We believe at once in evil, we only believe in good upon reflection. Is not this sad?
Dorothee DeLuzy Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: attitude happiness wrong choice goodness joy happiness

Celebrate the happiness that friends are always giving, make everyday a holiday and celebrate just living!
Amanda Bradley Slowing Down in a Speeded Up World
Categories: happiness friendships living celebration love relationships joy enjoyment sharing caring loving life live happiness attitude give

We cannot hold a torch to light another's path without brightening our own.
Ben Sweetland The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness ministry service volunteerism happiness joy

Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.
Eddie Cantor
Categories: happiness

All I can say about life is, Oh God, enjoy it!
Bob Newhart
Categories: happiness

If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years.
Bertrand Russell
Categories: happiness

Do not weep; do not wax indignant. Understand.
Baruch Spinoza
Categories: happiness

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.
Ayn Rand
Categories: happiness

Happiness depends upon ourselves.
Aristotle
Categories: happiness

The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.
Anthelme Brillat-Savarin Physiologie du Gout, 1825
Categories: happiness

A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.
Anatole France
Categories: happiness

The secret of happiness is to make others believe they are the cause of it.
Al Batt in National Enquirer
Categories: happiness

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
Abraham Lincoln
Categories: happiness

Joy is your birthright.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Something More : Excavating Your Authentic Self
Categories: joy happiness

Even the lowliest, provided he is whole, can be happy, and in his own way, perfect.
Johann von Goethe The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy

The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase; if you pursue happiness you'll never find it.
C. P. Snow
Categories: happiness

Cherish all your happy moments: they make a fine cushion for old age.
Christopher Morley
Categories: happiness

Sometimes it's hard to avoid the happiness of others.
David Assael Northern Exposure, Our Tribe, 1992
Categories: happiness

Laughing is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one spot.
Josh Billings
Categories: happiness

True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.
Joseph Addison The Spectator, March 17, 1911
Categories: happiness

The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp.
John Berry Flight of White Crows
Categories: happiness

Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook and a good digestion.
Jean Jacques Rousseau
Categories: happiness

At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities.
Jean Houston
Categories: happiness

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.
James Oppenheim
Categories: happiness

I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.
J. D. Salinger
Categories: happiness

If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us least live so as to deserve it.
Immanuel Hermann Fichte
Categories: happiness

All sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones are moving easily under the flesh.
Doris Lessing
Categories: happiness

A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.
George Bernard Shaw "Man and Superman" (1903), act I
Categories: happiness

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.
George Burns
Categories: happiness

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
Helen Keller
Categories: happiness

Man is the artificer of his own happiness.
Henry David Thoreau Journal, January 21, 1838
Categories: happiness

There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and, after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.
Logan Pearsall Smith The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: success happiness

How much better it is to weep at joy than to joy at weeping.
William Shakespeare (The Comedy of Errors) Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: joy happiness attitude

The true way to render ourselves happy is to love our work and find in it our pleasure.
Francoise de Motteville Slowing Down in a Speeded Up World
Categories: happiness joy work

Wisdom is the most important part of happiness.
Sophocles The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: wisdom happiness

A reasonable man needs only to practice moderation to find happiness.
Johann von Goethe The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: moderation happiness

May all things move and be moved in me

Chinook Psalter A Grateful Heart: Daily Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to the Beatles
Categories: joy happiness gratitude

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.
Josh Billings The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy enjoyment

Happiness sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open.
John Barrymore The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy serendipity

The time is ripe for joy, and joy holds the universe together.
Kristen Johnson Ingram "The Sacrament of Time" by Kristen Johnson Ingram Weavings, Jan/Feb 1999
Categories: joy happiness meaning

Love is like a beautiful flower which I may not touch, but whose fragrance makes the garden a place of delight just the same.
Helen Keller Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: love happiness joy

Let all thy joys be as the month of May,

Francis Quarles Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: joy happiness attitude

The right to happiness is fundamental.
Anna Pavlova The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness happy joy

The bird of paradise alights only on the hand that does not grasp.
John Berry The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy fulfillment

Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is at their heels.
Bertolt Brecht The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy enjoyment

Happiness is a function of accepting what is.
Werner Erhard The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness acceptance

The U.S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.
Benjamin Franklin The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy happy right effort

Our own felicity we make or find.
Samuel Johnson Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: happiness joy attitude life

He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.
Epicetus Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happiness satisfaction contentment

Be joyful. Because it is humanly possible
Wendell Berry Something More: Excavating Your Authentic Self
Categories: joy happiness emotions feelings

A little of what you fancy does you good.
Marie Lloyd Simple Abundance
Categories: moderation comfort joy happiness

Let us crown ourselves with rosebuds, before they be withered.
Wisdom of Solomon 2:8 (Apocrypha) The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: joy living happiness attitude

To say that the secret to happiness is to want what you have is to suggest that ordinary existence is rich and deep and sufficient unto itself.
Timothy Ray Miller How to Want What You Have
Categories: happiness attitude gratitude

Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: joy happiness expectations enjoyment

It is an aspect of all happiness to suppose that we deserve it.
Joseph Joubert The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy feelings emotions

...happiness is a way of traveling rather than a destination.
Timothy Ray Miller How to Want What You Have
Categories: happiness joy life success

A multiple of small delights constitute happiness.
Charles Baudelaire The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness everyday joy daily

The great source of pleasure is variety.
Samuel Johnson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: joy pleasure happiness variety

He who binds to himself a Joy

William Blake The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: joy happiness freedom liberty

It is in virtue that happiness consists, for virtue is the state of mind which tends to make the whole of life harmonious.
Zeno The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: virtue character happiness

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.
Gustave Flaubert
Categories: selfishness stupidity happiness

A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.
Bertrand Russell The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness meditation inner peace joy

The ability to love oneself, combined with the ability to love life, fully accepting that it won't last forever, enables one to improve the quality of life.
Bernie S. Siegel Love, Medicine and Miracles : Lessons Learned About Self-Healing from a Surgeon's Experience With Exceptional Patients
Categories: life love joy happiness

Money and time are the heaviest burdens of life, and the unhappiest of all mortals are those who have more of either than they know how to use.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: time money happiness

The sun shines not on us but in us. The rivers flow not past, but through us, thrilling, tingling, vibrating every fiber and cell of the substance of our bodies, making them glide and sing.
John Muir The Vein of Gold: A Journey to Your Creative Heart
Categories: nature beauty joy happiness

Don't hurry, don't worry. You're only here for a short visit. So be sure to stop and smell the flowers.
Walter Hagen American Quotations
Categories: joy happiness relaxation balance

All animals except man know that the principal business of life is to enjoy it.
Samuel Butler The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: life joy meaning happiness

Happiness is a Swedish sunset; it is there for all, but most of us look the other way and lose it.
Mark Twain The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness attitude choice

Life is a progress from want to want, not from enjoyment to enjoyment.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life want joy happiness focus

The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment.
Doug Larson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness attitude joy choice

Happiness is not a station to arrive at, but a manner of traveling.
Margaret Lee Runbeck The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness journey process joy

It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving, it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe.
Thomas Paine The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase, Saying, and Quotation
Categories: happiness authenticity beliefs

We are all happy, if we knew it.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness desire longing

I have perceiv'd that to be with

Walt Whitman A Grateful Heart: Daily Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to the Beatles
Categories: happiness friendship relationships

Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition.
Arthur Rubinstein The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy emotions feelings

... the excellence of daily life finally depends not on what we do, but on how we do it.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Categories: meaning purpose joy happiness fulfillment

All life is a manifestation of the spirit, the manifestation of love.
Morihei Ueshiba The Art of Peace: Teachings of the Founder of Aikido
Categories: life love joy happiness gratitude

Perfection leaves so little room for improvement. So little space for acceptance -- or joy. On the path we have chosen, progress is the simple pleasure to be savored.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
Categories: perfectionism self-improvement happiness growth

Seek not happiness too greedily, and be not fearful of unhappiness.
Lao-tzu The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy pleasure sadness depression

A single sunbeam is enough to drive away many shadows.
St. Francis of Assisi Alexandra Stoddard's Book of Days
Categories: attitude joy happiness gratitude appreciation

Happiness is what you think, what you say, and what you do when you are in harmony.
Mahatma Gandhi The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy peace calm serenity

Gratitude is the heart's money.
French proverb Simple Abundance
Categories: gratitude attitude joy happiness fulfillment

..we cannot longer afford to throw away even one "unimportant" day by not noticing the wonder of it all. We have to be willing to discover and then appreciate the authentic moments of happiness available to all of us every day.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance
Categories: focus priorities joy happiness wonder awe creation

To make a man happy, fill his hands with work, his heart with affection, his mind with purpose, his memory with useful knowledge, his future with hope, and his stomach with food.
Frederick E. Crane The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness fulfillment meaning joy purpose

