“I have discovered the secret of happiness - it is work, either with the hands or the head. The moment I have something to do, the draughts are open and my chimney draws, and I am happy.”
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.
“Fate often puts all the material for happiness and prosperity into a man's hands just to see how miserable he can make himself with them.”
“I have discovered the secret of happiness - it is work, either with the hands or the head. The moment I have something to do, the draughts are open and my chimney draws, and I am happy.”
“The slave may be happy, but happiness is not enough.”
“False happiness renders men stern and proud, and that happiness is never communicated. True happiness renders them kind and sensible, and that happiness is always shared.”
“There is no excellence without labor. One cannot dream oneself into either usefulness or happiness.”
“I admit I can't shake the idea that there is virtue in suffering, that there is a sort of psychic economy, whereby if you embrace success, happiness and comfort, these things have to be paid for.”
“Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.”
“Happiness is a wine of the rarest vintage, and seems insipid to a vulgar taste.”
“For happiness one needs security, but joy can spring like a flower even from the cliffs of despair.”
“True happiness involves the full use of one's power and talents.”
“An act of goodness is of itself an act of happiness. No reward coming after the event can compare with the sweet reward that went with it.”
“Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it.”
“Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.”
“There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.”
“A wise woman never yields by appointment. It should always be an unforeseen happiness.”
“I can't believe it's been four years now, and from watching that pilot, we really all looked like babies. It's unbelievable just how far everything has come. I'm happier now than I've ever been on the show and in my life. I really owe so much of my happiness to 'Glee.'”