Happiness Quotes

Happiness does not consist in pastimes and amusements but in virtuous activities.

Aristotle

Happiness resides not in posessions and not in gold; the feeling of happiness dwells in the soul.
Democritus

People with many interests live, not only longest, but happiest.
George Matthew Allen

In the hopes of reaching the moon men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet.
Albert Schweitzer

Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.
Aldous Huxley
 

There is only one person who could ever make you happy, and that person is you.
David Burns, Intimate Connections

Happiness consists in activity: such is the constitution of our nature; 

it is a running stream, and not a stagnant pool.
John M. Good

Men spend their lives in anticipations,in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.
Charles Caleb Colton

Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though 'twere his own.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 

Happiness is not a matter of events, it depends upon the tides of the mind.
Alice Meynell

Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.
Epictetus 

Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind than on outward circumstances.
Benjamin Franklin

There is only one way to happiness, and that is to cease worrying things which are beyond the power of our will.
Epictetus

I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than attempting to satisfy them.
John Stuart Mills

You're happiest while you're making the greatest contribution.
Robert F. Kennedy

Great effort from great motives is the best definition of a happy life.
William Ellery Channing

There is more to life than increasing its speed.
Mahatma Ghandi

The rays of happiness, like those of light, are colorless when unbroken.
Henry W. Longfellow

Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in strangers' gardens.
Douglas Jerrold

Happiness is where we find it, but rarely where we seek it.
J. Petit Senn

To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.
Albert Camus

Happiness depends upon ourselves.
Aristotle

Try to be happy in this present moment, and put not off being so to a time to come,—as though that time should be of another make from this which has already come and is ours.
Thomas Fuller

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.
George Santayana

No man is happy who does not think himself so.
Publilius Syrus

Our minds are as different as our faces: we are all traveling to one destination;

--happiness; but few are going by the same road.
Charles Caleb Colton

inspirational quotes

A life without purpose is a languid, drifting thing; Every day we ought to review our purpose, saying to ourselves: This day let me make a sound beginning, for what we have hitherto done is naught!
-- Thomas A. Kempis

A man's character may be learned from the adjectives which he habitually uses in conversation.
-- Mark Twain

Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway.
-- Mary Kay Ash

All misfortune is but a stepping stone to fortune.
-- Henry David Thoreau

Anyone can sympathize with the sufferings of a friend, but it requires a very fine nature to sympathize with a friend's success.
-- Oscar Wilde

As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might.
-- Marian Anderson

Beauty, truth, friendship, love, creation – these are the great values of life. We can't prove them, or explain them, yet they are the most stable things in our lives.
-- Jesse Herman Holmes

Character may be manifested in the great moments, but it is made in the small ones.
-- Phillips Brooks

Don’t limit yourself. Many people limit themselves to what they think they can do. You can go as far as your mind lets you. What you believe, remember, you can achieve.
-- Mary Kay Ash

Dreams are renewable. No matter what our age or condition, there are still untapped possibilities within us and new beauty waiting to be born.
-- Dr. Dale Turner

Each player must accept the cards life deals him or her: but once they are in hand, he or she alone must decide how to play the cards in order to win the game.
-- Voltaire

Enthusiasm is the best protection in any situation. Wholeheartedness is contagious. Give yourself, if you wish to get others.
-- David Seabury

Everyone who has ever taken a shower has had an idea. It's the person who gets out of the shower, dries off, and does something about it that makes a difference.
-- Nolan Bushnell

Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see the beauty, believe in them and try to follow where they lead.
-- Louisa May Alcott

Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
-- Will Rogers

Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling.
-- Margaret B. Runbeck

Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.
-- Leon J. Suenes

I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was for it regardless of the possible outcome.
-- Golda Meir

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

I think the key is for women not to set any limits.
-- Martina Navratilova

I'm not afraid of storms, for I'm learning to sail my ship.
-- Louisa May Alcott

I've learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances.
-- Martha Washington

If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.
-- Margaret Fuller

If you have made mistakes...there is always another chance for you...you may have a fresh start any moment you choose, for this thing we call "failure" is not the falling down, but the staying down.
-- Mary Pickford

