Quotes about happiness

He didn't have a worry in the world back then. He was in paradise and didn't know it.

Existence itself does not feel horrible; it feels like an ecstasy, rather, which we have only to be still to experience.

A happy childhood has spoiled many a promising life.

As I walked down the avenue of maples that leads toward the University Bookstore I was as happy as I suppose it is in my nature to be; my nature tends toward happiness, or toward enthusiastic industry, which for me is the same thing.

"Nitwit!", said Cobbler, "Your first book won't be a success. Don't make marriage conditional on the success of a book, or your mother dying, or anything unlikely of that sort. Put first things first. Get married, and plunge into all the uproar of baby-raising, and loading yourself up with insurance and furniture and all the frowsy appurtenances of domestic life, as soon as you can. You'll survive. Millions do. And deep down under all the trash-heap of duty and respectability and routine you may, if you're among the lucky ones, find a jewel of happiness. I know all about it, and I assure you on my sacred honour that it's worth a try."

Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience; or give it a more fascinating name: call it hope.

People who are busy and happy don’t write diaries; they are too busy living.

I made a very important discovery at Camp Currie. Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that, nothing more. All the wealthy, unhappy people you've ever met take sleeping pills; Mobile Infantrymen don't need them. Give a cap trooper a bunk and time to sack out in it, and he's as happy as a worm in an apple—asleep.

"Ah yes, [life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness]... Life? What 'right' to life has a man who is drowning in the Pacific? The ocean will not hearken to his cries. What 'right' to life has a man who must die to save his children? If he chooses to save his own life, does he do so as a matter of 'right'? If two men are starving and cannibalism is the only alternative to death, which man's right is 'unalienable'? And is it 'right'? As to liberty, the heroes who signed the great document pledged themselves to buy liberty with their lives. Liberty is never unalienable; it must be redeemed regularly with the blood of patriots or it always vanishes. Of all the so-called natural human rights that have ever been invented, liberty is least likely to be cheap and is never free of cost. The third 'right'?—the 'pursuit of happiness'? It is indeed unalienable but it is not a right; it is simply a universal condition which tyrants cannot take away nor patriots restore. Cast me into a dungeon, burn me at the stake, crown me king of kings, I can 'pursue happiness' as long as my brain lives—but neither gods nor saints, wise men nor subtle drugs, can ensure that I will catch it."

Depend upon it, you see but half. You see the evil, but you do not see the consolation. There will be little rubs and disappointments everywhere, and we are all apt to expect too much; but then, if one scheme of happiness fails, human nature turns to another; if the first calculation is wrong, we make a second better: we find comfort somewhere— and those evil-minded observers, dearest Mary, who make much of a little, are more taken in and deceived than the parties themselves.

lessness - a philosophy whereby one reconciles oneself with diminishing expectations of material wealth: "I've given up wanting to make a killing or be a bigshot. I just want to find happiness and maybe open up a little roadside cafe in Idaho." (page 54)

One feels inclined to say that the intention that man should be "happy" is not included in the plan of "Creation."