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.
“There is no private house in which people can enjoy themselves so well as at a capital tavern... No, Sir there is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.”
“As long as I am given the opportunity to keep performing and keep exploring in whatever medium, I'll be happy. As long as I get to spend time with my family, I'll be happy. As long as I can write in some form, I'll be happy. It is the essential things like that I equate with happiness.”
“Life does not agree with philosophy: There is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable.”
“Happiness does not consist in self-love.”
“It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.”
“A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him.”
“Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open.”
“Be happy with what you have and are, be generous with both, and you won't have to hunt for happiness.”
“It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.”
“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!”
“People will survive, and they will find happiness. Happiness only comes when you're not looking for it.”
“Actions are right in proportion as they tend to promote happiness wrong as they tend to produce the reverse of happiness. By happiness is intended pleasure and the absence of pain.”
“Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.”
“You know the passage where Scarlett voices her happiness that her mother is dead, so that she can't see what a bad girl Scarlett has become? Well, that's me.”
“There is no austerity equal to a balanced mind, and there is no happiness equal to contentment there is no disease like covetousness, and no virtue like mercy.”
“Nothing brings me more happiness than trying to help the most vulnerable people in society. It is a goal and an essential part of my life - a kind of destiny. Whoever is in distress can call on me. I will come running wherever they are.”