Quotes About Happiness

The secret of happiness ... is to be in harmony with existence, to be always calm, always lucid, always willing "to be joined to the universe without being more conscious of it than an idiot," to let each wave of life wash us a little farther up the shore.

If thou workest at that which is before thee ... expecting nothing, fearing nothing, but satisfied with thy present activity according to Nature, and with heroic truth in every word and sound which thou utterest, thou wilt live happy. And there is no man who is able to prevent this.

I believe the recipe for happiness to be just enough money to pay the monthly bills you acquire, a little surplus to give you confidence, a little too much work each day, enthusiasm for your work, a substantial share of good health, a couple of real friends and a wife and children to share life's beauty with you.

What can be added to the happiness of man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?

If an Arab in the desert were suddenly to discover a spring in his tent, and so would always be able to have water in abundance, how fortunate he would consider himself; so too, when a man who ... is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him.

Most true happiness comes from one's inner life, from the disposition of the mind and soul. Admittedly, a good inner life is difficult to achieve, especially in these trying times. It takes reflection and contemplation and self-discipline.

I don't think that... one gets a flash of happiness once, and never again; it is there within you, and it will come as certainly as death.

Happiness is a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

Those who seek happiness miss it, and those who discuss it, lack it.

Happiness is never stopping to think if you are.

If you pursue happiness you'll never find it.

Seek not happiness too greedily, and be not fearful of unhappiness.

The man of pleasure, by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be, is often more miserable than most men.

Deliberately to pursue happiness is not the surest way of achieving it. Seek it for its own sake and I doubt whether you will find it.

Happiness sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open.

Happiness is like a cat. If you try to coax it or call it, it will avoid you. It will never come. But if you pay no attention to it and go about your business, you'll find it rubbing against your legs and jumping into your lap.

Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us on a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it.

It is the very pursuit of happiness that thwarts happiness.

If you ever find happiness by hunting for it, you will find it, as the old woman did her lost spectacles, safe on her nose all the time.

Happiness is not a horse, you cannot harness it.

The principles we live by, in business and in social life, are the most important part of happiness.

I am enjoying to a full that period of reflection which is the happiest conclusion to a life of action.

To attain happiness in another world we need only to believe something; to secure it in this world, we must do something.

If you observe a really happy man, you will find ... that he is happy in the course of living life twenty-four crowded hours of each day.