Thoughts of Happy Quotes in English and Sayings

Happiness, in this world, if it comes at all, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us on a wild-goose chase, and it is never attained.

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

I see nothing wrong with the human trait to desire. In fact, I consider it integral to our success mechanism. Becoming attached to what we desire is what causes the trouble. If you must have it in order to be happy, then you are denying the happiness of the here and now.

- Peter McWilliams

The belief that youth is the happiest time of life is founded on fallacy. The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts, and we grow happier as we grow older.

- William Lyon Phelps

True happiness must have the tinge of sorrow outlived, the sense of pain softened by the mellowing years, the chastening of loss that in the wondrous mystery of time transmutes our suffering into love and sympathy with others.

- William George Jordan Quotation

There is joy in work. All that money can do is buy us some one else's work in exchange for our own. There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.

- Henry Ford

So I have loitered my life away, reading books, looking at pictures, going to plays, hearing, thinking, writing on what pleased me best. I have wanted only one thing to make me happy, but wanting that have wanted everything.

- William Hazlitt

Money may be the husk of many things, but not the kernel. It brings you food, but not appetite; medicine, but not health; acquaintances, but not friends; servants, but not faithfulness; days of joy, but not peace or happiness.

- Henrik Ibsen

Happiness is always a byproduct. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.

- Robert Davies

The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions - the little, soon forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment, and the countless infinitesimals of pleasurable and genial feeling.

- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"Each has his own happiness in his hands, as the artist handles the rude clay he seeks to reshape it into a figure; yet it is the same with this art as with all others: only the capacity for it is innate; the art itself must be learned and painstakingly practiced.

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

What is the best thing for a stream? It is to keep moving. If it stops, it stagnates. So the best thing for a man is that which keeps the currents going - the physical, the moral, and the intellectual currents. Hence the secret of happiness is something to do; some congenial work. Take away the occupation of all men, and what a wretched world it would be! Few persons realize how much of their happiness is dependent upon their work, upon the fact that they are kept busy and not left to feed upon themselves. Happiness comes most to persons who seek her least, and think least about it. It is not an object to be sought; it is a state to be induced. It must follow and not lead. It must overtake you, and not you overtake it. How important is health to happiness, yet the best promoter of health is something to do. Blessed is the man who has some congenial work, some occupation in which he can put his heart, and which affords a complete outlet to all the forces there are in him.

- John Burroughs

Happy Quotes List

Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.

- A Quotation From Ralph Waldo Emerson Download or Share

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.

- Siddhartha Guatama Buddha Download or Share

Love is the master key that opens the gates of happiness.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Download or Share

Happiness doesn’t depend on what we have, but it does depend on how we feel towards what we have. We can be happy with little and miserable with much.

- W. D. Hoard Download or Share

Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life.

- Burton Hills Download or Share

If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day, go fishing.
If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime, help someone else.

Chinese Proverb Download or Share

No medicine cures what happiness cannot.

- Thoughts from Gabriel García Márquez Download or Share

Being happy never goes out of style.

- Lilly Pulitzer Download or Share

A smile is the beauty of the soul.

- Lailah Gifty Download or Share

Being happy is not the only happiness.

- Alice Walker Download or Share

Happiness is itself a kind of gratitude.

- Joseph Wood Krutch Download or Share

Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

- Marthe Troly-Curtin Download or Share

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

- Aristotle Download or Share

There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness.

- Lady Blessington Download or Share

The key to happiness was achievable dreams.

- Nicholas Sparks Download or Share

Whoever is happy will make others happy too.

- Anne Frank Download or Share

To love another person is to see the face of God.

- Victor Huge Download or Share

There is more to life than increasing its speed.

- Mahatma Gandhi Download or Share

Happiness, like unhappiness, is a proactive choice.

- Stephen R. Covey Download or Share

All I can say about life is, Oh God, enjoy it!

- Bob Newhart

Start doing things to make you happy.

- Reyna Biddy

Happiness is only real when shared.

- John Krakaur

Man is the artificer of his own happiness.

- Henry David Thoreau

Very little is needed to make a happy life.

- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.

- Omar Khayyam

Sometimes it's hard to avoid the happiness of others.

- David Assael

Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.

- Ludwig Jacobowski

To fall in love with yourself is the first secret to happiness.

- Robert Morley

Happiness is a way station between too much and too little.

- Channing Pollock

A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.

- Happy Quotes by Anatole France

There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.

- George Sand

He who sings frightens away his ills.

- Miguel de Cervantes

Experience praises the most happy is the one who made the most people happy.

