Our Centers for Ethics:

Quotations: Happiness

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Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way.
— John Stuart Mill, 19th-century English philosopher and economist

Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.
— John Stuart Mill, 19th-century English philosopher and economist

I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.
— Arthur Rubinstein, Polish-American classical pianist (1887-1982)

We either make ourselves happy or miserable. The amount of work is the same.
— Carlos Castaneda, Peruvian-American mystic and author (1925-2000)

All happy people are grateful. Ungrateful people cannot be happy. We tend to think that being unhappy leads people to complain, but it's truer to say that complaining leads to people becoming unhappy.
— Dennis Prager, American radio host and author (b. 1948)

Don't worry. Be happy.
— Meher Baba, Indian spiritual leader (1894-1969), quote popularized in a song by Bobby McFerrin, 20th-century American songwriter and performer

Be happy. Talk happiness. Happiness calls out responsive gladness in others. There is enough sadness in the world without yours.... never doubt the excellence and permanence of what is yet to be. Join the great company of those who make the barren places of life fruitful with kindness.... Your success and happiness lie in you.... The great enduring realities are love and service.... Resolve to keep happy and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.
— Helen Keller, American social activist, public speaker and author (1880-1968)

Since the things we do determine the character of life, no blessed person can become unhappy. For he will never do those things which are hateful and petty.
— Aristotle, Greek philosopher (384-322 B.C.)

I have never been able to conceive how any rational being could propose happiness to himself from the exercise of power over others.
— Thomas Jefferson, American Founding Father and third president (1743-1826), in letter to A. L. C. Destutt de Tracy, 1811

To describe happiness is to diminish it.
— Henri Stendahl (Marie-Henri Beyle), French novelist (1783-1842)

I believe... that every human mind feels pleasure in doing good to another.
— Thomas Jefferson, American Founding Father and third president (1743-1826), in a letter to John Adams, 1816

People of superior refinement and of active disposition identify happiness with honour; for this is roughly speaking, the end of political life.
— Aristotle, Greek philosopher (384-322 B.C.), from the Nichomachean Ethics

Happy families are all alike. Every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
— Count Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist (1828-1910), from Anna Karenina

If we only wanted to be happy it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, which is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.
— Charles-Louis de Secondat Baron de Montesquieu, French jurist and political philosopher (1689-1755)

Nine requisites for contented living: Health enough to make work a pleasure. Wealth enough to support your needs. Strength to battle with difficulties and overcome them. Grace enough to confess your sins and forsake them. Patience enough to toil until some good is accomplished. Charity enough to see some good in your neighbor. Love enough to move you to be useful to others. Faith enough to make real the things of God. Hope enough to remove all anxious fears concerning the future.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, German poet, dramatist and scientist (1749-1832)

A man can refrain from wanting what he has not and cheerfully make the best of a bird in the hand.
— Seneca, Roman statesman and author (4 B.C.-65 A.D.)

Welcome everything that comes to you, but do not long for anything else.
— Andre Gide, French author (1869-1951)

The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don't have.
— Woody Allen, American humorist and filmmaker (b. 1935)

All who would win joy, must share it; happiness was born a twin.
— Lord Byron, English poet (1788-1824)

If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances, it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.
— Bertrand Russell, British mathematician and philosopher (1872-1970)

Happiness is knowin' you've done a good job, whether it's professional or for another person.
— Elvis Presley, American rock 'n' roll icon (1935-1977)

See to do good, and you will find that happiness will run after you.
— James Freeman Clarke

Those who seek happiness, miss it, and those who discuss it, lack it.
— Holbrook Jackson

Happiness depends upon ourselves.
— Aristotle, Greek philosopher (384-322 B.C.)

Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them.
— Count Leo Tolstoy, Russian novelist (1828-1910)

A great obstacle to happiness is expecting too much happiness.
— Bernard de Fontanelle, French author (1657-1757)

Happiness is not the end of life: character is.
— Henry Ward Beecher, American preacher (1813-1887)

The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not our circumstances.
— Martha Washington, American First Lady (1731-1802)

To get up each morning with the resolve to be happy . . . is to set our own conditions to the events of each day. To do this is to condition circumstances instead of being conditioned by them.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, American essayist, philosopher and poet (1803-1882)

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