Best word about happiness

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According to science, 40% of happiness is internal.

The rest is genetics (50%) and life circumstances (10%).

It means you have a BIG chunk of that pie in your hands.

The good news?

You can become even happier with these 67 happiness quotes. 😄

And remember: the happiest people are the ones who chase nothing.

They say “yes” to what happens.

You’ll discover quotes by Buddha, Emerson, Gandhi, and more.

I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I did!

P.S. I’ve been collecting quotes since 2004.

I guarantee they are the best happiness quotes you’ll ever find.

Send me a message at maxime@wisdomquotes.com if I forget one. 🙃 Thank you

Happiness is an inside job. William Arthur Ward

Meaning: Nothing external can make you happy forever. Happiness is a mindset, a direction. It’s not a place or a milestone.

He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe. Marcus Aurelius

Life gets better when you accept more and reject less. Maxime Lagacé

Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened. Ludwig Jacobowski

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for. Joseph Addison

It’s the little things in life…

Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. Marthe Troly-Curtin

Happy people take what comes. Maxime Lagacé

Meaning: Happy people don’t try to control what happens around them. They just relax, accept, and do their best to enjoy what’s in front of them.

We don’t laugh because we’re happy – we’re happy because we laugh. William James

Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy. Guillaume Apollinaire

Stop being busy. Start being present. Maxime Lagacé

That’s your unlimited desires that are clouding your peace, your happiness. Naval Ravikant

Enjoy it. Because it’s happening. Stephen Chbosky

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Happiness is a state where nothing is missing. Naval Ravikant

Meaning: Happiness is when you’re not trying to escape the present moment. Whatever it is, you relax into it, content.

True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self. Joseph Addison

Happiness, not in another place but this place…not for another hour, but this hour. Walt Whitman

Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond to it. Lou Holtz

Happiness is a direction, not a place. Sydney J. Harris

Seek it outside and you’ll be exhausted. Seek it inside and you’ll find a path. Maxime Lagacé

It’s the moments that I stopped just to be, rather than do, that have given me true happiness. Richard Branson

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The truly wise and happy are never rushed. Maxime Lagacé

Meaning: The wiser you get, the happier you get, the more alert and present you are, right here and right now.

Happiness? That’s nothing more than health and a poor memory. Albert Schweitzer

What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner. Colette

Tension is who you think you should be, relaxation is who you are. Chinese proverb

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits. Thomas Jefferson

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get. Dale Carnegie

Happiness depends upon ourselves. Aristotle

Related

• 100 Letting Go Quotes To Help You Live Free
• 77 Zen Quotes To Bring Stillness Into Your Life
• 100 Inner Peace Quotes To Be Cool, Calm, And Collected

People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy. Anton Chekhov

Meaning: Happy people don’t mind what happens around them. Their happiness is not dependent on external circumstances.

The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up. Mark Twain

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. Mahatma Gandhi

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values. Ayn Rand

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. 14th Dalai Lama

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. Buddha

For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness. Ralph Waldo Emerson

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True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. Helen Keller

Meaning: Relying on rewards for your happiness is futile. But having a goal in mind, something to aim at, brings motivation and inspiration.

The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time. Friedrich Nietzsche

Happy is the hearing man; unhappy the speaking man. Ralph Waldo Emerson

Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible. Augustine of Hippo

If you aren’t grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you would be happy with more. Roy T. Bennett

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile. Albert Einstein

Happiness is not doing fun things. Happiness is doing meaningful things. Maxime Lagacé

The constant happiness is curiosity. Alice Munro

Related: Stumbling on Happiness (Amazon book)

Happiness comes from peace. Peace comes from indifference. Naval Ravikant

Meaning: Happiness is when you’re content, right now. But to be content, right now, you can’t be concerned with too many things. Hence, the indifference.

Be happy. It’s one way of being wise. Colette

The secret of happy life lies in renunciation. Mahatma Gandhi

It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it. Seneca

Today might not be perfect, but it’s a perfect day to be happy. Lori Deschene

We will never be this young again. Do what makes you happy. Gary Goodridge (Source)

Happiness is not out there, it’s in you. Unknown

Doing what you were born to do… That’s the way to be happy. Agnes Martin

Want more peace of mind and happiness?

Check out our free checklist today!

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You can only have bliss if you don’t chase it. Henepola Gunaratana

Meaning: If you’re chasing something it’s because you don’t have it. Stop chasing, and it appears.

Happiness is something that multiplies when it is divided. Paulo Coelho (Source)

Happiness is inversely correlated with desire. Unknown

Happiness requires acceptance. Maxime Lagacé

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness. Charles Spurgeon

Truly happy people don’t need to show others that they are. Maxime Lagacé

All happiness depends on courage and work. Honoré de Balzac

Being happy is not the only happiness. Alice Walker

Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes. Charles Dickens

Meaning: You can’t say “That’s it, I’m happy, I’m done.” Happiness is not a permanent state. And it’s fine this way. Life is fine this way. Take happiness when it’s there.

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort. Franklin D. Roosevelt

Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon. Winnie the Pooh

Whoever is happy will make others happy. Anne Frank

Everything is a gift of the universe – even joy, anger, jealously, frustration, or separateness. Everything is perfect either for our growth or our enjoyment. Ken Keyes Jr

There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved. George Sand

I’m happy. Which often looks like crazy. David Henry Hwang

The unhappy seek. The happy enjoy. Maxime Lagacé

Meaning: Want a glimpse of happiness? Stop expecting it. Enjoy the reality you have in front of your eyes. Paradise is a mindset.

Key Takeaways

• Happiness is internal, not external.
• Materialism has never made anyone happy. Don’t waste your time, energy, and money on stuff.
• What leads to true happiness?
  • Being healthy
  • Helping others
  • Self-understanding
  • Being well surrounded
  • Doing what you love often
  • Not trying to control everything, letting go
• Remember: Don’t care about stuff, what other people think, what society advocates. Lead YOUR life.
• Who’s the happiest person? The one not seeking happiness. “The unhappy seek. The happy enjoy.”

Further Readings

• 55 Joy Quotes To Lift Your Mood (Even More)
• 165 Good Morning Quotes, Images, Wishes, Messages
• 100 Smile Quotes To Make Your Day Better 😊
• 75 Inspiring Quotes About Living In The Present Moment
• 100 Gratitude Quotes To Make You More Thankful
• 71 Purpose Quotes To Make Your Life More Fulfilling
• 100 Mental Health Quotes To Comfort, Encourage, Inspire
• How To Be Happy: The 6 Happiness Pillars You Must Know 😃

Hope you enjoyed these beautiful happiness quotes.

And remember, truly happy people live lightly and forgive fast. They don’t waste time in the past.

Now, if you did enjoy the quotes, please share them with a friend today!

Are you happy? What’s your favorite happiness quote?

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We all want to be happy, right? These happiness quotes are the place to start your pursuit.

After all, life is better when we’re happy and feel positive.

So to help you on your journey, enjoy these feel-good quotes about happiness and being happy to help you find joy and satisfaction in life.

Top 10 Happiness Quotes

Happiness is largely a choice, not a right or entitlement.

David C. Hill

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

Dalai Lama

Happiness is not the absence of problems, it’s the ability to deal with them.

Steve Maraboli

A great obstacle to happiness is to expect too much happiness.

Bernard de Fontenelle

The secret of happiness is freedom, the secret of freedom is courage.