To live happily with other people, ask of them only what they can give.
Tristan Bernard Leadership: A Treasury of Great Quotations for Those Who Aspire to Lead
Categories: expectations happiness relationships marriage

I have learned, in whatsoever state I am in, therewith to be content.
Phillipians 4:11 Holy Bible
Categories: happiness satisfaction contentment circumstances

...happiness is not a frivolous, expendable luxury... But we have to be willing to pursue it. Ultimately, genuine happiness can only be recognized once we commit to making it a personal priority in our lives.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
Categories: happiness priority fulfillment meaning joy

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.
Robert Brault The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: joy happiness small things everyday

The principles we live by, in business and in social life, are the most important part of happiness. We need to be careful, upon achieving happiness, not to lose the virtues which have produced it.
Harry Harrison The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: character principles integrity happiness joy

It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.
Desiderius Erasmus The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy enjoyment self-acceptance self-awareness

Happiness is the cheapest thing in the world... when we buy it for someone else.
Paul Flemming The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: joy happiness giving sharing relationships

I will drink
Life to the lees. All times I have enjoyed
Greatly, have suffered greatly, both with those
That love me, and alone...
Alfred, Lord Tennyson from the poem, 'Ulysses' The Compact Treasury of Inspiration
Categories: joy happiness pain sorrow life

The sight of anything extremely beautiful, in nature or in art, brings back the memory of what one loves, with the speed of lightning. That is,... all that is beautiful and sublime and the world takes part in the beauty of what one loves, and this unexpected glimpse of happiness immediately fills the eyes with tears. This is how love of the beautiful and love give each other life.
Stendhal The Spirit of Loving
Categories: beauty art nature love happiness

It takes great wit and interest and energy to be happy. The pursuit of happiness is a great activity. One must be open and alive. It is the greatest feat man has to accomplish.
Robert Henri The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness involvement enthusiasm meaning

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise man grows it under his feet.
James Oppenheim Dear Lord, thank you for giving me so much. I know I take it for
Categories: happiness yearning searching attitude

Work is the true elixir of life. The busiest man is the happiest man.
Sir Theodore Martin The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: work happiness meaning fulfillment

Every job has drudgery. ... The first secret of happiness is the recognition of this fundamental fact.
M. C. McIntosh The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: work boredom rut acceptance happiness

Each morning I wake up and say to myself, Jerry, you have two choices today: you can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be a bad mood. I choose to be in a good mood.
     Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life.
     Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or a bad mood. The bottom line: it's your choice how you live life.
Jerry, a friend of Harvey Mackay 'Bottom line: your choice how to live' by Harvey Mackay Arizona Republic April 18, 1999
Categories: attitude optimism happiness choice

Unshared joy is an unlighted candle.
Spanish proverb The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: joy happiness caring sharing relationships

May you live all the days of your life.
Jonathon Swift Alexandra Stoddard's Book of Days
Categories: life living joy happiness experience

Man is made or unmade by himself. In the armory of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself. He also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace.
James Allen As a Man Thinketh
Categories: thought optimism pessimism happiness

I believe humans were born to have joy and to have it more abundantly; that the birthright of everyone is loving, caring, sharing, and abundance.
Peter McWilliams You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought
Categories: joy happiness attitude life emotions

To be happy requires knowledge about how to achieve happiness (i.e. wisdom) and hard work and self-discipline to put that knowledge into practice.
Dennis Prager Happiness Is a Serious Problem: A Human Nature Repair Manual
Categories: happiness balance self-discipline self-nurture

... my greatest skill has been to want a little...
Henry David Thoreau Walden
Categories: moderation happiness possessions materialism

People who postpone happiness are like children who try chasing rainbows in an effort to find the pot of gold at the rainbows end... Your life will never be fulfilled until you are happy here and now.
Ken Keyes, Jr. The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy present emotions feelings

Life becomes harder for us when we live for others, but it also becomes richer and happier.
Albert Schweitzer The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: service ministry volunteerism happiness joy

Scatter seeds of kindness everywhere you go;
Scatter bits of courtesy--watch them grow and grow.
Gather buds of friendship, keep them till full-blown;
You will have more happiness than you have ever known.
Amy R. Raabe The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy actions emotions relationships

One of the things I keep learning is that the secret of being happy is doing things for other people.
Dick Gregory The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy service ministry volunteerism

The art of living does not consist in preserving and clinging to a particular mode of happiness, but in allowing happiness to change its form without being disappointed by the change; happiness, like a child, must be allowed to grow up.
Charles L. Morgan The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: living happiness change joy flexibility

Men are made for happiness, and anyone who is completely happy has a right to say to himself: "I am doing God's will on earth."
Anton Chekhov The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness meaning life priorities

I count myself in nothing else so happy
``As in a soul remembering my good friends.
William Shakespeare (King Richard II) Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: happiness friendship relationships balance joy

Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.
Aristotle The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness life living purpose

Different men seek...happiness in different ways and by different means.
Aristotle The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness life living choice

The knowledge that something remains yet unenjoyed impairs our enjoyment of the good before us.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: joy life present focus happiness

Happiness is an expression of the soul in considered actions.
Aristotle The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness actions self-knowledge attitude

We are convinced that happiness is never to be found, and each believes it is possessed by others, to keep alive the hope of obtaining it for himself.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy life envy hope

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.
Helen Keller The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness opportunity focus change

Life without absorbing occupation is hell.
Elbert Hubbard The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life occupation work happiness

Life admits not of delays; when pleasure can be had, it is fit to catch it. Every hour takes away part of the things that please us, and perhaps part of our disposition to be pleased.
Samuel Johnson Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: life time joy happiness aging

What wisdom, what warning can prevail against gladness? There is no law so strong that a little gladness may not transgress.
Henry David Thoreau The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: wisdom law gladness joy happiness rules

It is common to overlook what is near by keeping the eye fixed on something remote.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: focus vision happiness present joy

Unhappy is the man whom man can make unhappy.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness peace character self-esteem

Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: hope happiness faith future

To fill the hour, and leave no creavice...that is happiness.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness work leisure life

He is rich who owns the day. There is no king, rich man, fairy, or demon who possesses such power as that.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness fulfillment present opportunity

Our happiness depends on the habit of mind we cultivate. So practice happy thinking every day. Cultivate the merry heart, develop the happiness habit, and life will become a continual feast.
Norman Vincent Peale Positive Thinking Every Day
Categories: happiness attitude habit joy life

The great pursuit of happiness..is the greatest feat man has to accomplish.
Robert Henri The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness meaning life success

There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy, we sow anonymous benefits upon the world.
Robert Louis Stevenson Simple Abundance
Categories: happiness duty joy sadness sad depression

Happiness will never be any greater than the idea we have of it.
Maurice Maeterlinck The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness vision perception fulfillment

A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best.
Ralph Waldo Emerson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: relief happiness work peace

Let him who has enough wish for nothing more.
Horace The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: want greed happiness living fulfillment

So of cheerfulness, or a good temper, the more it is spent, the more it remains.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Franklin Day Planner, November 19, 1994
Categories: character attitude happiness joy cheerfulness

The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
Joseph Addison Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happiness hope love balance

We owe it to our husband or wife, our fellow workers, our children, our friends, indeed to everyone who comes into our lives, to be as happy as we can be. This does not mean acting unreal, and it certainly does not mean refraining from honest and intimate expression of our feelings to those closest to us. But it does mean that we owe it to others to work on our happiness.
Dennis Prager Happiness is a Serious Problem: A Human Nature Repair Manual
Categories: happiness personal responsibility relationships honesty

Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product.
Eleanor Roosevelt The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy enjoyment work effort life

Contentment is the state of the heart, not a state of affairs.
Linda Dillow Calm My Anxious Heart : A Woman's Guide to Contentment
Categories: happiness inner peace choice circumstances attitude

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
Dalai Lama The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness compassion kindness love sharing

The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.
Emily Dickinson Slowing Down in a Speeded Up World
Categories: soul spirituality openness open to joy happiness

Planning for happiness is rarely successful. Happiness just happens.
Robert Half The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: happy happiness joy gladness balance planning

That man is happiest who lives from day to day and asks no more, garnering the simple goodness of a life.
Euripides The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: simple pleasures joy happiness appreciation gratitude

Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.
Bertrand Russell The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness meaning purpose fulfillment growth

Resolve to be thyself: and know, that he
``Who finds himself, loses his misery.
Matthew Arnold The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy striving despair depression self-acceptance

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.
Soren Kierkegaard The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy mood attitude depression sadness

Only man clogs his happiness with care, destroying what is, with thoughts of what may be.
John Dryden The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: desire longing wishing happiness worry

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.
Agatha Christie Simple Abundance
Categories: living joy enjoy happiness attitude enthusiasm

Happy the man who has learned the cause of things and has put under his feet all fear, inexorable fate, and the noisy strife of the hell of greed.
Virgil The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness point of view focus choice

