Happiness

"I have now reigned above fifty years in victory or peace; beloved by my subjects, dreaded by my enemies, and respected by my allies. Riches and honours, power and pleasure, have waited on my call, nor does any earthly blessing appear to have been wanting to my felicity. In this situation, I have diligently numbered the days of pure and genuine happiness which have fallen to my lot: they amount to Fourteen: - O man! place not thy confidence in this present world!"

"True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions."

"Happiness was simply something that occurred in a well-regulated life."

"The only reality is now, today. What are you waiting for to be happy?...Happiness is not exuberant or noisy, like pleasure or joy; it’s silent, tranquil, and gentle; it’s a feeling of satisfaction inside that begins with self-love."

"Virtue’s true reward is happiness itself, for which the virtuous work, whereas if they worked for honor, it would no longer be virtue, but ambition."

"Happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both, is more often found with those who are highly cultivated in their minds and in their character, and have only a moderate share of external goods, than among those who possess external goods to a useless extent but are deficient in higher qualities."

"The man who does not rejoice in noble actions is not even good; since no one would call a man just who did not enjoy acting justly, nor any man liberal who did not enjoy liberal actions; and similarly in all other cases. If this is so, virtuous actions must be in themselves pleasant. But they are also good and noble, and have each of these attributes in the highest degree, since the good man judges well about these attributes; his judgment is such as we have described. Happiness then is the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing in the world."

"To be able without hindrance to exercise his preeminent quality, whatever its nature, is real happiness."

"I once went through books and wanted to understand what philosophers said about life. Some of them saw everything as dark. "Since we are nothing and we will reach zero, there is no room for joy and happiness during our temporary life on earth," they said. I read other books, written by wiser men. They were saying: "Since the end is zero anyway, let us at least be joyful and cheerful as long as we live." For my own character I like the second view of life, but within these limits: A man who sees the existence of all mankind in his own person is pathetic. Obviously that man will perish as an individual. What is necessary for any man to be satisfied and happy as long as he lives is not to work for himself, but for those who will come after him. Only in this way can a man of understanding act. Complete pleasure and happiness in life can only be found in working for the honor, existence and happiness of future generations."

"Those who do not observe the movements of their own minds must of necessity be unhappy."

"Happiness is a difficult lesson to learn; it is for mankind a totally new experience and Christ will have to teach men how to handle happiness correctly, to overcome the ancient habits of misery, and thus to know the meaning of true joy. (Chapter 5)"

"They say you can’t really remember pain, remembering only the fact of it, not the precise way it feel. Maybe the same thing’s true of happiness."

"I shall take the heart... for brains do not make one happy, and happiness is the best thing in the world."

"In all this world there is nothing so beautiful as a happy child."

"Happiness can be found even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light."

"According to Aristotle, true happiness consists in doing the things we enjoy most with our friends. [...] Those who love philosophy love above all else to philosophise (in Greek: sum-philosophein) with their friends."

"To have been happy, madame, adds to calamity."

"HAPPINESS, n. An agreeable sensation arising from contemplating the misery of another."

"Aristotle admitted that “equipment” as well as virtue is necessary for happiness, but he said nothing about how that equipment is acquired. A careful examination of the acquisition of equipment reveals that virtue impedes that acquisition. ... It would seem that nature is not kind to man, if the two elements of happiness—virtue and equipment—are at tension with one another."

"Life, liberty, and the pursuit of property were just what Aristotle did not talk about. They are the conditions of happiness; but the essence of happiness, according to Aristotle, is virtue. So the moderns decided to deal with the conditions and to let happiness take care of itself."

"Ah! The happy ones of this world who are assured their daily bread—that is, all the things necessary to bodily life—and who, not wishing to know Jesus, have never for one single instant had the idea of suffering for their brothers, of sacrificing themselves for the wretched!"

"Someone who has thought rationally and deeply about how the body works is likely to arrive at better ideas about how to be healthy than someone who has followed a hunch. Medicine presupposes a hierarchy between the confusion the layperson will be in about what is wrong with him, and the more accurate knowledge available to doctors reasoning logically. … At the heart of Epicureanism is the thought that we are as bad at answering the question “What will make me happy?” as “What will make me healthy?”"

"Happiness is solitary."

"Oompa Loompa doom-pa-dee-da If you're not greedy, you will go far You will live in happiness too Like the Oompa Loompa doom-pa-dee-do."