Carrie Jones

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.

Charles Spurgeon

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

Ask any number of people and each one will likely define happiness differently. Do you have your definition or are you still looking for one?

These quotes about happiness explore what it means, how to find it, and what to do if you have it.

Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.

Immanuel Kant

Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.

Thomas Jefferson

Happiness is the interval between periods of unhappiness.

Don Marquis

The secret of happiness is to find a congenial monotony.

V.S. Pritchett

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.

Bertrand Russell

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.

Denis Waitley

The happiness of life is made up of the little charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Happiness consists more in conveniences of pleasure that occur everyday than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom.

Benjamin Franklin

There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.

Freya Stark

Happiness 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 Davies

There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.

Charlotte Bronte

Happiness is your dentist telling you it won’t hurt and then having him catch his hand in the drill.

Johnny Carson

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

George Burns

Happiness and sadness run parallel to each other. When one takes a rest, the other one tends to take up the slack.

Hazelmarie Elliott

If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help someone else.

Chinese Proverb

Happiness is the resultant of the relative strengths of positive and negative feelings rather than an absolute amount of one or the other.

Norman Bradburn

Happiness is being content with what you have, living in freedom and liberty, having a good family life and good friends.

Divyanka Tripathi

You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.

Jonathan Safran Foer

Happiness is a matter of one’s most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.

Iris Murdoch

Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world.

Orhan Pamuk

The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.

William Saroyan

The happiness which is lacking makes one think even the happiness one has unbearable.

Joseph Roux

The 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. Salinger

Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Happiness is an accident of nature, a beautiful and flawless aberration.

Pat Conroy

In order to have great happiness you have to have great pain and unhappiness – otherwise how would you know when you’re happy?

Leslie Caron

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

Mahatma Gandhi

Happiness 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 Gorky

Happiness is a well-balanced combination of love, labour, and luck.

Mary Wilson Little

Happiness is a dry martini and a good woman. Or a bad woman.

George Burns

Short Happiness Quotes

Happiness is a place between too much and too little.

Finnnish Proverb

Happiness is a form of courage.

Holbrook Jackson

No medicine cures what happiness cannot.

Gabriel García Márquez

Happiness is itself a kind of gratitude.

William James

Happiness is a thing to be practiced, like the violin.

John Lubbock

Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get.

W.P. Kinsella, Shoeless Joe

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

Richard Bach

Learn to let go. That is the key to happiness.

Buddha

All happiness depends on courage and work.

Honoré de Balzac

Happiness held is the seed; Happiness shared is the flower.

John Harrigan

There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness.

Lady Blessington

Happiness is distraction from the human tragedy.

J.M. Reinoso

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.

Robert Frost

The Pursuit of Happiness

Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

Guillaume Apollinaire

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.

James Oppenheim

The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment.

Doug Larson

There is no way to happiness — happiness is the way.

Thich Nhat Hanh

Happiness is where we find it, but very rarely where we seek it.

J. Petit Senn

As people spin faster and faster in the pursuit of merely personal happiness, they become exhausted in the futile effort of chasing themselves.

Andrew Delbanco

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

Albert Schweitzer

Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in strangers’ gardens.

Douglas Jerrold

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

Epictetus

Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.

Jim Rohn

Happiness is always the serendipitous result of looking for something else.

Dr. Idel Dreimer

Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place. But there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around.

E.L. Konigsburg

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

Robert A. Heinlein

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

The secret ingredients to true happiness? Decisive optimism and personal responsibility.

Amy Leigh Mercree

People should find happiness in the little things, like family.

Amanda Bynes

A really great talent finds its happiness in execution.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.

Unknown,
commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin

The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.

Eric Hoffer

We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.

George Bernard Shaw

Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.

Aristotle

My family didn’t have a lot of money, and I’m grateful for that. Money is the longest route to happiness.

Evangeline Lilly

Happiness is a by-product of an effort to make someone else happy.

Gretta Brooker Palmer

True Happiness

True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca

The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

Victor Hugo

There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.

George Sand

All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.

Baruch Spinoza

Those who can laugh without cause have either found the true meaning of happiness or have gone stark raving mad.

Norm Papernick

Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.

Hosea Ballou

It’s the moments that I stopped just to be, rather than do, that have given me true happiness.

Richard Branson

To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind.

Buddha

The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.

Chuck Palahniuk

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.

Epictetus

We 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 Keonig

In my life I’ve learned that true happiness comes from giving. Helping others along the way makes you evaluate who you are. I think that love is what we’re all searching for. I haven’t come across anyone who didn’t become a better person through love.

Marla Gibbs

True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

Helen Keller

Happiness consists more in conveniences of pleasure that occur everyday than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom.

Benjamin Franklin

So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?

Hunter S. Thompson

The true secret of happiness lies in the taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.

William Morris

Real happiness is not of temporary enjoyment, but is so interwoven with the future that it blesses for ever.

James Lendall Basford

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

Helen Keller

Happiness is the default state. It’s what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in life.

Naval Ravikant

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

Joseph Addison

Happiness is a constant work-in-progress, because solving problems is a constant work-in-progress – the solutions to today’s problems will lay the foundation for tomorrow’s problems, and so on. True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving.

Mark Manson

Happy Quotes

We hear and use the word “happy” a lot, but being happy is more than just a wish or greeting. Happy is a state of mind that we can choose and cultivate.

More important, we can share happy words and thoughts with others once we have it ourselves. These quotes about being happy will help you do just that!

So be happy and see how good it feels when those around you are happier too.

If being happy is a challenge, check out these 15 Simple Things To Do To Be Happier Today.

Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so.

John Stuart Mill

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

Marcel Proust

One joy scatters a hundred griefs.

Chinese Proverb

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.

Carl Jung

It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.

L.M. Montgomery,
Anne of Green Gables

A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery while on a detour.

Unknown

Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.

Mother Teresa

Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one’s self?

Ralph Waldo Emerson

It’s a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.

Lucille Ball

Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.

Abraham Lincoln

We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.

Walter Savage Landor

It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.

Dale Carnegie

I do not exist to impress the world. I exist to live my life in a way that will make me happy.

Richard Bach

The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.

George Bernard Shaw

Give a man health and a course to steer, and he’ll never stop to trouble about whether he’s happy or not.

George Bernard Shaw

Happy girls are the prettiest.

Audrey Hepburn

When you’re happy you find pure joy in your life. There are no regrets in this state of happiness – and that’s a goal worth striving for in all areas of your life.

Suze Orman

If 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 Wolfe

Quotes about Being Happy

The habit of being happy enables one to be freed, or largely freed, from the domination of outward conditions.

Robert Louis Stevenson

I think the key to life is just being a happy person, and happiness will bring you success.

Diego Val

Most people would rather be certain they’re miserable, than risk being happy.

Robert Anthony

There is some kind of a sweet innocence in being human—in not having to be just happy or just sad—in the nature of being able to be both broken and whole, at the same time.

C. JoyBell C.

Happiness is an attitude of mind, born of the simple determination to be happy under all outward circumstances

 J. Donald Walters

We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.

Anne Frank

It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.

Dale Carnegie

People are unhappy when they get something too easily. You have to sweat – that’s the only moral they know.

Dany Laferrière

You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.

Epicurus

I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.

Jane Austen,
Pride and Prejudice

Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though it were his own.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means – either may do – the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.

