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Quotes about happiness

248 quotes from 159 people

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Oh, you may be perfectly sure that if Columbus was happy, it was not after he had discovered America, but when he was discovering it!
Fyodor Dostoyevsky1821–1881The Idiot (1869), Part III, Chapter VIn context
There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of living.
Alexandre Dumas1802–1870The Count of Monte Cristo (1844), Volume Five, Chapter 117In context
- Life & Death
Man does not appear to me to be intended to enjoy felicity so unmixed; happiness is like the enchanted palaces we read of in our childhood, where fierce, fiery dragons defend the entrance and approach; and monsters of all shapes and kinds, requiring to be overcome ere victory is ours.
Alexandre Dumas1802–1870The Count of Monte Cristo (1844), Volume One, Chapter 5In context
Some men would rather pursue happiness than obtain it.
Roger Ebert1942–2013
To make a goal of comfort or happiness has never appealed to me; a system of ethics built on this basis would be sufficient only for a herd of cattle.
Albert Einstein1879–1955What I Believe (1930)
- Morality
The happiest women, like the happiest nations, have no history.
George Eliot1819–1880The Mill on the Floss (1860), Book VI, ch. iiiIn context
- History
- Women
Write it on your heart that every day is the best day in the year.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882Society and Solitude (1870), Works and Days
- Time
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.
Ralph Waldo Emerson1803–1882Self-Reliance (1841)In context
I looked upon man’s days, and found a grey
Shadow. And this thing more I surely say,
That those of all men who are counted wise,
Strong wits, devisers of great policies,
Do pay the bitterest toll. Since life began,
Hath there in God’s eye stood one happy man?
Fair days roll on, and bear more gifts or less
Of fortune, but to no man happiness.
Euripides481–407 BCMedea (431 BC), Part 2, spoken by MessengerIn context
- Life & Death
- Wisdom
Start off every day with a smile and get it over with.
W. C. Fields1880–1946
To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.
Gustave Flaubert1821–1880Letters to Madame Louise Colet, 13 August 1846
- Intelligence
But that happiness, no doubt, was a lie invented for the despair of all desire.
Gustave Flaubert1821–1880Madame Bovary (1857), Part II, Chapter FifteenIn context
Happiness in the ordinary sense is not what one needs in life, though one is right to aim at it. The true satisfaction is to come through and see those whom one loves come through.
E. M. Forster1879–1970Selected Letters (1983-1985), Letter 216, to Florence Barger, 11 February 1922
Think of all the beauty that’s still left in and around you, and be happy.
Anne Frank1929–1945
- Beauty
We’re all alive, but we don’t know why or what for; we’re all searching for happiness; we’re all leading lives that are different and yet the same.
Anne Frank1929–1945The Diary of a Young Girl (1942—1944), 6 July 1944 (A version)
- Life & Death