Quotes About Happiness

Writing and drawing comics for the sheer joy of it - that's true bliss.

It's just that that was such a wonderful time, even in its strangeness and sadness-and life isn't the same now. It's wonderful, but it isn't the same.

Perhaps our time here is limited, said Frex, sighing with contentment and clasping his arms behind his head - the typical male response to happiness, thought Melena: to predict its demise.

The typical male response to happiness, thought Melena: to predict its demise.

The habit of being uniformly considerate toward others will bring increased happiness to you.

If I can aid one in distress, If I can make a burden less, If I can spread more happiness, Lord, show me how.

We must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it.

S]tudies show that one of the best ways to lift your mood is to engineer an easy success, such as tackling a long-delayed chore.

Happiness, wrote Yeats, is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing. Contemporary researchers make the same argument: that it isn't goal attainment but the process of striving after goals-that is, growth-that brings happiness.

I am living my real life, this is it. Now is now, and if I waited to be happier, waited to have fun, waited to do the things that I know I ought to do, I might never get the chance.

To eke out the most happiness from an experience, we must anticipate it, savor it as it unfolds, express happiness, and recall a happy memory.

Studies show that in a phenomenon called emotional contagion, we unconsciously catch emotions from other people--whether good moods or bad ones. Taking the time to be silly means that we're infecting one another with good cheer, and people who enjoy silliness are one third more likely to be happy.

According to current research, in the determination of a person's level of happiness, genetics accounts for about 50 percent; life circumstances, such as age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, income, health, occupation, and religious affiliation, account for about 10 to 20 percent; and the remainder is a product of how a person thinks and acts.

Studies show that each common interest between people boosts the chances of a lasting relationship and also brings about a 2 percent increase in life satisfaction.

I realized that for my own part, I was much more likely to take risks, reach out to others, and expose myself to rejection and failure when I felt happy. When I felt unhappy, I felt defensive, touchy, and self-conscious.

Because money permits a constant stream of luxuries and indulgences, it can take away their savor, and by permitting instant gratification, money shortcuts the happiness of anticipation. Scrimping, saving, imagining, planning, hoping--these stages enlarge the happiness we feel.

While some more passive forms of leisure, such as watching TV or surfing the Internet, are fun in the short term, over time, they don't offer nearly the same happiness as more challenging activities.

Both money and health contribute to happiness mostly in the negative; the lack of them brings much more unhappiness than possessing them brings happiness. p 169

The happiest, healthiest, most productive people aren't those from a particular Tendency, but rather they're the people who have figured out how to harness the strengths of their Tendency, counteract the weaknesses, and build the lives that work for them.

I knew I wouldn't discover happiness in a faraway place or in unusual circumstances; it was right here, right now— as in the haunting play The Blue Bird, where two children spend a year searching the world for the Blue Bird of Happiness, only to find it waiting for them when they finally return home.

Keep it simple' wasn't always the right response. Many things that boosted my happiness also added complexity to my life. Having children. Learning to post videos to my website. Going to an out-of-town wedding. Applied too broadly, my impulse to 'Keep it simple' would impoverish me. 'Life is barren enough surely with all her trappings,' warned Samuel Johnson, 'let us therefore by cautious how we strip her.

We are happy when we are growing.

arriving rarely makes you as happy as you anticipate. p 84

This is one of the many paradoxes of happiness: we seek to control our lives, but the unfamiliar and the unexpected are important sources of happiness.