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.  Mahatma GandhiWhen you're really happy, the birds chirp and the sun shines even on cold dark winter nights - and flowers will bloom on a barren land.  Grey LivingstonHappiness is like the penny candy of our youth:  we got a lot more for our money back when we had no money.  Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960Happiness is the interval between periods of unhappiness.  Don MarquisIf someone loves a flower of which just one example exists among all the millions and millions of stars, that's enough to make him happy when he looks at the stars.  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince, 1943, translated from French by Richard HowardNow and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.  Guilaume ApollinaireWhen a man has lost all happiness, he's not alive.  Call him a breathing corpse.  SophoclesMany things can make you miserable for weeks; few can bring you a whole day of happiness.  Mignon McLaughlin, The Neurotic's Notebook, 1960Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.  Hosea BallouTo be obliged to beg our daily happiness from others bespeaks a more lamentable poverty than that of him who begs his daily bread.  Charles Caleb ColtonSome pursue happiness, others create it.  Author UnknownThe essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.  EpictetusGather the crumbs of happiness and they will make you a loaf of contentment.  Author UnknownGive a man health and a course to steer, and he'll never stop to trouble about whether he's happy or not.  George Bernard ShawHappiness is the natural flower of duty.  Phillips BrooksBut what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?  Albert CamusHappiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.  Thomas JeffersonWe act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements in life, when all we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.  Charles KingsleyYou need to learn to be happy by nature, because you'll seldom have the chance to be happy by circumstance.  Lavetta Sue WegmanIt is a comely fashion to be glad; Joy is the grace we say to God.  Jean IngelowIf you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias in his garden, or looking for dinosaur eggs in the Gobi desert.  He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that has rolled under the radiator.  He will not be striving for it as a goal in itself.  He will have become aware that he is happy in the course of living life twenty-four crowded hours of the day.  W. Beran WolfeYou will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of.  You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.  Albert CamusHappiness is the resultant of the relative strengths of positive and negative feelings rather than an absolute amount of one or the other.  Norman BradburnIf you ever find happiness by hunting for it, you will find it, as the old woman did her lost spectacles, safe on her own nose all the time.  Josh BillingsPlenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn't stop to enjoy it.  William FeatherHappiness is your dentist telling you it won't hurt and then having him catch his hand in the drill.  Johnny CarsonI am a kind of paranoiac in reverse.  I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.  J.D. SalingerBefore we set our hearts too much on anything, let us examine how happy are those who already possess it.  François Duc de La RochefoucauldLet us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.  Marcel ProustFor every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness.  Author UnknownTo be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.  Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of HappinessHappiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response.  Mildred BarthelUsefulness is happiness, and. all other things are but incidental.  Lydia Maria Child, The American Frugal Housewife, 1829Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.  Robert FrostThe best way for a person to have happy thoughts is to count his blessings and not his cash.  Author UnknownHappiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling.  Margaret Lee RunbeckMany people are extremely happy, but are absolutely worthless to society.  Charles GowAll of us have had the experience of a sudden joy that came when nothing in the world had forewarned us of its coming - a joy so thrilling that if it was born of misery we remembered even the misery with tenderness.  Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939, translated from French by Lewis GalantièreMost of us believe in trying to make other people happy only if they can be happy in ways which we approve.  Robert S. LyndI have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot:  they amount to fourteen.  Abd-El-RahamThe pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase:  if you pursue happiness you'll never find it.  C.P. SnowHappiness:  an agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another.  Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary