Uplifting Quotations

In seeking happiness for others, you find it for yourself. 

Unknown

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

James M. Barrie

When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.  

Helen Keller

Happiness is the art of never holding in your mind the memory of any unpleasant thing that has passed.  

Unknown

To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.  

Albert Camus

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

Happy people plan actions, they don't plan results.  

Dennis Waitley

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 acceptance.  

Unknown

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.  

Buddha

We begin from the recognition that all beings cherish happiness and do not want suffering. It then becomes both morally wrong and pragmatically unwise to pursue only one's own happiness oblivious to the feelings and aspirations of all others who surround us as members of the same human family. The wiser course is to think of others when pursuing our own happiness

Dalai Lama

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

Dr. Robert Anthony

Happiness is a myth we seek,

If manifested surely irks;

Like river speeding to the plain,

On its arrival slows and murks.

For man is happy only in

His aspiration to the heights;

When he attains his goal, he cools

And longs for other distant flights.

Kahlil Gibran

Happiness is a state of activity.  

Aristotle

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.  

Colton

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

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

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

Benjamin Disraeli

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

Epicurus

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

Rose Lane

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

Abraham Lincoln

When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.
Helen Keller

Happiness does not consist in pastimes and amusements but in virtuous activities.
Aristotle

Happiness resides not in posessions and not in gold; the feeling of happiness dwells in the soul.
Democritus

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts; therefore guard accordingly.
Marcus Aurelius

People with many interests live, not only longest, but happiest.
George Matthew Allen

In the hopes of reaching the moon men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet.
Albert Schweitzer

Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.
Aldous Huxley

There is only one person who could ever make you happy, and that person is you.
David Burns, Intimate Connections

The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions—the little soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of a playful raillery, and the countless other infinitessimals of pleasurable thought and genial feeling.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge

The man is happiest who lives from day to day and asks no more, garnering the simple goodness of life.
Euripides

Happiness consists in activity: such is the constitution of our nature; it is a running stream, and not a stagnant pool.
John M. Good

Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling.
Margaret Lee Runbeck

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

Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though 'twere his own.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

The chances are that you have already come to believe that happiness is unattainable. But men have attained it. And they have attained it by realising that happiness does not spring from the procuring of physical or mental pleasure, but from the development of reason and the adjustment of conduct to principles.
from How to Live on 24 Hours a Day, by Arnold Bennett

Happiness is not a matter of events, it depends upon the tides of the mind.
Alice Meynell

Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.
Epictetus

Happiness depends more on the inward disposition of mind than on outward circumstances.
Benjamin Franklin

There is only one way to happiness, and that is to cease worrying things which are beyond the power of our will.
Epictetus

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

You're happiest while you're making the greatest contribution.
Robert F. Kennedy

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

Great effort from great motives is the best definition of a happy life.
William Ellery Channing

There is more to life than increasing its speed.
Mahatma Ghandi

The rays of happiness, like those of light, are colorless when unbroken.
Henry W. Longfellow

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

Happiness is where we find it, but rarely where we seek it.
J. Petit Senn

To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.
Albert Camus

Happiness depends upon ourselves.
Aristotle

Try to be happy in this present moment, and put not off being so to a time to come,—as though that time should be of another make from this which has already come and is ours.
Thomas Fuller

Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness.
George Santayana

No man is happy who does not think himself so.
Publilius Syrus

Our minds are as different as our faces: we are all traveling to one destination; --happiness; but few are going by the same road.

Charles Caleb Colton

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

Jean de La Bruyere

How simple it is to see that we can only be happy now, and there will never be a time when it is not now.

Gerald Jampolsky

One filled with joy preaches without preaching.

Mother Teresa

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

 Anton Chekhov

Happiness is a function of accepting what is.

Werner Erhard

Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself, “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

Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.

Joseph Addison

Give a man health and a course to steer, and he'll never stop to trouble about whether he's happy or not.

 George Bernard Shaw

Happiness is never stopping to think if you are.

Palmer Sondreal

Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.

Fyodor Dostoevsky

A long, healthy, and happy life is the result of making contributions, of having meaningful projects that are personally exciting and contribute to, and bless the lives of others.

Stephen Covey

A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?

Albert Einstein

All men have a sweetness in their life. That is what helps them go on. It is towards that they turn when they feel too worn out.

 Albert Camus

And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair.

Kahlil Gibran

 

What we call the secret of happiness is no more a secret than our willingness to choose life.

Leo Buscaglia

Don't brood. Get on with living and loving. You don't have forever.