- Karl Marx

An effort made for the happiness of others lifts above ourselves.

- Lydia M. Child

People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.

- Abraham Lincoln

Happiness is your own treasure because it lies within you.

- Prem Rawat

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

- Dalai Lama XIV

Happiness is a stock that doubles in a year.

- Ira U. Cobleigh

Natural joy brings no headaches and no heartaches.

- Elbert Green Hubbard

Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

- Abraham Lincoln

Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.

- Anne Frank

Whatever happens, just keep smiling and lose yourself in love.

- Rumi

It’s the most beautiful job in the world to give happiness to people.

- Hubert de Givenchy

The happiness you feel is in direct proportion with the love you give.

- Oprah

If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.

- Albert Einstein

If only we’d stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time.

- Edith Wharton

It’s a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.

- Lucille Ball

Life finds its purpose and fulfilment in the expansion of happiness.

- Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.

- Thomas Merton

It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.

- Seneca

In times of joy, all of us wished we possessed a tail we could wag.

- W. H. Auden

People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy.

- Anton Chekhov

Cherish all your happy moments: they make a fine cushion for old age.

- Christopher Morley

That is the best kind of voyeurism, hearing joy from your neighbors.

- Chuck Sigars

True happiness consists not in the multitude of friends, but in their worth and choice.

- Ben Johnson

Let us always meet each other with a smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.

- Mother Teresa

Action may not bring happiness but there is no happiness without action.

-​ William James

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

- Abraham Lincoln

We don’t laugh because we’re happy – we’re happy because we laugh.

- William James

The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp.

- John Berry

We don’t laugh because we’re happy – we’re happy because we laugh.

- William James

We don’t laugh because we’re happy – we’re happy because we laugh.

-William James

Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook and a good digestion.

- Jean Jacques Rousseau

Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.

- Dalai Lama

We must laugh before we are happy, for fear of dying without having laughed at all.

- Jean de La Bruyere

A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.

- Franklin D. Roosevelt

The first recipe for happiness is avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.

- Andre Maurois

If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us least live so as to deserve it.

- Immanuel Hermann Fichte

Happiness isn't something you experience, it's something you remember.

- Oscar LeVant

Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world.

- Orhan Pamuk

I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse.  I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.

- J.D. Salinger

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.

- Mother Theresa

Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.

- Guillaume Apollinaire

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

- Ermest Hemingway

One is never so happy or so unhappy as one thinks.

- Francois Duc de La Rochefoucauld

Happiness is like a kiss. You must share it to enjoy it.

- Bernard Melzer Download or Share

For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Download or Share

Life’s greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.

Victor Marie Hugo Download or Share

A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.

Anatole France Download or Share

A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.

- Hugh Downs Download or Share

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.

Robert Lee Frost

The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.

- Eric Hoffer

How would you know what happy is if you've never been otherwise.

- Malcolm S. Forbes

Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy.

- Cythina Nelms

It is the chiefest point of happiness that a man is willing to be what he is.

- Desiderius Erasmus Quotation

We are never so happy, nor so unhappy, as we suppose ourselves to be.

- Francois Duc de La Rochefoucauld

It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation, which give happiness.

- Thomas Jefferson

That action is best which procures the greatest happiness for the greatest numbers.

- Francis Hutcheson

A person is never happy till their vague strivings has itself marked out its proper limitations.

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

In our daily lives, we must see That it is not happiness that makes us grateful, But the gratefulness that makes us happy.

Albert Clarke

To find out what one is fitted to do and to secure an opportunity to do it is the key to happiness.

- John Dewey

Happiness consists more in small conveniences of pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom to a man in the course of his life.

- Benjamin Franklin

Be unselfish. That is the first and final commandment for those who would be useful and happy in their usefulness. If you think of yourself only you cannot develop because you are choking the source of development, which is spiritual expansion through thought for others.

George Eliot

The U.S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.

- Benjamin Franklin

There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.

- Dr. Samuel Johnson

Happiness is as a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, my alight upon you.

- Nathaniel Hawthorne

We are more interested in making others believe we are happy than in trying to be happy ourselves.

- Francois Du de La Rochefoucauld

We never enjoy perfect happiness; our most fortunate successes are mingled with sadness; some anxieties always perplex the reality of our satisfaction.

- Pierre Corneille

If you would find happiness and joy, lose your life in some noble cause. A worthy purpose must be at the center of every worthy life.

- Jack H. Goaslind, Jr.

The happiest people seem to be those who have no particular reason for being happy except that they are so.