Benjamin Franklin

Most people would rather be certain they’re miserable, than risk being happy.

Robert Anthony

There 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

Too often in life, something happens and we blame other people for us not being happy or satisfied or fulfilled. So the point is, we all have choices, and we make the choice to accept people or situations or to not accept situations.

Tom Brady

For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Unquestionably, it is possible to do without happiness; it is done involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths of mankind.

John Stuart Mill

Happiness is the experience of loving life. Being happy is being in love with that momentary experience. And love is looking at someone or even something and seeing the absolute best in him/her or it. Love is happiness with what you see. So love and happiness really are the same thing… just expressed differently.

Robert McPhillips

Be Happy Quotes

Be happy with what you have and are, be generous with both, and you won’t have to hunt for happiness.

William E. Gladstone

You can’t be happy unless you’re unhappy sometimes.

Lauren Oliver

Nobody really cares if you’re miserable, so you might as well be happy.

Cynthia Nelms

Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future.

Earl Nightingale

Don’t waste your time in anger, regrets, worries, and grudges. Life is too short to be unhappy.

Roy T. Bennett

Judge nothing, you will be happy. Forgive everything, you will be happier. Love everything, you will be happiest.

Sri Chinmoy

You do the right thing even if it makes you feel bad. The purpose of life is not to be happy but to be worthy of happiness.

Tracy Kidder

Research has shown that the best way to be happy is to make each day happy.

Deepak Chopra

Learn how to be happy with what you have while you pursue all that you want.

Jim Rohn

If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.

Andrew Carnegie

How simple it is to see that we can only be happy now, and there will never be a time when it is not now.

Gerald Jampolsky

If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never be fulfilled. If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy with yourself. Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the world belongs to you.

Lao Tzu

Most of us believe in trying to make other people happy only if they can be happy in ways which we approve.

Robert S. Lynd

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

Dalai Lama

To be happy, you must fancy that everything you have is a gift, and you the chosen, though you worked your tail off for every bit of it.

Robert Brault

We cannot be happy if we expect to live all the time at the highest peak of intensity. Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.

Thomas Merton

Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.

Ayn Rand

If only we’d stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time.

Edith Wharton

You 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 Camus

Be happy with what you have. Be excited about what you want.

Alan Cohen

Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.

St. Augustine

Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.

Omar Khayyam

If you want happiness for an hour – take a nap. If you want happiness for a day – go fishing. If you want happiness for a month – get married. If you want happiness for a year – inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime – help someone else.

Chinese Proverb

Feeling Happy Quotes

He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.

Marcus Aurelius

Cheerfulness is what greases the axles of the world. Don’t go through life creaking.

H.W. Byles

Many things can make you miserable for weeks; few can bring you a whole day of happiness.

Mignon McLaughlin

Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.

Mark Twain

Our capacity to draw happiness from aesthetic objects or material goods in fact seems critically dependent on our first satisfying a more important range of emotional or psychological needs, among them the need for understanding, for love, expression and respect.

Alain De Botton

On the whole, the happiest people seem to be those who have no particular cause for being happy except that they are so.

William R. Inge

No one is in control of your happiness but you; therefore, you have the power to change anything about yourself or your life that you want to change.

Barbara DeAngelis

If 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 Russell

Man 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 Dostoevsky

When neither their property nor their honor is touched, the majority of men live content.

Niccolo Machiavelli

Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it.

William Feather

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.

Mark Twain

I have only two kinds of days: happy and hysterically happy.

Allen J. Lefferdink

Just 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 Freud

On a deeper level you are already complete. When you realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do.

Eckhart Tolle

There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them.

Anthony de Mello

The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.

James M. Barrie

If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you’ll never enjoy the sunshine.

Morris West

We hope these happiness quotes lifted your mood and brightened your day. Share them with your friends to keep the good vibes spreading and choose to be happier today.

Being happy makes life better and more enjoyable, even when we have to make changes along the way.

If you still need a boost to be happier, check out 30 things you need to let go of to find happiness and start taking steps toward a happier life.

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All materials & writings are copyright © Jonathan Lockwood Huie, except for quotes and other specifically identified material which belong to their respective copyright holders if applicable.

Happiness is truly a remarkable thing. When you’re happy, the whole world shines in a much brighter light. Happiness makes you feel good and is the very foundation for a joyful and fulfilled life. Unfortunately, there are also times in life when setbacks and difficulties abound. During these challenging times, it can make quite a difference to have a couple of inspiring happiness quotes at hand that lift you up. For this reason, we’ve created a hand-picked collection of the most inspiring quotes about happiness. These are the quotes that lift your spirits and brighten your mood.

The pursuit of happiness can be quite challenging at times. Things do not always go as planned. To make things worse, life confronts us with quite challenging situations on a regular basis. But when there’s one thing that is important in life, it’s the ability to get back up on your feet whenever life knocks you down. This is, of course, easier said than done.

“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
Buddha

Whenever you’re confronted with a situation that seems to suck all the happiness out of you, it can be quite helpful to read some quotes about happiness.

Enjoy the following collection of inspiring quotes about happiness!

The amazing thing about these happiness quotes is that many of these sayings stem from some of the wisest men and women that have ever walked on this planet. Their quotes about happiness show that they were confronted with similar challenges and difficulties during their own lifetime. What is even more interesting is the fact that these inspiring people found excellent ways to live happily despite the occasional struggles of life.

But how does one unearth all this wisdom about happiness that accumulated over centuries? Discovering excellent quotes about happiness is definitely not easy. Usually, one would have to read a vast number of books to find some precious gems here and there. Luckily for you, the following collection of happiness quotes gives you an excellent overview of the most important ideas about happiness.

If you so want, the following quotes about happiness condense the brilliant wisdom about happiness of centuries into a reader-friendly article. Enjoy!

1. Marcus Aurelius on the way you think

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.”
Marcus Aurelius

Your thoughts shape your entire reality. How you think has a great impact on your life. In many instances, it is not so important what happens to you in life. What is important is how you choose to think about it and how you respond to it. With this philosophy in mind, you always get to choose between accepting defeats and fighting against struggles to turn them into something better.

2. Alfred Tennyson on happiness and passion

“The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.”
Alfred Lord Tennyson

Let’s face it, we all have desires and passions. And many of us know that it is almost impossible to fulfill each and every desire. In fact, once one certain desire is fulfilled, many others will take its place.

The great problem, however, is that unfulfilled passions and desires can reduce our happiness significantly. Therefore, the one who has learned to become a master of passions and desires is most likely the one who is truly happy and fulfilled.

3. Albert Schweitzer on the key to happiness

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”
Albert Schweizer

It’s of the greatest importance to really love what you are doing. It will help you to go the extra mile wherever necessary and allows you to peak performance. If you really love what you’re doing, you will not only be happy but also successful.

4. Jackson Brown, Jr. on the happiest people

“Remember that the happiest people are not those getting more, but those giving more.”
H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

The first essential step to happiness is to want less. This greatly helps you to feel more content with what you have and allows you to avoid frustration over not getting all your material wishes fulfilled. The second step lies in realizing that a great part of happiness lies in giving unconditionally. In fact, helping others will even further increase your happiness.

5. Stacy Charter on relying on others

“Don’t rely on someone else for your happiness and self-worth. Only you can be responsible for that. If you can’t love and respect yourself – no one else will be able to make that happen. Accept who you are – completely; the good and the bad – and make changes as you see fit – not because you think someone else wants you to be different.”
Stacey Charter

No one else is responsible for your happiness. No one else can significantly increase your long-term happiness if you don’t want to. This may sound harsh at first, but it allows you to take responsibility when it comes to living a happy life.

