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Quotes about happiness

248 quotes from 159 people

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Ah, to be you while being I!
To have your glad unconsciousness
And be conscious of it!
Fernando Pessoa1888–1935“Ela canta, pobre ceifeira” (“She sings, poor reaper”), Athena no. 3 (December 1924); tr. Richard Zenith
The happiness that is derived from excitement is like a brilliant fire — soon it will go out.
Bruce Lee1940–1973The Warrior Within: The Philosophies of Bruce Lee (1996), p. 66
Where there is no joy there can be no courage; and without courage all other virtues are useless.
Edward Abbey1927–1989Desert Solitaire (1968), “Water”, p. 113
- Courage
- Virtue
Of the gladdest moments in human life, methinks is the departure upon a distant journey to unknown lands.
Richard Francis Burton1821–1890Journal Entry (2 December 1856)
Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness.
John Stuart Mill1806–1873Autobiography (1873), Ch. 5: A Crisis in My Mental History. One Stage Onward. (p. 142)
In every part and corner of our life, to lose oneself is to be a gainer; to forget oneself is to be happy.
Robert Louis Stevenson1850–1894Old Mortality (1884).
People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.
IMIris Murdoch1919–1999A Fairly Honourable Defeat (1970); 2001, p. 170.
- Nature
Self-knowledge is no guarantee of happiness, but it is on the side of happiness and can supply the courage to fight for it.
Simone de Beauvoir1908–1986Force of Circumstances Vol. III (1963) as translated by Richard Howard (1968)
- Knowledge
A thinking man’s greatest happiness is to have fathomed what can be fathomed and to revere in silence what cannot be fathomed.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe1749–1832Maxims and Reflections (1833), Maxim 1207, trans. Stopp (p153)
- Thinking
The greater part of human activity is designed to make permanent those experiences and joys which are only lovable because they are changing.
Alan Watts1915–1973The Wisdom of Insecurity (1951), p. 32
- Change
Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.
W. Somerset Maugham1874–1965The Razor’s Edge (1943)
- Change
Ah, life is a gate, a way, a path to Paradise anyway, why not live for fun and joy and love or some sort of girl by a fireside, why not go to your desire and LAUGH…
Jack Kerouac1922–1969Big Sur (1962)
- Life & Death
To be happy, one only must be able to confront, which is to say, experience, those things that are. Unhappiness is only this: the inability to confront that which is.
L. Ron Hubbard1911–1986A New Slant on Life (1998).
A warrior knows that he is waiting and knows also what he is waiting for, and while he waits he feasts his eyes on the world. The ultimate accomplishment of a warrior is joy.
CCCarlos Castaneda1925–1998The Eagle’s Gift, (1981)
Happiness can not come to any man capable of enjoying true happiness unless it comes as the sequel to duty well and honestly done.
Theodore Roosevelt1858–1919Address at the Prize Day Exercises at Groton School (1904)
- Responsibility