- Dr. David Ralph Inge

I remember hearing in a talk that the more we express our gratitude to God for our blessings, the more he will bring to our mind other blessings. The more we are aware of to be grateful for, the happier we become.

- Ezra Taft Benson

If men would consider not so much wherein they differ, as wherein they agree, there would be far less of uncharitableness and angry feeling in the world.

- Joseph Addison

Happiness is a man’s greatest achievement; it is the response of his total personality to a productive orientation toward himself and the world outside.

- Erich Fromm

Happiness is not given but exchanged.

- Diane Download or Share

If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.

- Epicurus Download or Share

The purpose of our lives is to be happy.

- Dalai Lama Download or Share

The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts.

- Timothy Dwight Download or Share

No man can be happy without a friend, nor be sure of his friend until he is unhappy.

- Thomas Fuller Download or Share

Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.

- Benjamin Disraeli Download or Share

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

- George Burns Download or Share

Anybody who is happy all the time needs a psychiatrist.

- David A. Christensen Download or Share *

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

- Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Download or Share

Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.

- Dale Carnegie Download or Share

The envious are not happy unless they are making other people envious.

- Diane Download or Share

Remember happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely on what you think.

- Dale Carnegie Download or Share

Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them.

- Albert Camus Download or Share

The grand essentials of happiness are: something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

- Allan K. Chalmers Download or Share

There may be Peace without Joy, and Joy without Peace, but the two combined make Happiness.

- Sir John Buchan Download or Share

There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.

- Henry Ford Download or Share

The gift of happiness belongs to those who unwrap it.

- Andrew Dunbar Download or Share

Set peace of mind as your highest goal and organize your entire life around it.

- Brian Tracy Download or Share

Happiness depends, as Nature shows, Less on exterior things than most suppose.

- William Cowper Download or Share

The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.

- Francis Herbert Bradley Download or Share

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness. Just because they're not on your road doesn't mean they've gotten lost.

- H.Jackson Browne Download or Share

Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste.

- Charlotte Bronte Download or Share

One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.

- Ritz Mae Brown Download or Share

You can make yourself happy or miserable, it's the same amount of effort.

- Ray Bradbury Download or Share

Most of us would be upset if we were accused of being "silly" comes from the old English word "seilig" and it's literal definition is "to be blessed , happy, healthy and prosperous.

- Zig Ziglar Download or Share

Don't mistake pleasure for happiness. They are a different breed of dogs.

- Josh Billings Download or Share

Happiness is good health and a bad memory.

- Ingrid Bergman Download or Share

Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response.

- Mildred Barthel Download or Share

The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it.

- Richard David Bach Download or Share

Most people would rather be certain they’re miserable, than risk being happy.

- Dr. Robert Anthony Download or Share

If I keep a green bough in my heart, the singing bird will come.

- Chinese Proverb Download or Share

The chief cause of failure and unhappiness is trading what you want the most for what you want now.

- Zig Ziglar Download or Share

Be helpful. When you see a person without a smile, give him yours.

- Zig Ziglar Download or Share

Happiness, it is said, is seldom found by those who seek it, and never by those who seek it for themselves.

- F. Emerson Andrews Download or Share

Pleasure is not happiness. It has no more importance than a shadow following a man.

- Muhammad Ali Download or Share

Be happy while you’re living, for you’re a long time dead.

- Scottish Proverb Download or Share

We must dare to be happy, and dare to confess it, regarding ourselves always as the depositories, not as the authors of our own joy.

- Henri Frediric Amiel Download or Share

The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.

- James M. Barrie Download or Share

Happiness only real when shared.

Christopher McCandless

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.

- Franklin Roosevelt Download or Share

Action may not bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.

- William James Download or Share

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.

- Albert Schweitzer Download or Share

Be happy in the moment, that’s enough. Each moment is all we need, not more.

- Mother Teresa

A smile is happiness you’ll find right under your nose.

- Tom Wilson

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.

- Mahatma Gandhi

Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.

- Aeschylus

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. 

- Abraham Lincoln

The person who has a firm trust in the Supreme Being is powerful in his power, wise by his wisdom, happy by his happiness.

- Joseph Addison Download or Share

The secret fo happiness is to make others believe they are the cause of it.

- Al Batt

Everywhere you go, take a smile with you.

- Sasha Azevedo

For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.

- James Matthew Barrie

I am happy because I’m grateful. I choose to be grateful. That gratitude allows me to be happy.

- Will Arnett

You have everything you need for complete peace and total happiness right now.

Wayne Dyer

Nothing can bring you happiness but yourself.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.