There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.
Henry Ford The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy meaning fulfillment purpose achievement

Happiness is to be found along the way, not at the end of the road, for then the journey is over and it is too late.
Robert R. Updegraff The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness process journey present moment joy

The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts.
William Lyon Phelps The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: thought intellectualism creativity education happiness

Gather ye rose-buds while ye may,
Old time is still a-flying.
And this same flower that smiles
today, Tomorrow will be dying.
Henry David Thoreau The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: time aging life fulfillment happiness

Happiness is not a matter of events; it depends upon the tides of the mind.
Alice Meynell The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness thoughts thinking emotions feeling

The happiness of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.
Marcus Aurelius The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness thoughts thinking emotions feelings

A merry heart maketh a cheeful countenance.
King Solomon The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase, Saying, and Quotation
Categories: attitude joy happiness enthusiasm appearance beauty

To get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
Mark Twain The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: joy happiness sharing relationships marriage family

All who would win joy, must share it; happiness was born a twin.
Lord Byron The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy relationships sharing caring giving

Men spend their lives in anticipations, in determining to be vastly happy at some period or other, when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other: it is our own.
Charles Caleb Cotton Light from Many Lamps
Categories: future happiness joy too busy balance priorities

The older you get, the more you realize that kindness is synonymous with happiness.
Lionel Barrymore The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: kindness gentleness happiness joy relationships wisdom

This life is not for complaint, but for satisfaction.
Henry David Thoreau The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life complaint attitude happiness fulfillment joy

Happiness is the indication that man has found the answer to the problem of human existence: the productive realization of his potentialities and thus, simultaneously, being one with the world and preserving the integrity of his self.
Erich Fromm Thoughts on Leadership
Categories: happiness joy potential growth self-improvement authenticity

It's the most unhappy people who most fear change.
Mignon McLaughlin Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: happiness flexibility change fear growth

I don't sing because I'm happy; I'm happy because I sing.
William James Words for All Occasions
Categories: happiness joy sttitude choice optimismic optimist

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.
Benjamin Disraeli The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: action happiness mood attitude depression

Be at peace with your own soul, then heaven and earth will be at peace with you.
St. Isaac of Nineveh A Grateful Heart: Daily Blessings for the Evening Meal from Buddha to the Beatles
Categories: ethics morality happiness inner peace conscience

It would add much to human happiness, if an art could be taught of forgetting all of which the remembrance is at once useless and afflictive, that the mind might perform its function without encumbrance, and the past might no longer encroach upon the present.
Samuel Johnson The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: happiness past present memories memory

To forget oneself is to be happy.
Robert Louis Stevenson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness service ministry helping volunteerism

Catch, then, oh catch the transient hour;
``Improve each moment as it flies!
``Life's a short summer, man a flower;
``He dies--alas! how soon he dies!
Samuel Johnson Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: time present opportunity life joy happiness

People need joy quite as much as clothing. Some of them need it far more.
Margaret Collier Graham Simple Abundance
Categories: joy happiness emotions fulfillment meaning spirituality

A bit of fragrance always clings to the hand that gives you roses.
Chinese proverb The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: joy happiness kindness giving sharing beauty

Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much.
William Shakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing) Bartlett's Familiar Quotations
Categories: joy silence happiness words speech expression

There is no duty we so much underrated as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world.
Robert Louis Stevenson Simple Abundance:
Categories: happiness joy giving sharing ministry service

Only one thing has to change for us to know happiness in our lives: where we focus our attention.
Greg Anderson The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness
Categories: focus attention happiness wellness life

One day... the thought occurred to me that being unhappy was easy -- in fact, the easy way out -- and that it took no courage, effort, or greatness to be unhappy. Anyone could be unhappy. True achievement, I realized at an early age, lay in struggling to be happy. To this day, when I am unhappy I tell myself that I am taking the easy way out, that happiness is a battle to be waged and not a feeling to be awaited.
Dennis Prager Happiness is a Serious Problem: A Human Nature Repair Manual
Categories: happiness feelings emotion personal responsibility

Few are they who have never had the chance to achieve happiness...and fewer those who have taken that chance.
Andre Maurois The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness risk courage bravery daring

Live your life and forget your age.
Norman Vincent Peale Positive Thinking Every Day
Categories: life living aging growth happiness

The happiness of this life depends less on what befalls you than the way in which you take it.
Elbert Hubbard The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: happiness circumstances attitude life problems

... success in life is not how well we execute Plan A; it' s how smoothly we cope with Plan B. And for most of us, that's 99 percent of the time.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
Categories: coping change flexibility adaptability happiness

It is in his pleasure that a man really lives.
Agnes Repplier The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: joy happiness pleasure life meaning balance

There are three ingredients in the good life: learning, earning and yearning.
Christopher Morley The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: meaning purpose fulfillment happiness happy

True happiness is to understand our duties toward God and man; to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence on the future; not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears, but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is abundantly sufficient; for he that is so wants nothing.
Lucius Anneaus Seneca Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happiness joy fulfillment meaning worry anxiety

Practice hope. As hopefulness becomes a habit, you can achieve a permanently happy spirit.
Norman Vincent Peale Positive Thinking Every Day
Categories: hope faith habit happiness joy attitude

The deeper sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can absorb.
Jan Coleman After the Locusts: Restoring Ruined Dreams, Reclaiming Wasted Years
Categories: joy happiness sadness depression pain adversity

In order for us to realize genuine happiness, we must be willing to court contentment every step of the way.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
Categories: happiness contentment fulfillment meaning purpose joy

May you have warmth in your igloo, oil in your lamp, and peace in your heart.
Eskimo proverb The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life happiness joy happy necessities serenity

No one gives joy or sorrow...We gather the consequences of our own deeds.
Garuda Purana The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness sadness unhappiness actions attitude

Happiness depends on ourselves.
Aristotle The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness attitude choice life living

The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.
Vince Lombardi Lessons from the Art of Juggling
Categories: excellence success commitment life joy happiness

Pleasure is the object, duty, and the goal of all rational creatures.
Voltaire The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happy happiness joy duty goal meaning

Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans: it's lovely to be silly at the right moment.
Horace The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: humor perspective fun living happiness balance

Joy of life seems to me to arise from a sense of being where one belongs...of being four-square with the life we have chosen. All the discontented people I know are trying sedulously to be something they are not, to do something they cannot do...
David Grayson Light from Many Lamps
Categories: joy happiness fulfillment contentment satsifaction authenticity

No one lives forever; therefore, death is in not the issue. Life is. Death is not a failure. Not choosing to take on the challenge of life is.
Bernie S. Siegel Love, Medicine and Miracles : Lessons Learned About Self-Healing from a Surgeon's Experience With Exceptional Patients
Categories: life death living illness joy happiness

The test of enjoyment is the remembrance which it leaves behind.
Logan Pearsall Smith The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: joy happiness happy memories memory remembering

We're never so vulnerable than when we trust someone--but paradoxically, if we cannot trust, neither can we find love or joy.
Walter Anderson The Confidence Course: Sevens Steps to Self-Fulfillment
Categories: trust love joy happiness relationships friendship

It's fun to get together and have something good to eat at least once a day. That's what human life is all about - enjoying things.
Julia Child The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: celebration joy happiness family friends relationships food

The only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.
Albert Schweitzer The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: service ministry purpose fulfillment meaning happiness

Continuity of purpose is one of the most essential ingredients of happiness in the long run, and for most men this comes chiefly through their work.
Bertrand Russell The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: vision mission work meaning happiness fulfillment

To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.
John Dewey The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: work talent ability fulfillment happiness meaning

That is the best part of beauty, which a picture cannot express.
Francis Bacon The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: beauty appearances soul character peace happiness joy

That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.
Henry David Thoreau The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness pleasure materialism frugality fulfillment success

Don't aim at success--the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as to by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run--in the long run, I say!--success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.
Viktor E. Frankl Man's Search for Meaning
Categories: success goal happiness action purpose meaning

We must be doing something to be happy.
William Hazlitt The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness purpose meaning fulfillment mission action

The happiest people are those who are too busy to notice whether they are or not.
William Feather The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happy happiness meaning purpose fulfillment mission

Happiness is essentially a state of going somewhere, wholeheartedly, one-directionally, without regret or reservation.
William H. Sheldon The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness meaning purpose goal fulfillment mission

Live all you can; it's a mistake not to. It doesn't so much matter what you do in particular, so long as you have your life. If you haven't had that, what have you had?
Henry James The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life live happiness action fulfillment success

He who praises another enriches himself far more than he does the one praised. To praise is an investment in happiness. The poorest human being has soemthing to give that the richest could not buy.
George Matthew Adams Words for All Occasions
Categories: happy happiness compliments praise gratitude leadership

