The Best Quotes on Happiness

Happiness Quotes

 “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
― Albert Camus

Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.

Jim Rohn

“Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”

― Nathaniel Hawthorne

“Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That's its balance.”
― Osho Rajneesh, Everyday Osho: 365 Daily Meditations for the Here and Now  

“Happiness is not a goal...it's a by-product of a life well lived.”
― Eleanor Roosevelt 

 “The key to happiness - or that even more desired thing, calmness - lies not in always thinking happy thoughts. No. That is impossible. No mind on earth with any kind of intelligence could spend a lifetime enjoying only happy thoughts. They key is in accepting your thoughts, all of them, even the bad ones. Accept thoughts, but don't become them.
Understand, for instance, that having a sad thought, even having a continual succession of sad thoughts, is not the same as being a sad person.”
― Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive

“There's nothing like deep breaths after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore stomach for the right reasons.”
― Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

“No medicine cures what happiness cannot.”
― Gabriel García Márquez 

“Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.”
― George Burns

“If you want to be happy, do not dwell in the past, do not worry about the future, focus on living fully in the present.”
― Roy T. Bennett, The Light in the Heart 

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
― Marcel Proust

 “You can't be happy unless you're unhappy sometimes".”
― Lauren Oliver, Delirium

“Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.”
― Mark Twain

“Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert, Eat, Pray, Love  

“Happiness [is] only real when shared”
― Jon Krakauer, Into the Wild

“Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are a part of your history, but not a part of your destiny.”
― Steve Maraboli

“I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of scenery—air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, "This is what it is to be happy.”
― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

  “Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.”
― Ayn Rand  

  “Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world.”
― Orhan Pamuk, Snow

“Cry. Forgive. Learn. Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness.”
― Steve Maraboli

 “I am not proud, but I am happy; and happiness blinds, I think, more than pride.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“I don’t think man was meant to attain happiness so easily. Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo

“A mathematical formula for happiness:Reality divided by Expectations.There were two ways to be happy:improve your reality or lower your expectations.”
― Jodi Picoult, Nineteen Minutes 

 “Children are happy because they don't have a file in their minds called "All the Things That Could Go Wrong.”
― Marianne Williamson

“There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

“those who do not know how to see the precious things in life will never be happy.”
― Alex Flinn, Beastly

“Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.”
― Ralph Waldo Emerson

“My past has not defined me, destroyed me, deterred me, or defeated me; it has only strengthened me.”
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

“Plant seeds of happiness, hope, success, and love; it will all come back to you in abundance. This is the law of nature.”
― Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

“Everybody in the world is seeking happiness—and there is one sure way to find it. That is by controlling your thoughts. Happiness doesn't depend on outward conditions. It depends on inner conditions.”
― Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People

“You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert  

 “Happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.”
― Marie Rutkoski, The Winner's Curse

“There are two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations.”
― Jodi Picoult, Nineteen Minutes

“People tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will descend like fine weather if you're fortunate. But happiness is the result of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert 

 “Happiness doesn't result from what we get, but from what we give.”
― Ben Carson

“it is impossible to build one's own happiness on the unhappiness of others.”
― Daisaku Ikeda 

 “When you are joyful, when you say yes to life and have fun and project positivity all around you, you become a sun in the center of every constellation, and people want to be near you.”
― Shannon L. Alder

“A flower blossoms for its own joy.”
― Oscar Wilde

 “To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness - though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless.”
― Julian Barnes, Flaubert's Parrot

“Singing in the rain. I'm singing in the rain. And it's such a fucking glorious feeling. An unexpected downpour and I am just giving myself into it. Because what the fuck else can you do? Run for cover? Shriek and curse? No--when the rain falls you just let it fall and you grin like a madman and you dance with it because if you can make yourself happy in the rain, then you're doing pretty alright in life.”
― David Levithan, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

 “I think the saddest people always try their hardest to make people happy because they know what it’s like to feel absolutely worthless and they don’t want anyone else to feel like that.”
― Robin Williams

“The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.”
― James Matthew Barrie

“There are random moments - tossing a salad, coming up the driveway to the house, ironing the seams flat on a quilt square, standing at the kitchen window and looking out at the delphiniums, hearing a burst of laughter from one of my children's rooms - when I feel a wavelike rush of joy. This is my true religion: arbitrary moments of of nearly painful happiness for a life I feel privileged to lead.”
― Elizabeth Berg, The Art of Mending

 “Can a person steal happiness? Or is just another internal, infernal human trick?”
― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief

“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance. The wise grows it under his feet.”
― James Oppenheim

 “Until you make peace with who you are, you'll never be content with what you have.”
― Doris Mortman

“Happiness doesn't lie in conspicuous consumption and the relentless amassing of useless crap. Happiness lies in the person sitting beside you and your ability to talk to them. Happiness is clear-headed human interaction and empathy. Happiness is home. And home is not a house-home is a mythological conceit. It is a state of mind. A place of communion and unconditional love. It is where, when you cross its threshold, you finally feel at peace.”
― Dennis Lehane

 “Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.”
― Aeschylus

 “My only regrets are the moments when i doubted myself and took the safe route. Life is too short to waste time being unhappy.”
― Dan Howell

“I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.”
― Willa Cather, My Ántonia

 “Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations.”
― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

 “nothing wonderful lasted forever. Joy was as fleeting as a shooting star that crossed the evening sky, ready to blink out at any moment.”
― Nicholas Sparks

“We are not going to change the whole world, but we can change ourselves and feel free as birds. We can be serene even in the midst of calamities and, by our serenity, make others more tranquil. Serenity is contagious. If we smile at someone, he or she will smile back. And a smile costs nothing. We should plague everyone with joy. If we are to die in a minute, why not die happily, laughing? (136-137)”
― Sri S. Satchidananda, The Yoga Sutras

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

 “My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations.”
― Michael J. Fox

 “Having a low opinion of yourself is not 'modesty.' It's self-destruction. Holding your uniqueness in high regard is not 'egotism.' It's a necessary precondition to happiness and success.”
― Bobbe Sommer

 “Sometimes we must undergo hardships, breakups, and narcissistic wounds, which shatter the flattering image that we had of ourselves, in order to discover two truths: that we are not who we thought we were; and that the loss of a cherished pleasure is not necessarily the loss of true happiness and well-being. (109)”

― Jean-Yves Leloup, Compassion and Meditation: The Spiritual Dynamic between Buddhism and Christianity

“If we never experience the chill of a dark winter, it is very unlikely that we will ever cherish the warmth of a bright summer’s day. Nothing stimulates our appetite for the simple joys of life more than the starvation caused by sadness or desperation. In order to complete our amazing life journey successfully, it is vital that we turn each and every dark tear into a pearl of wisdom, and find the blessing in every curse.”

― Anthon St. Maarten, Divine Living: The Essential Guide To Your True Destiny