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
“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”
Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
“Happy he who learns to bear what he cannot change.”
Friedrich Schiller
“When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened.”
Winston Churchill
“I’d far rather be happy than right any day.”
Douglas Adams
“Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.”
Andy Rooney
“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.”
James Oppenheim
“Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.”
Benjamin Disraeli
“The greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.”
Martha Washington
“Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.”
Albert Schweitzer
“Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.”
Heraclitus
“Happiness is a how; not a what. A talent, not an object.”
Herman Hesse
“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.”
Aesop
“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“Happiness is something that comes into our lives through doors we don’t even remember leaving open.”
Rose Lane
“The best years of your life are the ones in which you decide your problems are your own. You do not blame them on your mother, the ecology, or the president. You realize that you control your own destiny.”
Albert Ellis
“I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.”
Groucho Marx
“Just because it didn’t last forever, doesn’t mean it wasn’t worth your while.”
Unknown
“Your work is discover your world and then with all your heart give yourself to it.”
Buddha
“That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.”
Henry David Thoreau
“Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.”
Maxim Gorky
“A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor — such is my idea of happiness.”
Leo Tolstoy
“It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
“If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.”
Epicurus
“Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it.”
William Feather
“Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic.”
John Henry Jowett
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
“And remember, no matter where you go, there you are.”
Confucius
“If you are too busy to laugh, you are too busy.”
Proverb
“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature…. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.”
Helen Keller
“For most of life, nothing wonderful happens. If you don’t enjoy getting up and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal with family or friends, then the chances are you’re not going to be very happy. If someone bases his/her happiness on major events like a great job, huge amounts of money, a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn’t going to be happy much of the time.
If, on the other hand, happiness depends on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap, then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.”
Andy Rooney
“Learn to let go. That is the key to happiness.”
Buddha
“The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.”
Andre Maurois
“The grass is always greener where you water it.”
Unknown
“Enjoy your own life without comparing it with that of another.”
Marquis de Condorcet
“On a deeper level you are already complete. When you realize that, there is a playful, joyous energy behind what you do.”
Eckhart Tolle
“The happiest people in the world are those who feel absolutely terrific about themselves, and this is the natural outgrowth of accepting total responsibility for every part of their life.”
Brian Tracy
“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.”
Marcel Proust
“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”
George Bernard Shaw
“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow. It only saps today of its joy.”
Leo Buscaglia
“A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life.”
William Arthur Ward
“Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you.”
Mary Lou Retton
“I believe compassion to be one of the few things we can practice that will bring immediate and long-term happiness to our lives.”
Dalai Lama
“Follow your bliss and don’t be afraid, and doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.”
Joseph Campbell
“Happiness consists of living each day as if it were the first day of your honeymoon and the last day of your vacation.”
Leo Tolstoy
“Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
Abraham Lincoln
“Being happy doesn’t mean everything is perfect. It means you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.”
Unknown
“The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven? And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see in truth that you are weeping for that which has been your delight.”
Kahlil Gibran
“If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you’ll never enjoy the sunshine.”
Morris West
“Life will bring you pain all by itself. Your responsibility is to create joy.”
Milton Erickson