It takes more distress and poison to kill someone who has peace of mind and loves life.
Bernie S. Siegel, MD The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: stress anxiety worry happiness peace fulfillment

Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.
Leo Tolstoy The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: focus perception materialism choice possessions happiness

I have a need inside me, of a certain joy, you see? An expression of joy. I feel it. I suppose that I am glad to be alive, glad to have a man whom I love and a life that I enjoy and the things which I work on which sometimes make my spirit sing. And I hope everybody has that feeling inside. I am grateful that I have a spirit inside me which often sings.
Nina Holton, sculptor Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
Categories: joy life living happiness work gratitude spirit

When someone does something good, applaud! You will make two people happy.
Samuel Goldwyn The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy caring sharing appreciation gratitude relationships

A happy life consists in tranquility of mind.
Cicero The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness inner peace thoughts emotional control feelings

Like swimming, riding, writing, or playing golf, happiness can be learned.
Dr. Boris Sokoloff The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: attitude choice happiness depression sadness happy joy

One of the false dichotomies of modern life is that between work and personal time. It is widely held that there is a set of skills that we need for one and quite a different set that we need for the other. But this is not true. The skills of problem-solving, for example are of great value in our personal lives, and overcoming stress and anxiety is a key skill in our work. Being fair to yourself, and to others, helps both personal and work relationships. Low mood is a major cause of unhappiness and also reduces effectiveness at work.
Gillian Butler, PhD and Tony Hope, MD Managing Your Mind
Categories: balance life skills happiness personal effectiveness

Happiness is not a possession to be prized. It is a quality of thought, a state of mind.
Daphne du Maurier, in the novel, Rebecca Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy
Categories: happiness joy positive thinking optimism feelings emotions

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 up against your legs and jumping into your lap.
William Bennett The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy enjoyment work effort meaning purpose

Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.
Kahlil Gibran The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: truth acceptance honesty integrity happiness relationships

To live as fully, as completely as possible, to be happy...is the true aim and end to life.
Llewelyn Powers The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness fulfillment life living success goal

Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happiness sharing joy friendship love relationships attitude

A happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell too much on the future.
Albert Einstein The Quotable Einstein
Categories: happiness joy fulfillment perspective future present enjoyment now

If you observe a really happy man, you will find...that he is happy in the course of living twenty-four crowded hours of each day.
W. Beran Wolfe The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy work effort purpose meaning fulfillment

There is always a realistic way to fulfill any dream. There has never been a dream that you can't have--at least, not the heart of it, not the part you love the most.
Barbara Sher Live the Life You Love
Categories: dreams meaning purpose fulfillment joy happiness success

Success is not a destination that you ever reach. Success is the quality of your journey.
Jennifer James Wake-Up Calls : You Don't Have to Sleepwalk Through Your Life, Love, or Career!
Categories: success growth change life balance joy happiness

There is nothing more tragic than a person who achieves wealth, fame, power or prestige only to find he's lost the love of his family and friends, the respect of his colleagues, and above all has lost the ability to appreciate life for its own sake.
Roger Dawson The 13 Secrets of Power Performance
Categories: balance life happiness purpose meaning fulfillment

Seize the day, and put the least possible trust in tomorrow.
Horace The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: joy living present future fulfillment happiness action

None are homely who smile.
Robert Half The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: appearance joy happy happiness face smiles smiling

That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own self-esteem.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life happiness joy self-esteem self-awareness self-confidence growth

No one is content with his own lot.
Horace The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: content peace serenity acceptance happiness greed want

... success or failure, the truth of a life really has little to do with its quality. The quality of life is in proportion, always, to the capacity for delight. The capacity for delight is the gift of paying attention.
Julie Cameron
Categories: delight joy happiness focus gratitude appreciation awareness

If we really want to live, we'd better start at once to try;
If we don't, it doesn't matter, but we'd better start to die.
W.H. Auden Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement With Everyday Life
Categories: living life joy happiness will choice enjoyment attitude

You will live wisely if you are happy in your lot.
Horace The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: wisdom happiness fulfillment living acceptance greed

When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and bring joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life.
Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D., from the essay "Windows of the Soul" Handbook for the Soul
Categories: self-nurture soul joy happiness peace contentment serenity

When you come right down to it, the secret of having it all is loving it all.
Dr. Joyce Brothers Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: joy enjoyment love acceptance happiness attitude choice

You find yourself refreshed by the presence of cheerful people. Why not make an honest effort to confer that pleasure on others? Half the battle is gained if you never allow yourself to say anything gloomy.
Lydia M. Child Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: attitude happiness joy words speech friendships relationships

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us to really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.
Charles Kingsley The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness enthusiastic excitment meaning purpose fulfillment

You are in charge of your feelings, beliefs, and actions. And you teach others how to behave toward you. While you cannot change other people, you can influence them through your own behaviors and actions. By being a living role model of what you want to receive from others, you create more of what you want in your life.
Eric Allenbaugh Wake-Up Calls : You Don't Have to Sleepwalk Through Your Life, Love, or Career!
Categories: behavior relationships friendships happiness attitude change

It is better to be happy for a moment and be burned up with beauty than to live a long time and be bored all the while.
Don Marquis The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy beauty life boredom ennui priorities

A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it be--without wishing for what he has not.
Lucius Anneaus Seneca Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happiness fulfillment satisfaction contentment greed desire

The habit of being uniformly considerate toward others will bring increased happiness to you.
Grenville Kleiser The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: habit consideration kindness attitude happiness courtesy

In order to be utterly happy the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past, which I often did not fully enjoy because I was comparing them with other moments of the future.
Andre Gide The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness focus now present joy happy past future

Happiness is an action.
David Thomas The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: work effort purpose meaing fulfillment happiness joy

A merry heart doeth good like medicine.
King Solomon Proverbs 17:22, Holy Bible
Categories: attitude joy happiness enthusiasm optimism health wellness

Fear less, hope more; eat less, chew more; whine less, breath more; talk less, say more, and all good things will be yours.
Swedish proverb The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: moderation balance happiness fulfillment joy meaning purpose

The way to find out about your happiness is to keep your mind on those moments when you feel most happy, when you really are happy -- not excited, not just thrilled, but deeply happy. This requires a little bit of self-analysis. What is it that makes you happy? Stay with it, no matter what people tell you. This is what I call 'following your bliss.'
If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. Wherever you are -- if you are following your bliss, you are enjoying that refreshment, that life within you, all the time.
Joseph Campbell Thoughts on Leadership
Categories: happiness joy bliss authenticity purpose meaning fulfillment

We always have enough to be happy if we are enjoying what we do have -- and not worrying about what we don't have.
Ken Keyes, Jr. The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy contentment worry materialism desire longing wishing

He who postpones the hour of living is like the rustic who waits for the river to run out before he crosses.
Horace The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life living present future procrastination joy happiness fulfillment

...the supply of misery, pain, and suffering is unlimited. But so is the supply of pleasure, contentment, and fufillment. It is we who do the rationing.
Ration no more! Capture wellness this instant! This instant is all there is. Live it!
Greg Anderson The 22 Non-Negotiable Laws of Wellness
Categories: wellness happiness pleasure pain fulfillment life contentment

It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation, which give happiness.
Thomas Jefferson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: materialism happiness peace work meaning fulfillment purpose

Develop interest in life as you see it; in people, things, literature, music -- the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.
Henry Miller
Categories: focus awareness growth appreciation gratitude happiness creativity joy

To be kind to all, to like many and love a few, to be needed and wanted by those we love, is certainly the nearest we can come to happiness.
Mary Roberts Rinehart The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: kindness relationships love friendships marriage parenting happiness joy

To improve the golden moment of opportunity, and catch the good that is within our reach, is the great art of life.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life opportunity vision good action happiness success

Life's strict rule is this: You get more of what you focus on. Ignoring this, we abandon our healthiest, concentrative energies and court emotional upheaval.
Marsha Sinetar To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring
Categories: life focus vision stress wellness happiness energy

All men seek one goal: success or happiness. The only way to achieve true success is to express yourself completely in service to society. First, have a definite, clear, practical ideal--a goal, an objective. Second, have the necessary means to achieve your ends--wisdom, money, material and methods. Third, adjust all your means to that end.
Aristotle The Forbes Book of Business Quotations: 14,266 Thoughts on the Business of Life
Categories: goals objectives success happiness action planning priorities

Success, happiness, peace of mind and fulfillment--the most priceless of human treasures--are available to all among us, without exception, who make things happen--who make *good* things happen--in the world around them.
Joe Klock Like Klockwork: The Whimsy, Wit, and (sometime) Wisdom of a Key Largo Curmudgeon
Categories: success happiness peace fulfillment treasure action giving doing

He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.
Johann von Goethe The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy inner peace relationships marriage parenting homelife family

Happiness and misery depend not on how high up or low down you are--they depend not upond these, but on the direction in which you are tending.
Samuel Butler The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: happiness joy misery sadness attitude growth progress vision

