“When we recall the past, we usually find that it is the simplest things - not the great occasions - that in retrospect give off the greatest glow of happiness.”
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.
“Remember that happiness is as contagious as gloom. It should be the first duty of those who are happy to let others know of their gladness.”
“When we recall the past, we usually find that it is the simplest things - not the great occasions - that in retrospect give off the greatest glow of happiness.”
“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.”
“Happiness is like a cloud, if you stare at it long enough, it evaporates.”
“Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them.”
“Happiness seems made to be shared.”
“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.”
“Off with you! You're a happy fellow, for you'll give happiness and joy to many other people. There is nothing better or greater than that!”
“No man is happy without a delusion of some kind. Delusions are as necessary to our happiness as realities.”
“It is now possible to quantify people's levels of happiness pretty accurately by asking them, by observation, and by measuring electrical activity in the brain, in degrees from terrible pain to sublime joy.”
“Every day is a new day, and you'll never be able to find happiness if you don't move on.”
“I think the key to happiness is allowing ourselves to not feel bad or guilty for feeling it, and letting it be contagious. And to not be dependent on other people to create your own happiness.”
“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.”
“When I was waiting tables, washing dishes, or mowing lawns for money, I never thought of myself as stuck in some station in life. I was on my own path, my own journey, an American journey where I could think for myself, decide for myself, define happiness for myself.”
“Genuine happiness comes from within, and often it comes in spontaneous feelings of joy.”
“To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”