6. Epicurus on riches, happiness, and desires

“If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.”
Epicurus

As already addressed, desires can be a major source of frustration. This is especially the case when many of our boundless desires are not fulfilled. Therefore, happiness does not depend on riches. It depends on our ability to make the best of what we have and to reduce the number of desires we have.

7. Frederick Keonig on appreciating what you have

“We 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 Keonig

Cultivating gratitude for what you have is a major milestone to happiness. It will help you to realize how beautiful your life already is, which greatly increases your happiness.

8. Guillaume Apollinaire on pursuing happiness

“Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.”
Guillaume Apollinaire

Millions of people make great sacrifices each day in order to pursue happiness. In their case, happiness lies far in the future and can only be felt once certain material wishes have been fulfilled. This approach, however, greatly deprives the present moment of its joy and happiness.

9. Helen Keller on closing doors

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.”
Helen Keller

It cannot be avoided that certain doors close and never open again. However, wasting your time in front of these doors, complaining about the fact that they have shut won’t lead you anywhere. All it does is prevent you from seeing new opportunities that are introduced to your life.

10. Benjamin Disraeli on happiness and action

“Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.”
Benjamin Disraeli

Not all your actions will manifest happiness in your life. But if you don’t actively do something about your happiness, it is unlikely that positive change can be affected.

11. Leo Buscaglia on the secret of happiness

“What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.”
Leo Buscaglia

Indeed.

12. Marcel Pagnol on the difficulty of being happy

“The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.”
Marcel Pagnol

It is quite important to understand that we have a natural tendency to overestimate the importance of the past. Doing so will make the present look far worse than it actually is and the future even less attractive. Instead of clinging on to the past, try to make the best of the present moment.

13. Leon Kass on being content

“If you have easy self-contentment, you might have a very, very cheap source of happiness.”
Leon Kass

True happiness does not stem from acquiring ever more. Instead, it is a result of being content with what you already have.

14. Dale Carnegie on the way you think

“It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.”
Dale Carnegie

The way you think has a great impact on your happiness. There are always two ways of thinking about things that happen to you in life. One is to consider everything negative that happens as a great punishment. The other way is to consider struggles and difficulties as important challenges that help you to grow as a person and to become stronger.

15. Sydney J. Harris on what happiness is

“Happiness is a direction, not a place.”
Sydney J. Harris

Many people seek to arrive at the destination called happiness. What they don’t realize is that happiness is not a destination, it’s a journey. So enjoy the journey and try to derive their happiness from traveling on this path.

16. Buddha on learning to let go

“Learn to let go. That is the key to happiness.”
Buddha

Being not attached to the things you cannot influence is an important ability when it comes to learning to increase happiness.

17. Lupe Fiasco on measuring success

“That should be the measure of success for everyone. It’s not money, it’s not fame, it’s not celebrity; my index of success is happiness.”
Lupe Fiasco

Money, fame, and power do not necessarily make people happy. So in order to measure a person’s success, their individual happiness should definitely be considered. There are many people who have little to nothing but are able to live a happy and grateful life. Yet at the same time, there are many who have great levels of wealth but are not able to derive happiness from it.

18. Henry Beecher on being happy

“The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.”
Henry Ward Beecher

In most cases, we falsely assume that only the big things in life can make us truly happy. But once we are able to find happiness in the little things, we are finally learning to master the art of happiness.

19. Epictetus on worrying too much

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

Not everything that bothers you can be changed. For this reason, it is of the greatest importance to learn to think differently about these things. You shouldn’t allow the things you cannot change to reduce your happiness. Instead, try to let go of that which is beyond your control.

20. Elizabeth Phelps on cultivating happiness

“Happiness must be cultivated. It is like character. It is not a thing to be safely let alone for a moment, or it will run to weeds.”
Elizabeth Stuart Phelps

Happiness is like a muscle: if it isn’t exercised, it will atrophy.

21. Charles Spurgeon on enjoying happiness

“It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.”
Charles Spurgeon

Many of us falsely assume that only by acquiring material wealth we will ever be happy. This, however, is not necessarily true as many examples of dysfunctional and depressed celebrities show. Instead of making your happiness dependent on material possessions, try to be happy right in this moment.

22. George Sand on the only happiness that matters

“There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.”
George Sand

This is another remarkable quote about happiness and it is so true.

23. Leo Tolstoy on being happy

“If you want to be happy, be.”
Leo Tolstoy

Happiness most definitely is a choice. If you don’t decide to be happy despite the circumstances of your life, what happens in life will always impact your happiness negatively.

24. Arnold Bennett on being satisfied

“Happiness includes chiefly the idea of satisfaction after full honest effort. No one can possibly be satisfied and no one can be happy who feels that in some paramount affairs he failed to take up the challenge of life.”
Arnold Bennett

Of all the quotes about happiness, this one is particularly remarkable.

25. L.M. Montgomery on enjoying what happens in life

“It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.”
L.M. Montgomery

Being happy is not so much about what happens to you in life. It is all about finding ways to be happy despite what happens.

26. Martha Washington on her determination

“I am determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may find myself. For I have learned that the greater part of our misery or unhappiness is determined not by our circumstance but by our disposition.”
Martha Washington

27. Richard Bach on happiness that is dependent

“If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, I guess you do have a problem.”
Richard Bach

28. Mahatma Gandhi on harmony and happiness

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

29. William Feather on finding happiness

“Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it.”
William Feather

30. Groucho Marx on the power to be happy

“I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.”
Groucho Marx

31. Dalai Lama on taking action

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

32. Zhuangzi on striving for happiness

“Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.”
Zhuangzi

33. Thomas Jefferson on what makes you happy

“It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.”
Thomas Jefferson

34. Dalai Lama on the pursuit of happiness

“We begin from the recognition that all beings cherish happiness and do not want suffering. It then becomes both morally wrong and pragmatically unwise to pursue only one’s own happiness oblivious to the feelings and aspirations of all others who surround us as members of the same human family. The wiser course is to think of others when pursuing our own happiness.”
Dalai Lama

35. Linus Pauling on the sources of happiness

“Satisfaction of one’s curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life.”
Linus Pauling

36. Denis Waitley on acquiring happiness

“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.”
Denis Waitley

37. Antoine de Saint-Exupery on true happiness

“True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

38. Mary Lou Retton on optimism

“Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you.”
Mary Lou Retton

39. Bertolt Brecht on chasing happiness

“Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is right at their heels.”
Bertolt Brecht

40. William E. Gladstone on hunting for happiness

“Be happy with what you have and are, be generous with both, and you won’t have to hunt for happiness.”
William E. Gladstone

41. Saul Bellow on finding happiness

“Happiness can only be found if you can free yourself of all other distractions.”
Saul Bellow

42. Nathaniel Hawthorne on trying to pursue happiness

“Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it.”
Nathaniel Hawthorne

43. Eleanor Roosevelt on the creation of happiness

“Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

44. Dalai Lama on making others happy

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
Dalai Lama

45. Pierre Corneille on sharing happiness

“Happiness seems made to be shared.”
Pierre Corneille

46. John Barrymore on unexpected happiness

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

47. Robert Green Ingersoll on the best time to be happy

“Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so.”
Robert Green Ingersoll