There is certainly no greater happiness than to be able to look back on a life usefully and virtuously employed, to trace our own progress in existence by such tokens as excite neither shame nor sorrow.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness life success work achievement progress growth

Life isn't supposed to be an all or nothing battle between misery and bliss. Life isn't supposed to be a battle at all. And when it comes to happiness, well, sometimes life is just okay, sometimes it's comfortable, sometimes wonderful, sometimes boring, sometimes unpleasant. When your day's not perfect, it's not a failure or a terrible loss. It's just another day.
Barbara Sher I Could Do Anything If I Only Knew What It Was
Categories: life sorrow sadness joy happiness failure loss living

Happiness is largely, though certainly not entirely, determined by us -- through hard work (most particularly by controlling our nature) and through attaining wisdom (i.e., developing attitudes that enable us not to despair). Everything worthwhile in life is attained through hard work. Happiness is not an exception.
Dennis Prager Happiness is a Serious Problem: A Human Nature Repair Manual
Categories: happiness self-control wisdom attitudes work meaning fulfillment

Our ways of thinking make our happiness or unhappiness, our success or nonsuccess. We can, by effort, change our ways of thinking.
H. Emilie Cady Lessons in Truth
Categories: optimism thoughts habits beliefs success happiness achievement

When we align our thoughts, emotions, and actions with the highest part of ourselves, we are filled with enthusiasm, purpose, and meaning. Life is rich and full. We have no thoughts of bitterness. We have no memory of fear. We are joyously and intimately engaged with our world. This is the experience of authentic power.
Gary Zukav The Seat of the Soul
Categories: spirituality enthusiasm purpose meaning fulfillment joy happiness attitude

Happiness can be defined, in part at least, as the fruit of the desire and ability to sacrifice what we want now for what we want eventually.
Stephen Covey The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People
Categories: happiness desire sacrifice delayed gratification vision goal

One thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve.
Albert Schweitzer The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: service ministry giving sharing serving volunteerism happiness joy

The best position is one of noninterference with another's peculiar ways of being happy, provided those ways do not interfere by violence with yours.
William James Words for All Occasions
Categories: freedom happiness acceptance toleration relationships society politics

The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions--the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heart-felt compliment, and the countless infinitesimals of pleasurable and genial feeling.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happy joy happiness emotions giving sharing friendships relationships

True happiness...is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.
Helen Keller The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness selfishness purpose goal vision mission meaning

'Tis a gift to be simple,
'Tis a gift to be free,
'Tis a gift to come down
Where we ought to be.
And when we find ourselves
In the place that's right
'Twill be in the valley
Of love and delight.
19th century Shaker hymn Simple Abundance
Categories: authenticity spirituality self-awareness self-knowledge joy happiness meaning fulfillment

If I had no sense of humor, I should long ago have committed suicide.
Mahatma Gandhi The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: humor fun enjoyment happiness laughing laughter humility jokes

If thou wouldst be happy...have an indifference for more than what is sufficient.
William Penn The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: simple simplicity materialism happiness enough satisfaction contentment wants desires

Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.
Martin Luther King, Jr. The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: happiness joy fulfillment service ministry giving sharing volunteerism

I don't think anybody can be a success who doesn't like what they do..[But it's] no job if it has no challenge; there's nothing to it if there are no problems...but the essential thing is liking what you're doing.
Malcolm Forbes To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring
Categories: work job career joy happiness challenge problem-solving entrepreneurship

Accept the pain, cherish the joys, resolve the regrets; then can come the best of benedictions--"If I had my life to live over, I'd do it all the same."
Joan McIntosh The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: acceptance attitude joy pain suffering happiness character choices

Happiness is not in our circumstances, but in ourselves. It is not something we see, like a rainbow, or feel, like the heat of a fire. Happiness is something we are.
John B. Sheerin The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy attitude choice circumstances character sadness depression

Man is only miserable so far as he thinks himself so.
Jacopo Sannazaro Franklin Seasons DayPlanner Friday October 8, 1993
Categories: joy happiness sadness depression attitude emotions feelings choice

You've got to get up every morning with a smile on your face and show the world all the love in your heart. Then people are going to treat you better. You're going to find, yes you will, that you're beautiful as you feel.
Carole King Tapestry by Carole King
Categories: inner beauty attitude optimism self-image happiness appearances joy joy confidence

Happiness walks on busy feet.
Kitte Turmell The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness purpose meaning fulfillment work action mission

It's good to have money and the things that money can buy, but it's good, too, to check up once in a while and make sure you haven't lost the things that money can't buy.
George Lucas Lorimer Light from Many Lamps
Categories: money possessions success happiness meaning fulfillment balance joy

Enjoyment is not a goal, it is a feeling that accompanies important ongoing activity.
Paul Goodman The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: purpose meaning fulfillment work effort happiness joy enjoyment

...recognize that if you don't like your life and if you can't change your external circumstances at this point, you can change your attitude toward your life. You can say, "I choose to be happy. I choose to view what I do every day as a way of contributing love." When you go about your life with this attitude, you'll find that your circumstances do begin to change.
Bernie Siegel, MD Handbook for the Soul
Categories: attitude choice happiness joy work satisfaction purpose meaning

Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.
William James The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: action work effort happiness joy fulfillment purpose meaning

...we have a tendency to obscure the forest of simple joys with the trees of problems.
Christiane Collange Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: joy happiness attitude choice problems difficulties challenges obstacles

Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
Melody Beattie Simple Abundance
Categories: gratitude attitude focus balance happiness joy fulfillment meaning

One of the most tragic things I know about human nature is that all of us tend to put off living. We are all dreaming of some magical rose garden over the horizon--instead of enjoying the roses that are blooming outside our windows today.
Dale Carnegie Light from Many Lamps
Categories: today present now balance joy enjoyment life living happiness

Engrossed late and soon in professional cares, getting and spending, you may so lay waste your powers that you may find, too late, with hearts given away, that there is no place in your habit-stricken souls for those gentler influences which make your life worth living.
Sir William Osler Light from Many Lamps
Categories: balance priorities too busy meaning life joy happiness work

You only live once--but if you work it right, once is enough.
Joe E. Lewis Simple Abundance
Categories: fulfillment meaning joy happiness quality of life living go for the gusto

A serene fortitude in the face of disappointment and chagrin should be our goal. If you have evaded all unhappiness in life your happiness is place in unstable equilibrium by the constant dread that some unavoidable disappointment is just around the corner. If you have faced pain and disappointment, you not only value your happiness more highly, but you are prepared for unpredictable exigencies. Just as we can immunize ourselves against certain bodily diseases by stimulating our reserves to overactivity
W. Beran Wolfe Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happiness adversity challenges growth character perspective pain

We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.
Ann Frank The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: tolerance racism bigotry happiness joy meaning society community

Have a variety of interests...These interests relax the mind and lessen tension on the nervous system. People with many interests live, not only longest, but happiest.
George Matthew Allen The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: hobbies stress longevity happiness happy joy sadness depression

However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in Paradise. Love your life.
Henry David Thoreau The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life happiness acceptance blame complain fulfillment success

The true object of all human life is play.
G.K. Chesterton The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life meaning goal purpose play fun joy happiness happy

Joy is the will which labors, which overcomes obstacles, which knows triumph.
William Butler Yeats The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy challenges obstacles problems difficulties adversity overcome work

Joy increases as you give it, and diminishes as you try to keep it for yourself. In giving it, you will accumulate a deposit of joy greater than you ever believed possible.
Norman Vincent Peale Positive Thinking Every Day
Categories: joy happiness giving sharing selfishness selflessness friendship love relationships

Happiness comes only when we push our brains and hearts to the farthest reaches of which we are capable.
Leo C. Rosten The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness challenge fulfillment dreams goals vision work self-improvement

To live we must conquer incessantly, we must have the courage to be happy.
Frederick Amiel The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: courage strength happiness overcoming challenges difficulties problems adversity

To win one's joy through struggle is better than to yield to melancholy.
Andre Gide The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness struggle challenge pain suffering depression sadness attitude

Make one person happy each day and in forty years you will have made 14,600 human beings happy for a little time, at least.
Charley Willey The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy service ministry volunteerism hugs smiles giving sharing

Prudence keeps life safe, but it does not often make it happy.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: safety caution risk daring courage happiness life joy action

To paraphrase something the anthropologist Ashley Montagu once said, the way I change my life is to act as if I'm the person I want to be. This is, to me, the simplest, wisest advice you can give anyone. When you wake up and act like a loving person, you realize not only that you are altered, but that the people around you are also transformed, because everybody is changed by the reception of this love.
Bernie Siegel Handbook for the Soul
Categories: love choice attitude relationships friendships happiness happy change

