Quotes About Happiness

Happiness, in one sense, is a function of how closely our world conforms to the infinite variety of human preference.

Mimicry, they argue, is also one of the means by which we infect each other with our emotions. In other words, if I smile and you see me and smile in response—even a microsmile that takes no more than several milliseconds—it's not just you imitating or empathizing with me. It may also be a way that I can pass on my happiness to you.

We normally think of the expressions on our face as the reflection of an inner state. I feel happy, so I smile. I feel sad, so I frown. Emotion goes inside-out. Emotional contagion, though, suggests that the opposite is also true. If I can make you smile, I can make you happy. If I can make you frown, I can make you sad. Emotion, in this sense, goes outside-in.

University of Hawaii Press, 1983; The Happiest Man: The Life of Louis Borgenicht (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1942). Used by permission of Lindy Friedman Sobel and Alice Friedman Holzman. The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher. ISBN 978-0-316-04034-1 E3

If I have sinned so much, if I have been since then so solitary, if my soul has taken such a swirling and solitary movement, if I have doubted everyting, if I have been fatalist and have been a pessimistic child who awaits death every day and who almost seeks it out, if I have opened myself slowly and late to happiness, and if I am still a somber man incapable of laughing wholeheartedly it is because you left me . . .

Graham states, "Because average country income levels do not matter to happiness, but relative distances from the average do, the poor Honduran is happier because their distance from mean income is smaller." And in Honduras, the poor are much closer in wealth to the middle class than the poor are in Chile, so they feel better off.

But this same dilemma comes up again and again in our own lives, and often we don't choose so wisely. The inverted-U curve reminds us that there is a point at which money and resources stop making our lives better and start making them worse.

captures this poignancy in his memoir, which was published in 1942. He called it The Happiest Man. After numerous chapters brimming with optimism and cheer, the book ends with the sobering reality of Nazi-dominated Europe. Had The Happiest Man been published in 1945, when the

if I am still a somber man, incapable of laughing whole-heartedly

Those 3 things—autonomy, complexity, and a connection between effort and reward—are, most people agree, the 3 qualities that work has to have if it is to be satisfying. It is nor how much money we make that ultimately makes us happy between nine and five, It's whether our work fulfills us.

Austerity has always made me happy, and its opposite, miserable. I find it strange that, knowing this, I should so often have inflicted upon myself the nausea of over-indulgence, and had to fight off the black dogs of satiety. Human beings, as Pascal points out, are peculiar in that they avidly pursue ends they know will bring them no satisfaction; gorge themselves with food which cannot nourish and with pleasures which cannot please. I am a prize example.

Success rarely brings satisfaction.

Success is always something completely different to people. I feel like I've succeeded, if I'm doing something that makes me happy and I'm not lying to anybody.

I was motivated by just thinking that if you had all this external success that everyone would love you and everything would be peaceful and wonderful.

Opportunities, creative ideas or the lack of them, happiness, frustration, brilliance, talent, success and failure - all are determined by the state of mind that you're in.

When you are satisfied, you are successful. For that's all there is to success is satisfaction.

I always considered myself very successful even before the success of Secrets and Lies.

There are people who've prepared their whole lives for real heavy success and bask in it. They're so good at it and they obviously love it. I'm just happy to be making a record.

I always think, when there's stuff that people don't like, I always say that if I have another success, I'll enjoy it more, but you don't really.

In order to run a great business, you must know that a bunch of really intrinsically unhappy people, that's not a recipe for success. Don't be anywhere you don't need to be; it's just like that.

There is only one success-to be able to spend life in your own way.

Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.

Don't wait to be successful at some future point. Have a successful relationship with the present moment and be fully present in whatever you are doing. That is success.

The measure of success is not by opulence but by happiness