48. Aristotle on taking responsibility for happiness

“Happiness depends upon ourselves.”
Aristotle

49. Hermann Hesse on enjoying the moment

“To be able to throw one’s self away for the sake of a moment, to be able to sacrifice years for a woman’s smile – that is happiness.”
Hermann Hesse

50. Mark Twain on the courage to live

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Mark Twain

51. Ovid on those who are truly happy

“Happy is the man who has broken the chains which hurt the mind, and has given up worrying once and for all.”
Ovid

52. Eleanor Roosevelt on giving to others

“Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

53. Dennis Prager on happiness and self-discipline

“Happiness is dependent on self-discipline. We are the biggest obstacles to our own happiness. It is much easier to do battle with society and with others than to fight our own nature.”
Dennis Prager

54. Zhuangzi on the joy of nature

“I know the joy of fishes in the river through my own joy, as I go walking along the same river.”
Zhuangzi

55. Tom Bodett on being truly happy

“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.”
Tom Bodett

56. Ayn Rand on what happiness really is

“Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values.”
Ayn Rand

57. Abraham Lincoln on allowing yourself to be happy

“Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
Abraham Lincoln

58. Oscar Wilde on the people that cause happiness

“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.”
Oscar Wilde

59. J.D. Salinger on being paranoid

“I am a kind of paranoid in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.”
J.D. Salinger

60. Marcus Aurelius on the way you think

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”
Marcus Aurelius

61. Robert Baden-Powell on what is worthwhile

“The most worth-while thing is to try to put happiness into the lives of others.”
Robert Baden-Powell

62. Ayn Rand on accomplishing happiness

“Achievement of your happiness is the only moral purpose of your life, and that happiness, not pain or mindless self-indulgence, is the proof of your moral integrity, since it is the proof and the result of your loyalty to the achievement of your values.”
Ayn Rand

63. Helen Keller on being content

“Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.”
Helen Keller

64. Maurice Chevalier on the perfect moment

“If you wait for the perfect moment when all is safe and assured, it may never arrive. Mountains will not be climbed, races won, or lasting happiness achieved.”
Maurice Chevalier

65. Fyodor Dostoevsky on achieving happiness

“Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky

66. John Burroughs on the secret of happiness

“The secret of happiness is something to do.”
John Burroughs

67. Marquis de Sade on ideal happiness

“Happiness is ideal, it is the work of the imagination.”
Marquis de Sade

68. Bernard Meltzer on enjoying happiness

“Happiness is like a kiss. You must share it to enjoy it.”
Bernard Meltzer

69. George Orwell on the existence of happiness

“Happiness can exist only in acceptance.”
George Orwell

70. Antoine de Saint-Exupery on finding joy

“It is in the compelling zest of high adventure and of victory, and in creative action, that man finds his supreme joys.”
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

71. Andy Rooney on climbing to the top

“Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.”
Andy Rooney

72. Denis Diderot on the passion for happiness

“There is only one passion, the passion for happiness.”
Denis Diderot

73. Thomas Merton on the beginning of happiness

“When ambition ends, happiness begins.”
Thomas Merton

74. Bertrand Russell on not having everything

“To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”
Bertrand Russell

75. Ashley Montagu on moments of happiness

“The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us.”
Ashley Montagu

76. Benjamin Franklin on the pursuit of happiness

“The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”
Benjamin Franklin

77. David Brainerd on hoping for happiness

“If you hope for happiness in the world, hope for it from God, and not from the world.”
David Brainerd

78. Richard Bach on precious gifts

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

79. Ernest Hemingway on happiness and intelligence

“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”
Ernest Hemingway

80. Robert Frost on the height of happiness

“Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.”
Robert Frost

81. Bertrand Russell on living a happy life

“A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live.”
Bertrand Russell

82. Albert Camus on happiness and harmony

“But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?”
Albert Camus

83. Helen Keller on true happiness

“True happiness… is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.”
Helen Keller

84. Jose Marti on generosity

“Happiness exists on earth, and it is won through prudent exercise of reason, knowledge of the harmony of the universe, and constant practice of generosity.”
Jose Marti

85. James Oppenheim on being grateful

“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.”
James Oppenheim

86. Mother Teresa on joy

“Joy is prayer; joy is strength: joy is love; joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls.”
Mother Teresa

87. Lydia M. Child on making others happy

“An effort made for the happiness of others lifts above ourselves.”
Lydia M. Child

88. Epictetus on worrying too much

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

89. Henry Drummond on happiness

“Happiness… consists in giving, and in serving others.”
Henry Drummond

90. Rabindranath Tagore on sleeping and dreaming

“I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.”
Rabindranath Tagore

91. Thomas Merton on balance

“Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.”
Thomas Merton

92. Omar Khayyam on being happy right now

“Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.”
Omar Khayyam

93. Bil Keane on hugs

“A hug is like a boomerang – you get it back right away.”
Bil Keane

94. Hosea Ballou on real happiness

“Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.”
Hosea Ballou

95. Seneca on true happiness

“True happiness is… to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.”
Seneca

96. Leo Rosten on pushing things to the limit

“Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable.”
Leo Rosten

97. Plutarch on speaking about happiness

“Do not speak of your happiness to one less fortunate than yourself.”
Plutarch

98. Albert Einstein on simple pleasures

“A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?”
Albert Einstein

99. Maxim Gorky on letting go

“Happiness 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 Gorky

100. Lawrence G. Lovasik on making others happy

“Try to make at least one person happy every day. If you cannot do a kind deed, speak a kind word. If you cannot speak a kind word, think a kind thought. Count up, if you can, the treasure of happiness that you would dispense in a week, in a year, in a lifetime!”
Lawrence G. Lovasik

101. Blaise Pascal on happiness within

“Happiness is neither without us nor within us. It is in God, both without us and within us.”
Blaise Pascal

102. Nicolas Chamfort on wasted days

“The most wasted of all days is one without laughter.”
Nicolas Chamfort

103. Carl Sandburg on the secret of happiness

“The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.”
Carl Sandburg

104. Bette Davis on losing happiness

“A sure way to lose happiness, I found, is to want it at the expense of everything else.”
Bette Davis

105. Ben Jonson on true happiness

“True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in the worth and choice.”
Ben Jonson

106. Nicholas Sparks on rolling back the clock

“There are moments when I wish I could roll back the clock and take all the sadness away, but I have the feeling that if I did, the joy would be gone as well.”
Nicholas Sparks

107. Richard Bach on enjoying each moment

“The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it.”
Richard Bach

108. Rollo May on joy

“Joy, rather than happiness, is the goal of life, for joy is the emotion which accompanies our fulfilling our natures as human beings. It is based on the experience of one’s identity as a being of worth and dignity.”
Rollo May

109. Immanuel Kant on becoming happy

“It is not God’s will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy.”
Immanuel Kant

110. Malcolm Forbes on being who you are

“When what we are is what we want to be, that’s happiness.”
Malcolm Forbes

111. Thomas Jefferson on the greatest happiness

“Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits.”
Thomas Jefferson

I hope you enjoyed these quotes about happiness.

Stay victorious!

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How important is happiness?

Many philosophers, both ancient and modern, have implied that happiness is the very reason we are alive.

Moreover, in a philosophical sense, being happy is the main reason people are able to achieve their goals and make a difference in others’ lives.