For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don't enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are that you're not going to be very happy. If someone bases his happiness or unhappiness on major events like a great new job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn't going to be happy much of the time. If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.
Andy Rooney The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness meaning money wealth materialism possessions success achievement

Life experience teaches that we generally get back what we put out. If we don't like what we are getting back, we should examine what we are putting out.
Eric Allenbaugh Wake-Up Calls : You Don't Have to Sleepwalk Through Your Life, Love, or Career!
Categories: happiness mood attitude reciprocation depression sadness success failure

Joys divided are increased.
Josiah Gilbert Holland Franklin Seasons Planner, September 8, 1993
Categories: joy happiness friendship enjoyment sharing share love relationships marriage

What a man is contributes much more to his happiness than what he has...
What a man is in himself, what accompanies him when he is alone, what no one can give him or take away, is obviously more essential to him than everything he has in the way of possessions, or even what he may be in the eyes of the world.
Arthur Schopenhauer Light from Many Lamps
Categories: self-determination self-worth happiness joy meaning fulfillment character possessions materialism

Thank God every morning when you get up that you have something to do which must be done, whether you like it or not. Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance, self-control, diligence, strength of will, content, and a hundred other virtues which the idle never know.
Charles Kingsley Light from Many Lamps
Categories: work character moderation self-control willpower responsibility joy happiness virtue

Life, we learn too late, is in the living, in the tissue of each day and hour.
Stephen Leacock Light from Many Lamps
Categories: life happiness happy balance present now today joyous enjoyment

...dreams are astoundingly important. They keep nagging you because you're supposed to fulfill them. When you sense you're special, you're not neurotic or grandiose. Something inside you is calling to you and you have to listen. When you love to do something, that means you have a gift for it...And when you're gifted at something, you have to do it.
Barbara Sher Live the Life You Love
Categories: dreams happiness meaning fulfillment purpose joy talents gifts individuality

He that is angry is seldom at ease.
Danish proverb The Prentice-Hall Encyclopedia of World Proverbs
Categories: anger calm serenity peacefulness happiness joy mood feelings emotions

None so little enjoy themselves, and are such burdens to themselves, as those who have nothing to do. Only the active have the true relish of life.
William Jay The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: actions purpose meaning fulfillment work service ministry happiness joy

Seek happiness for its own sake, and you will not find it; seek for duty, and happiness will follow as the shadow comes with the sunshine.
Tyron Edwards The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness work effort ministry service character actions duty

Happiness hates the timid.
Eugene O'Neill The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy happy pleasure timid shy bravery courage risk dare daring

The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves.
Helen Keller Light from Many Lamps
Categories: sharing giving volunteerism share give happiness meaning sadness depression

The man who makes everything that leads to happiness depend upon himself, and not upon other men, has adopted the very best plan for living happily.
Plato The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness relationships friendship attitude responsibility choice depression sadness unhappiness

Happiness comes most to persons who seek her least, and think least about it. It is not an object to be sought; it is a state to be induced. It must follow and not lead. It must overtake you, and not you overtake it.
John Burroughs Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happiness work effort action service ministry meaning purpose fulfillment joy

The best things are nearest: breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of God just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things of life.
Robert Louis Stevenson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy work effort fulfillment meaning daily routine appreciation gratitude

The man is born with a talent which he has meant to use finds his greatest happiness in using it.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: talent ability capacity work success happiness joy meaning fulfillment purpose

The quality of life does not depend on happiness alone, but also on what one does to be happy. If one fails to develop goals that give meaning to one's existence, if one does not use the mind to its fullest, then good feelings fulfill just a fraction of the potential we possess. A person who achieves contentment by withdrawing from the world to 'cultivate his own garden,' like Voltaire's Candide cannot be said to lead an excellent life. Without dreams, without risks, only a trivial semblance of living can be achieved.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi Finding Flow: The Psychololgy of Engagement With Everyday Life
Categories: happiness fulfillment work goals mission self-improvement dreams risks courage

It is the paradox of life that the way to miss pleasure is to seek it first. The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self.
Hugh Black The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: joy happy happiness sadness depression purpose meaning fulfillment service ministry

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition.
Samuel Johnson Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happiness family relationships parenting children ambition success priorities balance

You have the need and the right to spend part of your life caring for your soul. It is not easy. You have to resist the demands of the work-oriented, often defensive, element in your psyche that measures life only in terms of output -- how much you produce -- not in terms of the quality of your life experiences...To be a soulful person means to go against all the pervasive, prove-yourself values of our culture and instead treasure what is unique and internal and valuable in yourself and your own personal evolution.
Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D., from the essay "Windows of the Soul" Handbook for the Soul
Categories: self-nurture life soul work happiness balance self-esteem growth change

If we are ever to enjoy life, now is the time--not tomorrow, nor next year, nor in some future life after we have died. The best preparation for a better life next year is a full, complete, harmonious, joyous life this year. Our beliefs in a rich future life are of little importance unless we coin them into a rich present life. Today should always be our most wonderful day.
Thomas Dreier Light from Many Lamps
Categories: balance priorities work life meaning purpose happiness future present now

Happy is he who learns to bear what he cannot change!
J.C.F. von Schiller The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: acceptance control issues happiness emotions feelings worry anxiety stress

If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.
Albert Einstein The Quotable Einstein
Categories: happiness joy meaning purpose fulfillment goals mission vision achievement success

The road to happiness lies in two simple principles: find what it is that interests you and that you can do well, and when you find it put your whole soul into it -- every bit of energy and ambition and natural ability you have.
John D. Rockefeller III The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness passion hobbies work commitment dedication focus talent fulfillment

Work and play are the same. When you're following your energy and doing what you want all the time, the distinction between work and play dissolves.
Shakti Gawain The Vein of Gold : A Journey to Your Creative Heart
Categories: work effort joy happiness success excellence achievement purpose meaning fulfillment

Celebrate being alive every day. Live your highest aspirations; learn what you always wanted to learn. Don't wait until you get hit by a truck or acquire a terminal illness to change the things that prevent you from living your life to the full. Whatever your habits, whatever your age, you can change...you can learn.
Michael Gelb and Tony Buzan Lessons from the Art of Juggling; How to Achieve Your Full Potential in Business, Learning and Life
Categories: change growth self-improvement breaking habits joy happiness happy fulfillment meaning

Most ordinary situations can be experienced as deliciously pleasurable, or as bitterly disappointing. It depends on how you evaluate them. The more you are enslaved by your desires, the more likely you are to find any given situation disappointing.
Timothy Ray Miller How to Want What You Have
Categories: attitude gratitude perspective choice emotions happiness joy desires wants lusts greed

He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life.
Henry David Thoreau The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: life time success priorities focus vision mission goal happiness

It doesn't take a lot to make me happy. I like to work out. I like to play ball. I like to spend time with my friends. I like to make myself better every day. I like to try to learn. It doesn't take money to do that.
Steve Nash, Phoenix Suns player "Stevie Wonder" by Brian Bujdos, an article in the April 1998 issue of FastBreak magazine
Categories: happiness materialism focus friendship growth learning change self-improvement priorities

It is only possible to live happily ever after on a day to day basis.
Margaret Bonnano 1911 Best Things Anybody Ever Said
Categories: attitude focus balance expectations pressure present future happiness enjoyment

There is only one way to happiness, and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.
Epicetus The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: worry anxiety stress control issues happiness happy emotions feelings

There was never a time when so much official effort was being expended to produce happiness, and probably never a time when so little attention was paid by the individual to creating the personal qualities that make for it. What one misses most today is the evidence of widespread personal determination to develop a character that will in itself, given any reasonable odds, make for happiness. Our whole emphasis is on the reform of living conditions, of increased wages, of controls on the economic structure--the government approach--and so little on man improving himself.
William Ogden, 1945 Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happiness joy meaning fulfillment character self-determination self-improvement attitude growth change

The present time is seldom able to fill desire or imagination with immediate enjoyment, and we are forced to supply its deficiencies by recollection or anticipation.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: present desire imagination vision goal joy happiness memories memory future

Year by year the complexities of this spinning world grow more bewildering and so each year we need all the more to seek peace and comfort in the joyful simplicities.
Woman's Home Companion, December 1935 Simple Abundance
Categories: simplicity joy meaning authenticity fulfillment spirituality happiness stress worry anxiety

Find your true path. It's so easy to become someone we don't want to be, without even realizing it's happening. We are created by the choices we make every day. And if we take action in order to please some authority figure, we'll suddenly wake up down the road and say, "This isn't me. I never wanted to be this person."
Bernie Siegel, MD Handbook for the Soul
Categories: self calling ministry service purpose meaning fulfillment work vocation happiness

If you live only for yourself, you are always in immediate danger of being bored to death with the repetition of your own views and interests.
W. Beran Wolfe Light from Many Lamps
Categories: selfishness selflessness giving sharing volunteerism volunteering meaning fulfillment happiness joy balance

