Quotes About Happiness

Every day, once a day, give yourself a present. Don't plan it. Don't wait for it. Just let it happen. It could be a new shirt at the men's store, a catnap in your office chair, or two cups of good, hot black coffee.

What we truly want is the satisfaction of seeing our children become mature, self-reliant human beings, at any age, thinking for themselves, free and happy. Parents who want anything else are obsessed with control and not free and happy themselves.

Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see a bird that had the blues? One reason why birds and hoses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.

Happiness in reality consists only in rest, and not in being stirred up. This instinct conflicts with the drive to diversion, and we develop the confused idea that leads people to aim at rest through excitement.

You can never get enough of what you don't need, because what you don't need won't satisfy you.

When you put your trust in your dad, he will feel the responsibility of that trust and try harder than ever to understand and to help. As your father, he is entitled to inspiration on your behalf. His advice to you will be the heartfelt expressions of someone who knows and loves you. Your dad wants more than anything for you to be happy and successful, so why would you not want to trust someone like that? Boys, trust your dad.

Is it fun being you?

Married women are far more depressed than married men -- in unhappy marriages, three times more; and -- interestingly -- in happy marriages, five times more. In truth, it is men who are thriving in marriage, now as always, and who show symptoms of psychological and physical distress outside it. Not only their emotional well-being but their very lives, some studies say, depend on being married!

He knew now that he had never been really happy in his whole life. There had been times when he had thought he was happy but none of them were like this.

Equal marriage makes a huge impact, because people see gay people being allowed to be happy," he says. "And these events involve families – and not just families but caterers and florists and hotels. And all these people are forced to accept that here are two people who are in love and want to build a family together . . . But I'm not complacent. Progress can falter, and rights can be taken away, and people can be repressed again very easily.

I have a three-year-old and a four-year-old at home, and my mornings are about just dealing with the fact of that. I oddly enjoy it.

From now on I will live in a state of joyous expectation.

Everywhere you look you see people with things that you do not have, and it has a profound mental effect.

The memory from Sundance that I hold dearest is a snowball fight. One night I went outside with Lorri, Peter Jackson, and Fran Walsh. It was the first time I'd touched snow in almost twenty years. It was perfect. It was pure and unblemished, and as white as the moon. And then we went into a frenzy, running wild and throwing snowballs at each other. Peter was laughing like a child, and Fran squealed in delight as she was pelted. I'll see it in my head until the day I die.

He laughs with wise, percolated mirth

If you are miserable and ill, I can understand why you would not want to live a long time. But if you are happy and productive, why not? Why should people have to grow old and die?

The hardest thing in the world is making a kid happy after he's been circumcised.

How happy can you be when you think every action and thought is being monitored by a judgmental ghost?

Don't blow your one and only shot at happiness by selling your birthright and squandering your meaning and purpose on someone else's undeserved glory. Live your own life. If you are reasonable and kind, you will discover that meaning is not handed to you from on high; it emerges naturally from your own life-driven purpose.

Nothing equals a good dump. To my way of thinking taking a decent shit is a life-affirming experience.

I can always feel better, look better, do better. I can learn more, sell more, buy more. I can do more, and do it faster. But what is the price of this perfection? Joy.

I believe in the pursuit of happiness. Not its attainment, nor its final definition, but its pursuit. I believe in the journey, not the arrival;

It's not caring if others think what I'm doing is stupid or foolish. It is about being honest with myself and doing what makes me happy and not bowing to outside pressures.

Natural happiness is what we get when we get what we wanted, and synthetic happiness is what we make when we don't get what we wanted. In our society, we have a strong belief that synthetic happiness is of an inferior kind.