When we are happy, we are the better versions of ourselves. Happiness enhances our creativity, boosts our mental and physical health, raises our energy levels, and broadens our compassion.

In numerous scientific studies, it has been proven that being unhappy has fatal consequences. It’s been shown that unhappiness is the leading cause of mental and physical illnesses and even death.

Take happiness away, and the world gets dour, mean, sickly, and angry people whose negativity suck any happiness whenever they’re around. And this kind of negativity can be contagious.

But how can one achieve happiness? The following are the basic steps:

Tip: You can repeat points 2 and 3 multiple times until you’ve developed good habits in all areas of your life.

The Secret of Happiness

This is a question people often ask. “What is the secret to happiness?”

The first key to the secret is what happiness isn’t.

Happiness isn’t about what you own, it is rather a state of being. Being positive about life makes you happier. Being negative brings you down. We need to stop taking things for granted, stop complaining, and take control of our lives and our emotions.

The secret of happiness? Only you have the power to make yourself happy.

No one else can do it for you. Not everything in our lives will go exactly as we plan. When we start to focus on the outcomes of our setbacks, it can lead us to become miserable, rather than happy.

The key to happiness is within us.

Today, we’ve selected 81 profound happiness quotes to help you find joy in your life. It is our hope that these words from the wise will inspire you to believe that it is within you to manifest happiness.

In this post, we feature short happy quotes, happy and inspiring quotes, quotes about happiness and love, and funny happiness quotes.

First, let’s dive into short happy quotes. The authors of these quotes define what happiness truly means in ten words or less. We hope they will inspire you to see the joy in your own life.

Short Happy Quotes

1. “Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”– Marthe Troly-Curtin
2. ​“There is more to life than increasing its speed.”– Mahatma Gandhi
3. “Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.”– Eleanor Roosevelt
4. “There is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

1. “Happiness? That’s nothing more than health and a poor memory.”– Albert Schweitzer
2. ​“Enjoy the little things.”– Unknown
3. “Happiness is a warm puppy.”– Charles M. Schulz

Happiness is a warm puppy.”– Charles M. Schulz

1. “Happiness held is the seed. Happiness shared is the flower.”– John Harrigan
2. “Do small things with great love.”– Mother Theresa
3. “Happiness can exist only in acceptance.”– George Orwell
4. “True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.”– Antoine de Saint-Exupery
5. ​“A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit, and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?”– Albert Einstein
6. ​“When ambition ends, happiness begins.”– Thomas Merton
7. “Happiness depends upon ourselves.”– Aristotle
8. “Whoever is happy will make others happy.”– Anne Frank

Whoever is happy will make others happy.”– Anne Frank

1. “If you want to be happy, be.”– Leo Tolstoy
2. “Be happy. It’s one way of being wise.”– Colette
3. “Happiness ain’t a thing in itself – it’s only a contrast with something that ain’t pleasant.”– Mark Twain

Many people attend workshops, seminars, or classes on how to be happy, searching for the specific formula for happiness.

Moreover, there are others who think that happiness will automatically follow only after they’ve achieved their goals and dreams.

These things are all fruitless quests. There are no specific formulas for achieving happiness. Happiness is not a set point on the map that you can locate through GPS.

You can choose to be happy now, regardless of your current circumstance.

The following happy inspirational quotes remind all of us about where true happiness can be found.

Happy Inspirational Quotes

1. “Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim, and end of human existence.”– Aristotle
2. “Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”– Abraham Lincoln
3. “Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.” – Guillaume Apollinaire

1. “The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it.”– Richard Bach
2. “Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond to it.”– Lou Holtz
3. ​“Happiness isn’t what you find at the end of the road. It’s right here. Right now.”– Unknown
4. “True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self.”– Joseph Addison
5. “Happiness, not in another place but this place… not for another hour, but this hour.”– Walt Whitman

Happiness, not in another place but this place… not for another hour, but this hour.”– Walt Whitman

1. “When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.”– Helen Keller
2. ​“You do not find the happy life. You make it.”– Camilla E. Kimball
3. ​“Happiness isn’t what you find at the end of the road. It’s right here. Right now.”– Unknown
4. “Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.”– John Lennon
5. ​“For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”– Ralph Waldo Emerson
6. ​“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”– Mahatma Gandhi
7. ​“Doing what you like is freedom. Liking what you do is happiness.”– Frank Tyger
8. “If you want to be happy, do not dwell in the past, do not worry about the future, focus on living fully in the present.”– Roy T. Bennett

If you want to be happy, do not dwell in the past, do not worry about the future, focus on living fully in the present.”– Roy T. Bennett

1. “The quality of your life is the quality of your relationships.” – Tony Robbins
2. ​“Happiness can be found even in the darkest time if one only remembers to turn on the light.”– Albus Dumbledore
3. “Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.”– Joseph Addison
4. ​“The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”– Benjamin Franklin
5. ​“The most important thing is to enjoy your life — to be happy — it’s all that matters.”– Audrey Hepburn
6. ​“It is the very mark of the spirit of rebellion to crave for happiness in this life.”– Henrik Ibsen
7. ​“If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.”– Andrew Carnegie
8. “If you only have one smile in you, give it to the people you love.”– Maya Angelou
9. “Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”– Marcel Proust

Remember the giddy feeling that comes when you are in love? It’s such a heady feeling that we all equate with being happy.

However, it is not only romantic love that activates our sense of happiness. We experience joy when we are involved with something that we are passionate about.

Self-love is another path that can reveal true happiness. Through it, we acknowledge that we are worthy of being loved and cared for as much as we do these for others.

1. ​“You, of all people, deserve a happy ending.”– Sylvain Reynard
2. ​“The happiness you feel is in direct proportion with the love you give.”– Oprah Winfrey
3. ​“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.”– Bertrand Russell
4. “There is only one happiness in this life — to love and be loved.” – George Sand

1. “Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world.”– Orhan Pamuk
2. “The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved, loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.”– Victor Hugo
3. “You know it’s love when all you want is that person to be happy, even if you’re not part of their happiness.”– Julia Roberts
4. “The only thing we never get enough of is love, and the only thing we never give enough of is love.”– Henry Miller
5. “Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”– Robert A. Heinlein

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”– Robert A. Heinlein

1. ​“Love many things, for therein lies the true strength, and whosoever loves much performs much and can accomplish much, and what is done in love is done well.”– Vincent Van Gogh
2. “We are most alive when we’re in love.”– John Updike
3. “One word frees us of all the weight and pain of life: That word is love.”– Sophocles
4. ​“All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn’t hurt.”– Charles M. Schulz

How is your happiness level today?

Even if we aim for daily happiness, there are moments that get us down.

The funny happiness quotes below aim to cheer you up. These humorous takes on life help ease the burden we carry by reminding us that the bleak times are only temporary, and we’ll be seeing the sun again.