Happiness and love are just a choice away.
Leo Buscaglia Love and Relationships: Inspirations for Meditation and Spiritual Growth by Eileen Campbell
Categories: happiness joy love relationships friendships marriage choice responsibility attitude emotions feelings

Give a man health and a course to steer, and he'll never stop to trouble about whether he's happy or not.
George Bernard Shaw The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness fulfillment meaning goal vision mission health wellness worry happy joy

Perhaps if one really knew when one was happy one would know the things that were necessary for one's life.
Joanna Field Simple Abundance
Categories: happiness joy fulfillment meaning necessities emotions feelings sadness depression self-awareness self-esteem

One does not need buildings, money, power, or status to practice the Art of Peace. Heaven is right where you are standing, and that is the place to train.
Morihei Ueshiba The Art of Peace
Categories: simplicity power status peace joy happiness life success growth heaven money

Not only is there a right to be happy, there is a duty to be happy. So much sadness exists in the world that we are all under obligation to contribute as much joy as lies within our powers.
John Sutherland Bonnell The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy sadness depression despair sharing giving love relationships friendship duty

What you love is as unique to you as your fingerprints. You need to know that because nothing will make you really happy but doing what you love?
Barbara Sher Live the Life You Love
Categories: love gifts talents ability abilities joy purpose meaning vocation happiness fulfillment

Simplicity, clarity, singleness: these are the attributes that give our lives power and vividness and joy.
Richard Halloway The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: vision mission happiness joy fulfillment balance meaning happy determination goal purpose

Very little is needed to make a happy life. It is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.
Marcus Aurelius Lillian Eichler Watson
Categories: happiness attitude depression sadness thought joy inner peace positive thinking focus choice

Unless we think of others and do something for them, we miss one of the greatest sources of happiness.
Ray Lyman Wilbur Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happiness service ministry volunteerism giving sharing volunteering community meaning fulfillment

It is by studying little things that we attain the great knowledge of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible.
Samuel Johnson The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: contemplation study education learning knowledge misery happiness joy attitude focus success

Sometimes it is more important to discover what one cannot do that what one can do. So much restlessness is due to the fact that man does not know what he wants, or he wants too many things, or perhaps he wants to be somebody else, to be anybody except himself. The courage of being one's genuine self, of standing alone and of not wanting to be somebody else!
Lin Yutang Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happiness contentment authenticity transparency jealousy ability skill courage bravery strength

The only truly happy man is always a fighting optimist. Optimism includes not only altruism but also social responsibility, social courage and objectivity.
W. Beran Wolfe Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happiness joy meaning purpose fulfillment giving sharing society community volunteerism volunteering

He is happy whose circumstances suit his temper; but he is more excellent who suits his temper to any circumstances.
David Hume The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness choice optimism positive thinking flexibility emotions feelings self-control inner peace

Life is not always what one wants it to be, but to make the best of it as it is, is the only way of being happy.
Jennie Jerome Churchill The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness attitude optimism positive thinking inner peace self-control joy feelings emotions choice

Oh Infinite Star Giver
I now ask for wisdom and courage
to follow these stars
for their names are many
and my heart is fearful...

They shine on me wherever I go:
The Star of Hope
The Star of Mercy and Compassion
The Star of Justice and Peace
The Star of Tenderness and Love
The Star of Suffering
The Star of Joy
And every time I feel the shine

I am called
to follow it
to sing it
to live it.
Macrina Wiederkehr A Grateful Heart
Categories: wisdom courage bravery meaning fulfillment purpose joy hope character happiness living

It is foolish to postpone enjoyment of your ordinary life until you are more successful, more secure, or more loved than you are today.
Timothy Ray Miller How to Want What You Have
Categories: joy happiness perfectionism routine present life success security love foolishness wisdom

When we can't access our inner resources, we come to the flawed conclusion that happiness and fulfillment come only from external events. That's because external events usually bring with them some sort of change. And so we've learned to rely on circumstances outside ourselves for forward or backward momentum as we hurtle through life. But we don't have to do that any longer. We can learn to be the catalysts for our own change.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance
Categories: change self-improvement growth self-discovery self-awareness happiness emotion mood fulfillment meaning purpose

It's time we put thoughts of lack behind us. It's time for us to discover the secrets of the stars, to sail to an uncharted land, to open up a new heaven where our spirits can soar. But first we'll have to make changes. And lasting change does not happen overnight. Lasting change happens in infinitesimal increments: a day, an hour, a minute, a heartbeat at a time.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance
Categories: worry stress anxiety greed want poverty discovery soul happiness joy change self-improvement habits

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.
W.L. Shirer The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy spirituality sadness depression meditation journaling prayer self-control self-discipline quiet time

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness joy success achievement goal creativity creation work effort purpose meaning fulfillment.

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then, do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.
Margaret Young Simple Abundance
Categories: happiness fulfillment meaning joy priorities balance materialism possessions authenticity transparency ambition greed

Knowing that no one avoids sorrow, humiliation, pain, or death creates a foundation for universal, unconditional compassion. If we know that these things cannot be avoided, then we might try to compete, wish, hope, and fear a little less frantically, which could make life more fun. In other words, when we really get it that life will be painful at times, we become more inclined to "stop and smell the roses."
Timothy Ray Miller How to Want What You Have
Categories: pain tragedy sorrow despair depression mistakes failure common groud leisure joy happiness

Learn how to feel joy.
Seneca The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness choice attitude depression sadness happy unhappiness unhappy learning growth self-improvement

We don't always know what makes us happy. We know, instead, what we think should. We are baffled and confused when our attempts at happiness fail...We are mute when it comes to naming accurately our own preferences, delights, gifts, talents. The voice of our original self if often muffled, overwhelmed, even strangled, by the voices of other people's expectations. The tongue of the original self is the language of the heart.
Julie Cameron The Vein of Gold : A Journey to Your Creative Heart
Categories: happiness happy joy failure gift talent authenticity judgementalism expectations opinions heart emotion spirituality

Why not seize the pleasure at once? How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation?
Jane Austen Treasury of Women's Quotations
Categories: planning vision action goal success preparation delay procrastination fear afraid perfectionism joy happiness

The measure of our future success and happiness will not be the quality of the cards we are dealt by unseen hands, but the poise and wisdom with which we play them.``
Choose to play each hand to the best of your ability without wasting the time or energy it takes to complain about either the cards or the dealer or the often unfair rules of the game.``
Play both the winning and the losing hands as best you can, then fold the cards and ante up for the next deal!
Joe Klock Like Klockwork: The Whimsy, Wit, and (sometime) Wisdom of a Key Largo Curmudgeon
Categories: success future happiness life poise wisdom complaints time energy rules attitude perseverance

To do the useful thing, to say the courageous thing, to contemplate the beautiful thing: that is enough for one man's life.
T.S. Eliot The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: meaning purpose joy happy happiness words courage bravery art nature spirituality character integrity honesty truth

There is more to life than increasing its speed.
Mahatma Gandhi The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: life meaning fulfillment purpose spirituality happiness joy relaxation leisure living busyness smell the roses rest

How we see and hold the full range of our experiences in our minds and in our hearts makes an enormous difference in the quality of this journey we are on, and what it means to us. It can influence where we go, what happens, what we learn, and how we feel along the way.
Jon Kabat-Zinn Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting
Categories: attitude gratitude thought joy happiness emotions life choices decisions learning growth self-improvement experiences perception

Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.
Henry David Thoreau The Forbes Book of Business Quotations
Categories: money materialism possessions necessities soul spirituality priorities happiness joy happy depression poverty rich wealth

Botanists say that trees need the powerful March winds to flex their trunks and main branches, so that the sap is drawn up to nourish the budding leaves. Perhaps we need the gales of life in the same way, though we dislike enduring them. A blustery period in our fortunes is often the prelude to a new spring of life and health, success and happiness, when we keep steadfast in faith and look to the good in spite of appearances.
Jane Truax Words for All Occasions
Categories: storms difficulties challenges obstacles opportunities problems growth maturity faith success happiness attitude optimism optimistic

Most of us are not raised to actively encounter our destiny. We may not know that we have one. As children, we are seldom told we have a place in life that is uniquely ours alone. Instead, we are encouraged to believe that our life should somehow fulfill the expectations of others, that we will (or should) find our satisfactions as they have found theirs. Rather than being taugh to ask ourselves who we are, we are schooled to ask others. We are, in effect, trained to listen to others' versions of ourselves. We are brought up in our life as told to us by someone else! When we survey our lives, seeking to fulfill our creativity, we often see we had a dream that went glimmering because we believed, and those around us believed, that the dream was beyond our reach. Many of us would have been, or at least might have been, done, tried something, if...
If we had known who we really were.
Julie Cameron The Vein of Gold : A Journey to Your Creative Heart
Categories: destiny dream goal vision childraising self-determination self-esteem expectations happiness success creativity imagination potential self-knowledge