Leo Buscaglia

Happiness and love are just a choice away.

Leo Buscaglia

Love yourself, accept yourself, forgive yourself, and be good to yourself, because without you the rest of us are without a source of many wonderful things.

Leo Buscaglia

The easiest thing to be in the world is you. The most difficult thing to be is what other people want you to be. Don't let them put you in that position.

Leo Buscaglia

My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?

Charles Schulz

You're never given a dream without also being given the power to make it true. Richard Bach

If your happiness depends on what somebody else does, I guess you do have a problem. Richard Bach

In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy choice.

Richard Bach

But what is happiness except the simple harmony between a man and the life he leads?

Albert Camus

By living your life one day at a time, you live all the days of your life.

Nancye V. Sims

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.

Vincent Van Gogh

If you’re not enjoying the journey, you probably won’t enjoy the destination.

Joe Tye

It’s never too late to be the person you could have been.

George Eliot

The amount of happiness that you have depends on the amount of freedom you have in your heart.

Thich Nhat Hanh

The greatest happiness is to transform one's feelings into action.

Madame de Stael

The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.

Thomas Jefferson

The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make heaven of Hell, and a hell of Heaven.

John Milton

Being happy is something you have to learn. I often surprise myself by saying, “Wow, this is it. I guess I'm happy. I got a home I love. A career that I love. I'm even feeling more and more at peace with myself." If there's something else to happiness, let me know. I'm ambitious for that, too.

Harrison Ford

Each man has only one genuine vocation - to find the way to himself. His task is to discover his own destiny, not an arbitrary one, and live it out wholly and resolutely within himself. Everything else is only a would-be existence, an attempt at evasion, a flight back to the ideals of the masses, conformity and fear of one’s own inwardness. Herman Hesse

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

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.

Carl Jung

Every moment of your life, including this one, is a fresh start.

Jean-Louis Servan-Schreiber

Everything can be taken from a man but one thing, the last and the greatest of human freedoms, to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstance, to choose one’s own way of life.

Victor Frankl

Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see and touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves.

Helen Keller

I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela

For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others.

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela

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

Abraham Lincoln

No dream is too extreme.

Pinocchio

No one is in control of your happiness but you; therefore, you have the power to change anything about yourself or your life that you want to change.

Barbara de Angelis

Nobody who ever gave their best regretted it.

 George Halas

Nothing is really over until the moment you stop trying.

Nancye V. Sims

Optimist: Person who travels on nothing from nowhere to happiness.

Mark Twain

Rule number six: Stop taking yourself so bloody seriously! (What are the other rules? There are none).

Benjamin Zander

Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.

Mark Twain

Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give.

Eleanor Roosevelt

Start a crusade in your life - to dare to be your best.

William Danforth

Success is the ability to go from failure to failure without losing your enthusiasm.

Winston Churchill

Surround yourself with people who believe you can.

 Dan Zadra

The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, blame. The gift is yours, it is an amazing journey and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the day your life really begins.

 Bob Moawad

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.

M. Scott Peck

There is no duty we so underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world.

Robert Louis Stevenson

Think big thoughts but relish small pleasures.

 Jackson Brown Jr.

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

 Anne Frank

Unhappiness is best defined as the difference between our talents and our expectations.

Edward de Bono

Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to yourself and others. Buddha

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

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Happiness is a Swedish sunset - it is there for all, but most of us look the other way and lose it.

Mark Twain

Happiness is not a result - it’s a state of mind and body.

 Paul McKenna

Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.

 Franklin D. Roosevelt

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

Ayn Rand

If you hear a voice within saying, “You can’t paint,” then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.

Vincent Van Gogh

Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

Marcel Proust

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

Helen Keller

We cannot become what we want to be by remaining what we are.

Max Dupree

We make a living by what we get but we make a life by what we give.

Winston Churchill

What separates individuals is not how many times they fall, but how fast they get back up and try again.

Nigel Risner

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.

 Helen Keller

Be the change you want to create.

Mahatma Ghandi

The perfection of wisdom, and the end of true philosophy is to proportion our wants to our possessions, our ambitions to our capacities, we will then be a happy and a virtuous people.

Mark Twain

We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.

Anne Frank

Whoever is happy will make others happy too.

Mark Twain

Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.

 Frank Zappa

You are free to experience life negatively or positively, and the choice you make determines whether you are at cause, or at effect, of the life you are living.

Marianne Williamson

You're only given a little spark of madness. You mustn't lose it.

Robin Williams

The best way to make your dreams come true is to wake up!

Paul Valery