Funny Happiness Quotes

1. “Be happy. It drives people crazy.”– Unknown
2. “Money does not make you happy. I now have $50 million, but I was just as happy when I had $48 million.”– Arnold Schwarzenegger
3. ​“Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”– George Burns
4. ​“I’m happy. Which often looks crazy.”– David Henry Hwang
5. ​“One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.”– Rita Mae Brown
6. ​“All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast.”– John Gunther
7. “No matter where life takes me, you’ll find me with a smile — presumed to be happy, always laughing like a child. I never thought life could be this sweet! It’s got me cheesing from cheek to cheek!”– Mac Miller
8. “It’s pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed.”– Kin Hubbard

It’s pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed.”– Kin Hubbard

1. ​“Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.”– Hosea Ballou
2. “If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, I guess you do have a problem.”– Richard Bach
3. “Those who can laugh without cause have either found the true meaning of happiness or have gone stark raving mad.”– Norm Papernick
4. “If 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 Billings
5. “I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.”– J. D. Salinger
6. “Some cause happiness wherever they go, others whenever they go.” – Oscar Wilde

1. ​“If only we’d stop trying to be happy, we could have a pretty good time.”– Edith Wharton
2. ​“It’s fun to have fun, but you have to know how.”– Dr. Seuss
3. “When someone told me I lived in a fantasy land, I nearly fell off my unicorn.”– Unknown
4. ​“Be happy. It really annoys negative people.”– Ricky Gervais
5. ​“I’d rather be happy than right any day.”– Douglas Adams
6. “Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive.”– Joanne Harris

Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive.”– Joanne Harris

1. “Be a Fruitloop in a world of Cheerios.”– Unknown
2. “Happiness was but the occasional episode in a general drama of pain.”– Thomas Hardy
3. “Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.”– Mark Twain
4. “Don’t worry. Be happy.” – Bobby McFerrin
5. “I have chosen to be happy because it’s good for my health.” – Voltaire

Final Thoughts on Happiness Quotes

Did any of the quotes above resonate with you? We’d love to hear your thoughts and stories about your own adventure in living a happy life. Please share your experiences in the comments below.

Also, if you loved any of the artworks featured in this post, we appreciate your sharing it through your favorite social media.

When we’re happy, the whole world benefits.

You can be happy now. Believe that it is a state you can achieve.

To help you get started on the path to true happiness, check out this post for a definitive list of awesome, positive habits to apply in your daily life.

In addition, you can head over to this post to check out more than a thousand affirmations to help you beat negative thinking for good.

And if you want more inspirational quotes, be sure to check out these blog posts:

• 81 Buddha Quotes on Happiness, Life, Love, Death, and Change
• 63 Inspirational Quotes About Life and Happiness [New for 2023!]
• Deepak Chopra Quotes on Gratitude, Mindfulness, Life, Change, Healing and Happiness

Finally, if you want to use these quotes to make a lasting change to your life, then watch this free video that details the 7-minute habit for planning your day to focus on what’s truly important to you..

The written word is truly an amazing thing.

With the help of it we can record out innermost thoughts and spread them if we like.

With the help of the written word we can look far, far back into time, through the decades, the centuries and, yes, even the millennias.

This Monday I’d like to look back into the past for some motivation and to see what the wise people who have walked on this earth can tell us about happiness and how to uncover it.

No matter if you live today or lived two thousand years ago.

This is 185 of the most inspiring, touching and helpful thoughts from the past on happiness.

[Note: the original version of this post contained 101 quotes but it has now been updated with 84 additional quotes on happiness.]

Inspiring Happiness Quotes

“Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.”
Buddha

“Happiness is the art of never holding in your mind the memory of any unpleasant thing that has passed.”
Unknown

“To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.”
Albert Camus

“If you want happiness for an hour — take a nap.’
If you want happiness for a day — go fishing.
If you want happiness for a year — inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime — help someone else.”
Chinese Proverb

“The moments of happiness we enjoy take us by surprise. It is not that we seize them, but that they seize us.”
Ashley Montagu

“Don’t rely on someone else for your happiness and self-worth. Only you can be responsible for that. If you can’t love and respect yourself – no one else will be able to make that happen. Accept who you are – completely; the good and the bad – and make changes as YOU see fit – not because you think someone else wants you to be different.”
Stacey Charter

“It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.”
Dale Carnegie

“It’s a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.”
Lucille Ball

“Don’t underestimate the value of Doing Nothing, of just going along, listening to all the things you can’t hear, and not bothering.”
Winnie the Pooh

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

“We 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 Keonig

“Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”
Thich Nhat Hanh

“Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.”
Eskimo Proverb

“To be kind to all, to like many and love a few, to be needed and wanted by those we love, is certainly the nearest we can come to happiness.”
Mary Stuart

“There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality.”
Seneca

“Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.”
Robert A. Heinlein

“Happy people plan actions, they don’t plan results.”
Dennis Waitley

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

“The only joy in the world is to begin.”
Cesare Pavese

“Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.”
Oscar Wilde

“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”
Marthe Troly-Curtin

“Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon”
Winnie the Pooh

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.”
Herman Cain

“What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.”
Confucius

“There is only one cause of unhappiness: the false beliefs you have in your head, beliefs so widespread, so commonly held, that it never occurs to you to question them.”
Anthony de Mello

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

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.”
Helen Keller

“Happiness depends upon ourselves.”
Aristotle

“It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.”
Seneca

“The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.”
Marcel Pagnol

“If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world.”
Joseph Addison

“Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt

“The pleasure which we most rarely experience gives us greatest delight.”
Epictetus

“It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.”
L.M. Montgomery

“Happiness is acceptance.”
Unknown

“The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.”
James M. Barrie

“We begin from the recognition that all beings cherish happiness and do not want suffering. It then becomes both morally wrong and pragmatically unwise to pursue only one’s own happiness oblivious to the feelings and aspirations of all others who surround us as members of the same human family. The wiser course is to think of others when pursuing our own happiness.”
Dalai Lama

“Most people would rather be certain they’re miserable, than risk being happy.”
Dr. Robert Anthony

“The unhappy derive comfort from the misfortunes of others.”
Aesop

“For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.”
Seneca

“A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?”
Albert Einstein

“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.”
Bertrand Russell

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity and an understanding of life that fills them with compassions, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.”
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross

“Happiness is a myth we seek,
If manifested surely irks;
Like river speeding to the plain,
On its arrival slows and murks.
For man is happy only in
His aspiration to the heights;
When he attains his goal, he cools
And longs for other distant flights.”
Kahlil Gibran

“Happiness is a state of activity.”
Aristotle

“Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.”
Confucius

“The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.”
Arthur Schopenhauer

“Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other – it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.”
Charles Caleb Colton

“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

“Happy he who learns to bear what he cannot change.”
Friedrich Schiller

“When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.”
Winston Churchill

“Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.”
Andy Rooney

“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.”
James Oppenheim

“I’d far rather be happy than right any day.”
Douglas Adams

“Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.”
Benjamin Disraeli

“Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.”
Albert Schweitzer

“Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.”
Heraclitus

“Happiness is a how; not a what. A talent, not an object.”
Herman Hesse

“The greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.”
Martha Washington

“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”
Aesop

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“Happiness is something that comes into our lives through doors we don’t even remember leaving open.”
Rose Lane

“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.”
Albert Ellis

“I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.”
Groucho Marx

“Just because it didn’t last forever, doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth your while.”
Unknown

“Your work is discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.”
Buddha

“That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.”
Henry David Thoreau

“Happiness 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 Gorky

“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.”
Leo Tolstoy

“It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald

“If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.”
Epicurus

“Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it.”
William Feather

“Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic.”
John Henry Jowett

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

“And remember, no matter where you go, there you are.”
Confucius

“If you are too busy to laugh, you are too busy.”
Proverb

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature…. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
Helen Keller

“For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don’t enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are you’re not going to be very happy. If someone bases his/her happiness on major events like a great job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn’t going to be happy much of the time.
If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.”
Andy Rooney