"Do not fall prey to seeking pure happiness. Instead, seek lifelong progress toward happierness."

"Happiness lies only in a divine unrest; and if you are lapped in comfort you stagnate and miss it."

"Happy indeed we live, free from avarice amidst the avaricious. Amidst the avaricious men we dwell free from avarice.Happy indeed we live, we who possess nothing. Feeders on joy we shall be, like the Radiant Gods.Victory begets enmity; the defeated dwell in pain. Happily the peaceful live, discarding both victory and defeat."

"Both were so young, and one so innocent, That bathing pass'd for nothing; Juan seem'd To her, as 'twere, the kind of being sent, Of whom these two years she had nightly dream'd, A something to be loved, a creature meant To be her happiness, and whom she deem'd To render happy; all who joy would win Must share it,––Happiness was born a twin."

"One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of happiness. "What! — by such narrow ways — ?" There is but one world, however. Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd discovery. It happens as well that the feeling of the absurd springs from happiness."

"The Philosopher of this age is not a Socrates, a Plato, a Hooker, or Taylor, who inculcates on men the necessity and infinite worth of moral goodness, the great truth that our happiness depends on the mind which is within us, and not on the circumstances which are without us; but a Smith, a De Lolme, a Bentham, who chiefly inculcates the reverse of this,—that our happiness depends entirely on external circumstances."

"The achievement of happiness requires not the ... satisfaction of our needs ... but the examination and transformation of those needs."

"The soul of the world is nourished by people's happiness."

"Does a young man, rejected by his first love, declare that love does not exist? The young man says to himself: “I’ll find someone better able to understand what I feel. And then I will be happy for the rest of my days.""

"In the cycle of nature there is no such thing as victory or defeat; there is only movement. The winter struggles to reign supreme, but in the end is obliged to accept spring’s victory, which brings with it flowers and happiness."

"Joy. That is one of the main blessings of the All-Powerful. If we are happy, we are on the right road."

"Stay close to those who sing, tell stories, enjoy life and whose eyes sparkle with happiness. Because happiness is contagious and will always manage to find a solution whereas logic can find only an explanation for the mistake made."

"Those who were never defeated seem happy and superior, masters of a truth they never had to lift a finger to achieve. They are always on the side of the strong. They’re like hyenas, who only eat the leavings of lions."

"Happiness lies in the fulfillment of the spirit through the body."

"Domestic Happiness, thou only bliss Of Paradise that hast survived the Fall!"

"Thus happiness depends, as Nature shows, Less on exterior things than most suppose."

"It is not the smallest use to try to make people good, unless you try at the same time — and they feel that you are trying — to make them happy. And you rarely can make another happy, unless you are happy yourself."

"Happiness! Can any human being undertake to define it for another?"

"I fear, the inevitable conclusion we must all come to is, that in the world happiness is quite indefinable. We can no more grasp it than we can grasp the sun in the sky or the moon in the water. We can feel it interpenetrating our whole being with warmth and strength; we can see it in a pale reflection shining elsewhere; or in its total absence, we, walking in darkness, learn to appreciate what it is by what it is not."

"Happiness is not an end — it is only a means, and adjunct, a consequence. The Omnipotent Himself could never be supposed by any, save those who out of their own human selfishness construct the attributes of Divinity, to be absorbed throughout eternity in the contemplation of His own ineffable bliss, were it not identical with His ineffable goodness and love."

"The only way to make people good, is to make them happy."

"Do you, good people, believe that Adam and Eve were created in the Garden of Eden and that they were forbidden to eat from the tree of knowledge? I do. The church has always been afraid of that tree. It still is afraid of knowledge. Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas. So does whiskey. I believe in the brain of man. I'm not worried about my soul."

"The lower animals, like man, manifestly feel pleasure and pain, happiness and misery. Happiness is never better exhibited than by young animals, such as puppies, kittens, lambs, &c., when playing together, like our own children."

"Happy is the man that has not walked in the counsel of the wicked ones, And in the way of sinners has not stood, And in the seat of ridiculers has not sat. But his delight is in the law of Jehovah, And in his law he reads in an undertone day and night. And he will certainly become like a tree planted by streams of water, That gives its own fruit in its season And the foliage of which does not wither, And everything he does will succeed. The wicked are not like that, But are like the chaff that the wind drives away."

"I, for one, live only by and for happiness."

"This nice and subtle happiness of reading, this joy not chilled by age, this polite and unpunished vice, this selfish, serene life-long intoxication."