“He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.”
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.
“One's work usually occupies more than half of one's waking life. Choosing work that does not bring happiness will lead to a life that is mostly disappointing.”
“He who has so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness by changing anything but his own disposition will waste his life in fruitless efforts.”
“Everything has its wonders, even darkness and silence, and I learn, whatever state I may be in, therein to be content.”
“The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment.”
“How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.”
“Happiness is mental harmony unhappiness is mental inharmony.”
“Always leave something to wish for otherwise you will be miserable from your very happiness.”
“I am about to be married, and am of course in all the misery of a man in pursuit of happiness.”
“Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable.”
“I always seem to have a vague feeling that he is a Satan among musicians, a fallen angel in the darkness who is perpetually seeking to fight his way back to happiness.”
“No man chooses evil because it is evil he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.”
“Unhappiness is something we are never taught about we are taught to expect happiness, but never a Plan B to use to use when the happiness doesn't arrive.”
“From their teenage years on, children are considerably more capable of causing parents unhappiness than bringing them happiness. That is one reason parents who rely on their children for happiness make both their children and themselves miserable.”
“The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions - the little, soon forgotten charities of a kiss or a smile, a kind look or heartfelt compliment.”
“The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.”
“I don't know the true meaning of happiness.”