“Learn to let go. That is the key to happiness.”
Buddha

“The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.”
Andre Maurois

“The grass is always greener where you water it.”
Unknown

“Enjoy your own life without comparing it with that of another.”
Marquis de Condorcet

“On a deeper level you are already complete. When you realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do.”
Eckhart Tolle

“The happiest people in the world are those who feel absolutely terrific about themselves, and this is the natural outgrowth of accepting total responsibility for every part of their life.”
Brian Tracy

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
Marcel Proust

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
George Bernard Shaw

“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow. It only saps today of its joy.”
Leo Buscaglia

“A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life.”
William Arthur Ward

“Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you.”
Mary Lou Retton

“I believe compassion to be one of the few things we can practice that will bring immediate and long-term happiness to our lives.”
Dalai Lama

“Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”
Joseph Campbell

“Happiness consists of living each day as if it were the first day of your honeymoon and the last day of your vacation.”
Leo Tolstoy

“Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
Abraham Lincoln

“Being happy doesn’t mean everything is perfect. It means you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.”
Unknown

“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see in truth that you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
Kahlil Gibran

“If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you’ll never enjoy the sunshine.”
Morris West

“Life will bring you pain all by itself. Your responsibility is to create joy.”
Milton Erickson

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.”
Mark Twain

Wise Quotes About Happiness

“There’s nothing like deep breaths after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore stomach for the right reasons.”
Stephen Chbosky

“Don’t waste your time in anger, regrets, worries, and grudges. Life is too short to be unhappy.”
Roy T. Bennett

“Happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom to a man in the course of his life.”
Benjamin Franklin

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

“Children are happy because they don’t have a file in their minds called “All the Things That Could Go Wrong.”
Marianne Williamson

“Generally speaking, the most miserable people I know are those who are obsessed with themselves; the happiest people I know are those who lose themselves in the service of others…By and large, I have come to see that if we complain about life, it is because we are thinking only of ourselves.”
Gordon B. Hinckley

“A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness.”
Albert Einstein

“There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living.”
Nelson Mandela

“There are two ways to get enough. One is to continue to accumulate more and more. The other is to desire less.”
G.K. Chesterton

“Others may know pleasure, but pleasure is not happiness. It has no more importance than a shadow following a man.”
Muhammad Ali

“Tension is who you think you should be, relaxation is who you are.”
Chinese proverb

“The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.”
M. Scott Peck

“So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?”
Hunter S. Thompson

“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: Someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.”
Tom Bodett

“Do not set aside your happiness. Do not wait to be happy in the future. The best time to be happy is always now.”
Roy T. Bennett

“Happiness is not doing fun things. Happiness is doing meaningful things.”
Maxime Lagacé

“Letting go gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything – anger, anxiety, or possessions – we cannot be free.”
Thich Nhat Hanh

“I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.”
Nikos Kazantzakis

“Happiness does not lead to gratitude. Gratitude leads to happiness.”
David Steindl-Rast

“It’s the moments that I stopped just to be, rather than do, that have given me true happiness.”
Richard Branson

“Every day is a new day, and you’ll never be able to find happiness if you don’t move on.”
Carrie Underwood

“I don’t want to get to the end of my life and find that I lived just the length of it. I want to have lived the width of it as well.”
Diane Ackerman

“The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.”
George Washington Burnap

“True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.”
Helen Keller

“If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.”
Andrew Carnegie

“If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams and you will always look lovely.”
Roald Dahl

“You cannot prevent the birds of sadness from passing over your head, but you can prevent their making a nest in your hair.”
Chinese proverb

“In our lives, change is unavoidable, loss is unavoidable. In the adaptability and ease with which we experience change, lies our happiness and freedom.”
Buddha

“There is great happiness in not wanting, in not being something, in not going somewhere.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti

“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.”
Seneca

Short Happiness Quotes

“Happiness is a warm puppy.”
Charles M. Schulz

“Happiness is not a goal…it’s a by-product of a life well-lived.”
Eleanor Roosevelt

“The mere sense of living is joy enough.”
Emily Dickinson

“Happiness is a state of mind. It’s just according to the way you look at things.”
Walt Disney

“Simplicity makes me happy.”
Alicia Keys

“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Roll with the punches and enjoy every minute of it.”
Meghan Markle

“Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out of it alive.”
Elbert Hubbard

“Happiness is the secret to all beauty. There is no beauty without happiness.”
Christian Dior

“All happiness depends on courage and work.”
Honoré de Balzac

“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”
Ernest Hemingway

“Your problem is you’re… too busy holding onto your unworthiness.”
Ram Dass

“Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.”
Guillaume Apollinaire

“You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”
Jonathan Safran Foer

“The power of finding beauty in the humblest things makes home happy and life lovely.”
Louisa May Alcott

“That’s your unlimited desires that are clouding your peace, your happiness.”
Naval Ravikant

“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.”
Anaïs Nin

“The constant happiness is curiosity.”
Alice Munro

“The only thing that will make you happy is being happy with who you are.”
Goldie Hawn

“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.”
Anne Frank

“Independence is happiness.”
Susan B. Anthony

“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”
Dr. Seuss

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
Marcus Aurelius

“One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.”
Rita Mae Brown

“Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond to it.”
Lou Holtz

“Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn’t calculate his happiness.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky

“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist.”
Oscar Wilde

“We become what we think about.”
Earl Nightingale

“Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get”
W. P. Kinsella

“Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.”
Charles Dickens

“Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.”
Benjamin Franklin

“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.”
Mark Twain

“Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.”
Robert Frost

“There is more to life than increasing its speed.”
Mahatma Gandhi

“Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.”
Ayn Rand

“If you want to be happy, be.”
Leo Tolstoy

“The truly wise and happy are never rushed.”
Maxime Lagacé

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

“Happiness [is] only real when shared”
Jon Krakauer

“Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.”
Omar Khayyam

Funny Happiness Quotes

“I heard a definition once: Happiness is health and a short memory! I wish I’d invented it, because it is very true.”
Audrey Hepburn

“Be happy. It really annoys negative people.”
Ricky Gervais

“This planet has – or rather had – a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn’t the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.”
Douglas Adams

“Trouble knocked at the door, but, hearing laughter, hurried away.”
Benjamin Franklin

“Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.”
Stephen Hawking

“A failure is like fertilizer; it stinks to be sure, but it makes things grow faster in the future.”
Denis Waitley

“Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.”
Dale Carnegie

“To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.”
Gustave Flaubert

“Before you marry a person, you should first make them use a computer with slow Internet to see who they really are.”
Will Ferrell

“Every time you feel yourself being pulled into other people’s drama, repeat these word: Not my circus, not my monkeys.”
Polish Proverb

“I may be a living legend, but that sure don’t help when I’ve got to change a flat tire.”
Roy Orbison

“Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save.”
Will Rogers

“Laughing at our mistakes can lengthen our own life. Laughing at someone else’s can shorten it.”
Cullen Hightower

“You know, some people say life is short and that you could get hit by a bus at any moment and that you have to live each day like it’s your last. Bullshit. Life is long. You’re probably not gonna get hit by a bus. And you’re gonna have to live with the choices you make for the next fifty years.”
Chris Rock

“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble, you wouldn’t sit for a month.”
Theodore Roosevelt

“Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”
George Burns

What is your favorite happy quote? I want to know all the top recommendations from you happy people out there, so let me know in the comments.