- Charles Spurgeon Download or Share

Whoever is happy will make others happy too. He who has courage and faith will never perish in misery.

- Anne Frank

Be happy. It’s one way of being wise.

- Colette Download or Share

When I am myself, I am happy and have a good result.

- Jack Ma Download or Share

If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence.

- Aristotle

I love you not because of who you are, but because of who I am when I am with you.

- Roy Croft

The greatest part of our happiness depends on our dispositions, not our circumstances.

- Martha Washington

Success means being happy with who you are and bringing happiness to those around you.

- Jane John Nwankwo

Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.

- John Stuart Mill

If you feel happy, Smile with all your heart. if you’re down, smile with all your might.

- Paul Ian Guillermo

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.

- Robert A. Heinlein

Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one's values.

- Ayn Rand

Labor, if it were not necessary for existence, would be indispensable for the happiness of man.

- Dr. Samuel Johnson

My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations.

- Michael J. Fox

The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase; if you pursue happiness you'll never find it.

- C. P. Snow

What’s fulfilling is being happy and being able to help other people. The simple things.

- James Arthur

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.

- James Oppenheim

At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities.

- Jean Houston

Laughing is the sensation of feeling good all over and showing it principally in one spot.

- Josh Billings

It is pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness; poverty and wealth have both failed.

- Kin Hubbard

Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out of it alive.

- Elbert Hubbard

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

- Douglas Jerrold

Happy is entirely up to you and always has been.

- Janette Rallison

Seek not happiness too greedily, and be not fearful of happiness.

- Lao-tzu

When you relinquish the desire to control your future, you can have more happiness.

- Nicole Kidman

We don’t laugh because we’re happy – we’re happy because we laugh.

- William James

Happiness is the soul's joy in the possession of the intangible.

- William George Jordan

I define joy as a sustained sense of well-being and internal peace - a connection to what matters.

- Oprah Winfrey

Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment, it is a result.

- Robert Green Ingersoll

Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.

- Helen Adams Keller

Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.

- Anne Frank

The greatest happiness of life it the conviction that we are loved - loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

- Victor Marie Hugo

The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment.

- Doug Larson

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.

- George Orwell

True happiness, we are told, consists in getting out of one's self, but the point is not only to get out, you must stay out; and to stay out you must have some absorbing errand.

- Henry James Jr.

One of the great joys of life is creativity. Information goes in, gets shuffled about, and comes out in new and interesting ways.

- Peter McWilliams

Happiness is something that comes into our lives through doors we don't even remember leaving open.

- Rose Lane

Doing what you like is freedom. Liking what you do is happiness.

- Frank Tyger

Happiness isn't something you experience; it’s something you remember.

- Oscar Levant

No man is happy who does not think himself so.

- Publilius Syrus

One of the keys to happiness is bad memory.

- Rita Mae Brown

It’s a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.

- Lucille Ball

Remember that happiness is a way of travel - not a destination.

- Roy M. Goodman

Depend not on another, but lean instead on thyself… True happiness is born of self-reliance.

- The laws of Manu

True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self.

- Joseph Addison

Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.

- Victor Hugo

I enjoyed my life when I had nothing… and kinda like the idea of just being happy with me.

- Joey Ramone

The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose.

- William Cowper

Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

- ​Abraham Lincoln

What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.

- Colette

True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self.

- Joseph Addison

I would do my damn best to be more happy than not.

- Adam Silvera

Of cheerfulness, or a good temper, the more it is spent, the more of it remains.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

- Marcus Aurelius

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

- John Stuart Mill

Human felicity is produced not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day.

- Benjamin Franklin

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.

- Dalai Lama

People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy.

- Anton Chekhov

Life will bring you pain all by itself. Your responsibility is to create joy.

- Milton Erickson

The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.

- James M. Barrie

The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.

- Mark Twain

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated.

- Confucius

Happiness doesn’t have to be chased…it merely has to be chosen.

- Mandy Hale

The simplest things can bring the most happiness.

- Izabella Scorupco

Happiness is a state of activity.

- Aristotle

Success is getting and achieving what you want. Happiness is wanting and being content with what you get.

- Bernard Meltzer

If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you’ll never enjoy the sunshine.

- Morris West

Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.

- Storm Jameson

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

- Gustave Flaubert

Definition of happiness: The full use of your powers along lines of excellence.

- John Fitzgerald Kennedy

Whoever said money can't buy happiness didn't know where to shop.

- Gittel Hudnick

He is happy that knoweth not himself to be otherwise

- Thomas Fuller