If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness, and fears.
-- Glenn Clark

If your ship doesn't come in, swim out to it.
-- Jonathan Winters

In every person who comes near you look for what is good and strong; honor that; try to imitate it, and your faults will drop off like dead leaves when their time comes.
-- John Ruskin

Instruction does not prevent wasted time or mistakes; and mistakes themselves are often the best teachers of all.
-- James Anthony Froude

It is more important to know where you are going than to get there quickly.
-- Mabel Newcomber

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.
-- Seneca

It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, "Always do what you are afraid to do.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life isn't about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.
-- George Bernard Shaw

Live your life each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional glance towards the summit keeps the goal in mind, but many beautiful scenes are to be observed from each new vantage point.
-- Harold B. Melchart

Many of our fears are tissue paper thin, and a single courageous step would carry us clear through them.
-- Brendan Francis

No pleasure philosophy, no sensuality, no place nor power, no material success can for a moment give such inner satisfaction as the sense of living for good purposes, for maintenance of integrity, for the preservation of self-approval.
-- Minot Simons

Nothing contributes so much to tranquilize the mind as a steady purpose -- a point on which the soul may fix its intellectual eye.
-- Mary Shelley

Nothing is predestined: The obstacles of your past can become the gateways that lead to new beginnings.
-- Ralph Blum

Ordinary riches can be stolen, real riches cannot. In your soul are infinitely precious things that cannot be taken from you.
-- Oscar Wilde

Perseverance is failing nineteen times and succeeding the twentieth.
-- Julie Andrews

Perseverance is a great element of success. If you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you are sure to wake up somebody.
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many—not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some.
-- Charles Dickens

Success is the good fortune that comes from aspiration, desperation, perspiration and inspiration.
-- Evan Esar

The abundant life does not come to those who have had a lot of obstacles removed from their path by others. It develops from within and is rooted in strong mental and moral fiber.
-- William Mather Lewis

The beauty of the soul shines out when a man bears with composure one heavy mischance after another, not because he does not feel them, but because he is a man of high and heroic temper.
-- Aristotle

The best portion of a good man's life is the little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and love.
-- William Wordsworth

The best way to prepare for life is to begin to live.
-- Elbert Hubbard

The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.
-- Mark Twain

The three great essentials to achieving anything worthwhile are; first, hard work, second, stick-to-it-iveness, and third, common sense.
-- Thomas Edison

We are all inventors, each sailing out on a voyage of discovery, guided each by a private chart, of which there is no duplicate. The world is all gates, all opportunities.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires courage.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

You don't get to choose how you're going to die, or when. You can only decide how you're going to live now.
-- Joan Baez

You must learn day by day, year by year, to broaden your horizon. The more things you love, the more you are interested in, the more you enjoy, the more you are indignant about, the more you have left when anything happens.
-- Ethel Barrymore

Imagination

The imagination exercises a powerful influence over every act of sense, thought, reason,
-- over every idea.
~Latin Proverb

Solitude is as needful to the imagination as society is wholesome for the character.
~James Russel Lowell 

Far away in the sunshine are my highest aspirations. I may not reach them, but I can look up and see their beauty, believe in them, and try to follow where they lead.
~Louisa May Alcott

Imagination is more important than knowledge.
~Albert Einstein

He who has imagination without learning, has wings and no feet.
~Joseph Joubert

Hope is the dream of a man awake.
~French Proverb

A strong imagination begetteth opportunity.
~Michel de Montaigne

Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions.
~Albert Einstein

Where beams of imagination play,
The memory's soft figures melt away.
~Alexander Pope 

Believe that you have it, and you have it.
~Latin Proverb

The imagination is the secret and marrow of civilization.
~Henry Ward Beecher

Imagine every day to be the last of a life surrounded with hopes, cares, anger, and fear. The hours that come unexpectedly will be so much more the grateful.
~Horace 

Imagination is the eye of the soul.
~Joseph Joubert

You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.
~Mark Twain