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Quotes about happiness

248 quotes from 159 people

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There runs a strange law through the length of human history — that men are continually tending to undervalue their environment, to undervalue their happiness, to undervalue themselves.
G. K. Chesterton1874–1936The Defendant (1901), “Introduction”
All explorers are seeking something they have lost. It is seldom that they find it, and more seldom still that the attainment brings them greater happiness than the quest.
Arthur C. Clarke1917–2008The City and the Stars (1956), Ch. 23, p. 174
- Motivation & Goals
How ridiculous I was as a Marionette! And how happy I am, now that I have become a real boy!
Carlo Collodi1826–1890The Adventures of Pinocchio (1881–1883), Chapter 36In context
- Change
The superior man is satisfied and composed; the mean man is always full of distress.
Confucius551–479 BCAnalects, Chapter VII, § 36
- Character
It is very important to generate a good attitude, a good heart, as much as possible. From this, happiness in both the short term and the long term for both yourself and others will come.
Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lamaborn 1935Kindness, Clarity, and Insight (1984).
The root of happiness is altruism — the wish to be of service to others.
Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lamaborn 1935The Dalai Lama at Harvard: Lectures on the Buddhist Path to Peace (1988) by Jeffrey Hopkins.
Some of you say religion makes people happy. So does laughing gas. So does whiskey.
Clarence Darrow1857–1938In a debate with religious leaders in Kansas City, as quoted in a eulogy for Darrow by Emanuel Haldeman-Julius (1938)
- Anti-Religion
All our discontents about what we want appeared to me to spring from the want of thankfulness for what we have.
Daniel Defoe1660–1731Robinson Crusoe (1719), Chapter IXIn context
Reflect upon your present blessings — of which every man has many — not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
Charles Dickens1812–1870Sketches by Boz (1836), Characters, Ch. 2: A Christmas Dinner
- Advice
I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world.
Charles Dickens1812–1870A Christmas Carol (1843), Stave VIn context
- Christmas
His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.
Charles Dickens1812–1870A Christmas Carol (1843), Stave VIn context
- Laughter
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.
Charles Dickens1812–1870David Copperfield (1850), Chapter 12In context
- Money
A fool with a heart and no brains is just as unhappy as a fool with brains and no heart.
Fyodor Dostoyevsky1821–1881The Idiot (1869), Part I, Chapter VIIIn context
- Intelligence
It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool’s paradise!
Fyodor Dostoyevsky1821–1881The Idiot (1869), Part IV, Chapter VIn context
- Truth & Lies
I will ask on my own account here, an idle question: which is better⁠—cheap happiness or exalted sufferings?
Fyodor Dostoyevsky1821–1881Notes from Underground (1864), Part II: À Propos of the Wet Snow, Chapter XIn context