“This happiness consisted of nothing else but the harmony of the few things around me with my own existence, a feeling of contentment and well-being that needed no changes and no intensification.”
Happiness is the thing everyone wants and nobody can quite pin down. These quotes explore joy, contentment, pleasure, and the surprising research that suggests happiness has less to do with circumstances than with how you respond to them.
“In theory there is a possibility of perfect happiness: To believe in the indestructible element within one, and not to strive towards it.”
“This happiness consisted of nothing else but the harmony of the few things around me with my own existence, a feeling of contentment and well-being that needed no changes and no intensification.”
“The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”
“One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.”
“I think people should know more of Africa in terms of its joie de vivre, its feeling for life. In spite of the images that one knows about Africa - the economic poverty, the corruption - there's a joy to living and a happiness in community, living together, in community life, which may be missing here in America.”
“Happiness is no respecter of persons.”
“Happiness, for you we walk on a knife edge. To the eyes you are a flickering light, to the feet, thin ice that cracks and so may no one touch you who loves you.”
“People will survive, and they will find happiness. Happiness only comes when you're not looking for it.”
“Happiness is a byproduct of function, purpose, and conflict those who seek happiness for itself seek victory without war.”
“Happiness is the only sanction of life where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.”
“Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.”
“Self-pity comes so naturally to all of us. The most solid happiness can be shaken by the compassion of a fool.”
“Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.”
“The Constitution guarantees us our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That's all. It doesn't guarantee our rights to charity.”
“Do not speak of your happiness to one less fortunate than yourself.”
“We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.”