It were a real increase of human happiness, could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible and there left to follow their lawful studies and callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age of twenty-five. Thomas Carlyle on happiness
When you're passionate about something, you want it to be all it can be. But in the endgame of life, I fundamentally believe the key to happiness is letting go of that idea of perfection. Debra Messing on happiness
The consuming desire of most human beings is deliberately to plant their whole life in the hands of some other person. I would describe this method of searching for happiness as immature. Development of character consists solely in moving toward self-sufficiency. Quentin Crisp on happiness
The only happiness a brave person ever troubles themselves in asking about, is happiness enough to get their work done. Thomas Carlyle on happiness
We're taught to be ashamed of confusion, anger, fear and sadness, and to me they're of equal value to happiness, excitement and inspiration. Alanis Morissette on happiness
A string of excited, fugitive, miscellaneous pleasures is not happiness happiness resides in imaginative reflection and judgment, when the picture of one's life, or of human life, as it truly has been or is, satisfies the will, and is gladly accepted. George Santayana on happiness
Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible. Saint Augustine on happiness
In friendship as well as love, ignorance very often contributes more to our happiness than knowledge. Francois de La Rochefoucauld on happiness
The white man's happiness cannot be purchased by the black man's misery. Frederick Douglass on happiness
While it is important for people to see your promise you must also remember that hope is the keeper of both happiness and disappointment, the father of both progress and failure. Bryant H. McGill on happiness
Happiness is a mystery, like religion, and should never be rationalised. Gilbert K. Chesterton on happiness
Happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness. Zhuangzi on happiness
Even in the common affairs of life, in love, friendship, and marriage, how little security have we when we trust our happiness in the hands of others! William Hazlitt on happiness
The happiness and misery of men depend no less on temper than fortune. Francois de La Rochefoucauld on happiness
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 on happiness
The health of the people is really the foundation upon which all their happiness and all their powers as a state depend. Benjamin Disraeli on happiness
No man chooses evil because it is evil he only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks. Mary Wollstonecraft on happiness
Happiness is your own treasure because it lies within you. Prem Rawat on happiness
My creed is that: Happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to make others so. Robert Green Ingersoll on happiness
I've learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances. Martha Washington on happiness