Quotes About Happiness

It seemed a very great folly to attempt to force a declaration from him, but it seemed a greater folly to let him go. If there was a single chance at happiness with him, I was determined to seize it.

It isn't your anger that will make you good at this job. It is your joy.

To hurl one's few possessions into a carpetbag and embark for a new adventure was the only solace. To leave behind one's woes in a damp and fogbound land, awaking in brilliant sunshine, the air heavy with spices and the promise of fresh endeavors, this was true happiness. A train bound for anywhere, a ship unfurling its sails for some new shore. Steam whistle and snapping canvas, those were the lullabies that soothed a savage soul.

You do not yet know what it means to love someone more than yourself. I have no pride left, no delicacy. I cannot afford it. So I will tell you the truth: I wanted his happiness above all things.

Do not collect passion into the equation. It is a dangerous foe, Theodora, like keeping a lion in the garden. It might seem safe enough, but it might well destroy you. No, do not yearn for passion. Ask instead for contentment, happiness. Those are to be wished for.

A good wet weep is always just the thing. You will feel better soon. Not just yet, but soon. And when you do, enjoy it. Life is too uncertain, my dear. You must seize happiness where you find it.

Too late, I understood the magnitude of a woman's vulnerability in marriage, how every particle of her happiness depends upon her choosing well. And I had chosen unwisely.

He smelled of leather and wool and tasted of apples and I could have died in that moment and counted myself happy.

Within a month the ring was gone, pawned to pay a debt, and I realized what I had done. I had shackled myself to a man who could not be trusted, upon whom I could never truly depend. Too late, I understood the magnitude of a woman's vulnerability in marriage, how every particle of her happiness depends upon her choosing well. And I had chosen unwisely.

He was remembering not the woman who had come before, but the promise of happiness he had glimpsed once and never thought to know again.

It isn't your anger that will make you good at this job. It's your joy.

I guess forgiveness, like happiness, isn't a final destination. You don't one day get there and get to stay.

It occurred to me then that a lot of life was either about wanting and not having, or having and not wanting.

The most basic and somehow forgettable thing is this: Love is not pain. Love is goodness.

Sometimes maybe you should let someone you love travel great distances away from you. You shouldn't think you needed to set out to retrieve them and put them back where they belonged. Sometimes they were only safe and happy, like Annabelle Aurora. And then other times, it was just possible they were lost at sea. It would be your duty, then, to get out into the boat and search, even if the waves were choppy and the wind was howling the protests of the dead.

Someone walking toward you is such a simple, happy-to-be-alive thing.

Whipped cream can remind you why it's good to be alive.

He was like one great big Sunday afternoon -- the kind where you stay in your PJs and watch movies and eat popcorn. Where life is at it's uncomplicated best.

And if you could make a choice, then why not pick happiness?

Maybe she's meant to be alone. Unmarried. Deliciously free of people's expectations. It sort of sounds like heaven, actually.

And maybe that's the closest definition for the word we can get, a life equation: An absence of wanting equals happiness.

Right there— the hope of bacon is a reason to love life.

Erase the parts that make me unhappy. I guess that means emphasizing the parts that do.

Laughter lights up the darkness.