Quotes about happiness

It kills the pain. You go back until at last you are beyond its reach. Only the past when you were happy is real.

I am come, young ladies, in a very moralizing strain, to observe that our pleasures in this world are always to be paid for, and that we often purchase them at a great disadvantage, giving ready-monied actual happiness for a draft on the future, that may not be honoured., p. 428, 2013, en:s:Northanger Abbey/Chapter 24

You have gained a new source of enjoyment, and it is well to have as many holds on happiness as possible., p. 356, 2013, en:s:Northanger Abbey/Chapter 22

[wise man to the boy] “Well there is only one piece of advice I can give you’ said the wisest of the wise men. ‘The secret of happiness is to see all the marvels of the world, and never forget the drops of oil on the spoon.

There is one great truth on this planet: whoever you are, or whatever it is that you do, when you really want something, it's because that desire originated in the soul of the universe.... The soul of the world is nourished by people's happiness.

"It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace."

The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits.

Don't aim at success — the more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long run — in the long run, I say — success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think of it.

“Better the myth of happiness,” Harlequin murmured, “than the myth of despair.”

"Happiness isn't a thing. You can't go out and get it like a cup of tea. It's the way you feel about things."

There is no happiness in love, except at the end of an English novel.

If the human race didn't remember anything it would be perfectly happy.