Happiness

"The self is a simplification of the notion of soul, created to serve the purposes of the modern sciences of psychology and economics, both of which want you to be happy in a simple, straightforward way they can count."

"Three ounces are necessary, first of Patience, Then, of Repose & Peace; of Conscience A pound entire is needful; of Pastimes of all sorts, too, Should be gathered as much as the hand can hold; Of Pleasant Memory & of Hope three good drachms There must be at least. But they should moistened be With a liquor made from True Pleasures which rejoice the heart. Then of Love's Magic Drops, a few— But use them sparingly, for they may bring a flame Which naught but tears can drown, Grind the whole and mix therewith of Merriment, an ounce To even. Yet all this may not bring happiness Except in your Orisons you lift your voice To Him who holds the gift of health."

"Happiness exists on earth, and it is won through prudent exercise of reason, knowledge of the harmony of the universe, and constant practice of generosity."

"Tolerant people are the happiest, so why not get rid of prejudices that hold you back?"

"People often don't appreciate how complex happiness may be. They think happy people are shallow, which can be so wrong. It's actually far easier to be unhappy than it is to be happy. It requires more effort, more understanding, more character to be consistently happy."

"In every life we have some trouble, but when you worry? You make it double. Don't worry, be happy."

"Puritanism is the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy."

"Happiness is surely the best teacher of good manners: only the unhappy are churlish in deportment."

"The rich philistinism emanating from advertisements is due not to their exaggerating (or inventing) the glory of this or that serviceable article but to suggesting that the acme of human happiness is purchasable and that its purchase somehow ennobles the purchaser."

"What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome."

"For happiness, she also required work to do in this world and bread on the table."

"Life does not always meet our expectations, but that should not prevent us from seeking what happiness we can."

"They have a secret instinct which impels them to seek amusement and occupation abroad, and which arises from the sense of their constant unhappiness. They have another secret instinct, a remnant of the greatness of our original nature, which teaches them that happiness in reality consists only in rest and not in stir."

"I could tell you a long story (and you know it as well as I do) about what is to be gained by beating the enemy back. What I would prefer is that you should fix your eyes every day on the greatness of Athens as she realty is, and should fall in love with her. When you realize her greatness, then reflect that what made her great was men with a spirit of adventure, men who knew their duty, men who were ashamed to fall below a certain standard. If they ever failed in an enterprise, they made up their minds that at any rate the city should not find their courage lacking to her, and they gave to her the best contribution that they could. They gave her their lives, to her and to all of us, and for their own selves they won praises that never grow old, the most splendid of sepulchers — not the sepulchre in which their bodies are laid, but where their glory remains eternal in men's minds, always there on the right occasion to stir others to speech or to action. For famous men have the whole earth as their memorial: it is not only the inscriptions on their graves in their own country that mark them out; no, in foreign lands also, not in any visible form but in people's hearts, their memory abides and grows. It is for you to try to be like them. Make up your minds that happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous."

"Happiness is only real when shared."

"What need is there of long journeying on the land or voyaging on the seas to seek and search for virtue, whose roots have been set by their Maker ever so near us. ... By constant care they rear the virtues into stems rising up to heaven, saplings ever blooming and immortal, bearing and never ceasing to bear the fruits of happiness, or as some hold, not so much bearing as being in themselves that happiness."

"If they (children) smash, the flower vase assumes a smile while turning into pieces. For a chance to be spilled by their hands, anything they hold gets spilled itself full of happiness. For a chance to play with them, water forgets about its own colourlessness."

"Oh happiness! our being's end and aim! Good, Pleasure, Ease, Content! whate'er thy name; That something still which prompts th' eternal sigh, For which we bear to live, or dare to die."

"Fix'd to no spot is Happiness sincere; 'Tis nowhere to be found, or ev'rywhere; 'Tis never to be bought, but always free."

"Heaven to mankind impartial we confess, If all are equal in their happiness; But mutual wants this happiness increase, All nature's difference keeps all nature's peace."

"Happiness is a battle to be waged and not a feeling to be awaited."

"Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible."

"Perfect the Will, the Mind, Feeling, their corporeal organs and their material tools; be useful to yourselves, to your own ones, and to others; and Happiness, insofar as it exists on this earth, will come of itself.""

"If you want to be happy, be!"

"The nicest thing about being happy is that you think you'll never be unhappy again."

"Then, when they neglected that with which they had been admonished, We opened for them the gates of all (good) things. Until, in the midst of their enjoyment of Our gifts, on a sudden, We called them to account, when lo! they were plunged in despair! Of the wrong-doers the last remnant was cut off. Praise be to Allah, the Cherisher of the worlds."

"First of all, happiness has two aspects: one is the successful execution of a rational plan (the schedule of activities and aims) which a person strives to realize, the other is his state of mind, his sure confidence supported by good reasons that his success will endure. Being happy involves both a certain achievement in action and a rational assurance about the outcome."

"A pure mind is the source of happiness."

"There are only two roads that lead to something like human happiness. They are marked by the words: love and achievement…. In order to be happy oneself it is necessary to make at least one other person happy…. The secret of human happiness is not in self-seeking but in self-forgetting."

"The key to self-generated happiness (the only reliable kind) is the refusal to take oneself too seriously."

"Little is needed to make a wise man happy, but nothing can content a fool."

"To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness."

"The secret of happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible."

"The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy; I mean that if you are happy you will be good."

"Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment."

"The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness."

"Let us meditate on the love of God, who being supremely happy Himself, communicateth perfect happiness to us. Supreme happiness doth not make God forget us; shall the miserable comforts of this life make us forget Him?"

"Gentrification replaces most people's experiences with the perceptions of the privileged and calls that reality. In this way gentrification is dependant on telling us that things are better than they are—and this is supposed to make us feel happy. It's a strange concept of happiness as something that requires the denial of many other people's experiences. For some of us, on the other hand, the pusuit of reality is essential to happiness. Even if the process gets us in trouble."

"No man can live a happy life, or even a supportable life, without the study of wisdom."

"But, O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes!"

"Would I were with him, wheresome'er he is, either in heaven or in hell."

"How vainly seek The selfish for that happiness denied To aught but virtue!"

"An overflowing pot must be emptied before anything new can be added. If you cling to the sorrows of the past, how can you make space for the happiness and joy of the present?"

"Unlike joy, which is a momentary experience, localized in specific times and reasons, happiness perhaps has a more general meaning. Aristotle warned that a life can only be judged happy after it has been fulfilled. I would also use another formula, which I like very much and which says: happy is that life which realizes in maturity (or old age) the dream of youth."

"Our happiness depends on what we are, our individuality, whereas in most cases we take into account only our fate, only what we have or represent."

"Whether we are in a pleasant or a painful state depends, ultimately, upon the kind of matter that pervades and engrosses our consciousness. In this respect, purely intellectual occupation, for the mind that is capable of it, will, as a rule, do much more in the way of happiness than any form of practical life, with its constant alternations of success and failure, and all the shocks and torments it produces."

"Happiness is a wine of the rarest vintage, and seems insipid to vulgar taste."

"Happiness does not depend on the size or content of a goal, but on the strength of the desire to have it."

"Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding. For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her."

"Place before thyself the ideal of perfection, not that of happiness, for by doing what makes thee wiser and better, thou shalt find the peace and joy in which happiness consists."