The glow of inspiration warms us; it is a holy rapture.
Ovid Light from Many Lamps
Categories: inspiration creativity thought ideas inspiring inspire leadership motivation motivate motivating joy happiness purpose meaning fulfillment

...true happiness stems from a quality within ourselves, from a way of thinking of life. Of all the millions of words written on happiness, this is the oldest and most enduring truth. If the principles of contentment are not within us, no material success, no pleasures or possessions, can make us happy.
Lillian Eichler Watson Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happiness attitude depression contentment materialism sadness success joy happy focus money possessions indulgence balance character

We all have days in our lives that are marked by great moments of rejoicing and celebration...But life is not an endless round of cake and champagne. There's a lot of drudgery to most of our days...To keep our daily round from being all drudgery, we've got to savor the art of the small: discovering delights that bring us peace and pleasure.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance
Categories: routine boredom apathy daily grind happiness emotions meaning fulfillment authenticity joy awareness spirituality focus balance

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one, the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap, the being a force of nature instead of a feverish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.
George Bernard Shaw Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: vision mission service giving sharing volunteerism volunteering joy happiness meaning purpose fulfillment attitude reason for living

To me there is in happiness an element of self-forgetfulness. You lose yourself in something outside yourself when you are happy; just as when you are desperately miserable you are intensely conscious of yourself, are a solid little lump of ego weighing a ton.
J.B. Priestley Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happiness fulfillment meaning selflessness selfishness depression sadness emotions attitude giving sharing community service ministry

Success breeds success. Attend to your mind's most joyful, effective discovery process. Bolster the self-beliefs that add confidence, lucidity, and tenacity to your efforts. You'll get more out of what you notice, so heed whatever gives you wisdom.
Marsha Sinetar To Build the Life You Want, Create the Work You Love: The Spiritual Dimension of Entrepreneuring
Categories: self-confidence self-esteem optimism positive thinking success achievement joy happiness work effort learning knowledge wisdom growth self-improvement

It is not how much you know about life but how you live your life that counts. Those who can avoid mistakes by observing the mistakes of others are most apt to keep free from sorrow. In a world full of uncertainties, the record of what has gone before--human experience--is as sure and reliable as anything of which we know.
Ray Lyman Wilbur Light from Many Lamps
Categories: mistakes observation wisdom learning living life sorrow experience history past errors growth change success happiness

To awaken each morning with a smile brightening my face; to greet the day with reverence for the opportunities it contains; to approach my work with a clean mind; to hold ever before me, even in the doing of little things, the Ultimate Purpose toward which I am working; to meet men and women with laughter on my lips and love in my heart; to be gentle, kind, and courteous through all the hours; to approach the night with weariness that ever woos sleep and the joy that comes from work well done--this is how I desire to waste wisely my days.
Thomas Dekker Light from Many Lamps
Categories: smile happiness opportunity present vision work job purpose love laughter character gentleness kindness courtesy manners sleep joy time

The ingredients of happiness are so simple that they can be counted on one hand. Happiness comes from within, and rests most securely on simple goodness and clear conscience. Religion may not be essential to it, but no one is known to have gained it without a philosophy resting on ethical principles. Selfishness is its enemy; to make another happy is to be happy one's self. It is quiet, seldom found for long in crowds, most easily won in moments of solitude and reflection. It cannot be bought; indeed money has very little to do with it.
William Ogden Light from Many Lamps
Categories: happiness joy character honesty integrity religion philosohpy self-centered vain service ministry giving sharing meditation possessions money materialism

One is happy as a result of one's own efforts--once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness--simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self-denial to a point, love of work, and, above all, a clear conscience.
George Sand The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: work simplicity courage bravery happiness self-control work vocation character

Personally, I experience the greatest degree of pleasure in having contact with works of art. They furnish me with happy feelings of an intensity such as I cannot derive from other realms.
Albert Einstein The Quotable Einstein
Categories: art beauty joy happiness artists artistic expression creativity creative expression artwork

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.
Victor Hugo Love and Relationships: Inspirations for Meditation and Spiritual Growth by Eileen Campbell
Categories: happiness love joy agape love acceptance relationships marriage friendships meaning fulfillment

From quiet homes and first beginning,
Out to the undiscovered ends,
There's nothing worth the wear of winning,
But laughter and the love of friends.
Hilaire Belloc The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Categories: love laughter friendship relationship balance success happiness joy achievement success priorities

...the details of our days do make a difference in our lives...no experience is ever just for drill...everything can be a springboard for inspiration if we are willing to be open to the goodness of life.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance
Categories: routine journaling daily living growth learning change living joy happiness creativity inspired

The full-grown modern human being...is conscious of touching the highest pinnacle of fulfillment..when he is consumed in the service of an idea, in the conquest of the goal pursued.
R. Briffault The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: happiness meaning fulfillment purpose goal meaning achievement

Do not worry; eat three square meals a day; say your prayers; be courteous to your creditors; keep your digestion good; exercise; go slow and easy. Maybe there are other things your special case requires to make you happy; but, my friend, these I reckon will give you a good life.
Abraham Lincoln The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: worry fear anxiety wellness diet food health prayer meditation spirituality courtesy responsibility pace happiness joy simplicity authenticity character

The way to happiness: keep your heart free from hate, your mind from worry. Live simply, expect little, give much. Fill your life with love. Scatter sunshine. Forget self, think of others. Do as you would be done by. Try this for a week and you will be surprised.
Norman Vincent Peale Positive Thinking Every Day: An Inspiration for Each Day of the Year
Categories: attitude happiness hate love worry stress simplicity love kindness selflessness golden rule

What's the use of worrying?
It never was worth while.
So, pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag,
And smile, smile, smile.
George Asaf (George H. Powell) The Penguin Dictionary of Twentieth-Century Quotations
Categories: attitude optimism worry stress anxiety smiling happiness enthusiasm balance joy smiles attitude positive thinking

The authentic self is the soul made visible.
Sarah Ban Breathnach Simple Abundance
Categories: authenticity truth honesty integrity character personality self-esteem self-awareness self-discovery self-confidence joy happiness gifts talents skills ability soul spirituality love

The most rewarding things you do in life are often the ones that look like they cannot be done.
Arnold Palmer Words for All Occasions
Categories: success joy happiness challenge growth success

I believe the root of all happiness on this earth to lie in the realization of a spiritual life with a consciousness of something wider than materialism; in the capacity to live in a world that makes you unselfish because you are not overanxious about your personal place; that makes you tolerant because you realize your own comic fallibilities; that gives you tranquility without complacency because you believe in something so much larger than yourself.
Sir Hugh Walpole Light from Many Lamps
Categories: humility humble happiness joy happy attitude spirituality possessions materialism selfishness selflessness ambition competitiveness sense of humor peace calm serenity faith hope community

You are to gather up the joys and sorrows, the struggles, the beauty, love, dreams and hopes of every hour that they may be consecrated at the altar of daily life.
MacRina Wiederkehr A Tree Full of Angels
Categories: joy sorrow pain suffering love beauty dreams routine living meaning wisdom daily events happiness problems struggles difficulties mistakes sadness goals hopes spirituality

If we could learn how to balance rest against effort, calmness against strain, quiet against turmoil, we would assure ourselves of joy in living and psychological health for life.
Josephine Rathbone The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: wellness balance stress sleep anxiety happiness balance wellness mental health

Positive thoughts (joy, happiness, fulfillment, achievement, worthiness) have positive results (enthusiasm, calm, well-being, ease, energy, love). Negative thoughts (judgement, unworthiness, mistrust, resentment, fear) produce negative results (tension, anxiety, alienation, anger, fatigue).
Peter McWilliams You Can't Afford the Luxury of a Negative Thought
Categories: attitude focus positive negative joy love happiness fulfillment self-esteem enthusiasm serenity peace wellness energy trust resentment fear tension anxiety fear fatigue emotions meaning success health

Nine requisites for contented living:
Health enough to make work a pleasure.
Wealth enough to support your needs.
Strength to battle with difficulties and overcome them.
Grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them.
Patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished.
Charity enough to see some good in your neighbor.
Love enough to move you to be useful and helpful to others.
Faith enough to make real the things of God.
Hope enough to remove all the anxious fears concerning the future.
Johann von Goethe The Book of Positive Quotations
Categories: contentment satisfaction happiness fulfillment health wellness pleasure joy work vocation money strength determination courage bravery heart difficulties challenges obstacles problems illness grace sins forgiveness repentence patience perseverence mercy r

As more people achieve some degree of mental calm, insight, or the ability to transform negative emotions into positive ones, there will be a natural reinforcement of basic human values and consequently a great chance for peace and happiness for all.
The Dalai Lama Living in Balance
Categories: inner peace self-awareness spirituality self-control values happiness calm serenity emotional balance morals ethics relationships joy serenity emotional balance