Happiness
Quotes - If you think the story has a sad ending, it's because it's not over
yet
“Puritanism:
The haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.”
―
H.L. Mencken, A Mencken Chrestomathy
“Freedom
is the only worthy goal in life. It is won by disregarding things that lie
beyond our control.”
―
Epictetus
“I
don't understand the point of being together if you're not the happiest.”
―
Gillian Flynn, Gone Girl
“She
had never imagined she had the power to make someone else so happy. And not a
magical power, either--a purely human one.”
―
Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince
“Only
the development of compassion and understanding for others can bring us the
tranquility and happiness we all seek.”
―
Dalai Lama XIV
“Listen
to what is being preached today. Look at everyone around us. You've wondered
why they suffer, why they seek happiness and never find it. If any man stopped
and asked himself whether he's ever held a truly personal desire, he'd find the
answer. He'd see that all his wishes, his efforts, his dreams, his ambitions
are motivated by other men. He's not really struggling even for material
wealth, but for the second-hander's delusion - prestige. A stamp of approval,
not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has
succeeded. He can't say about a single thing: 'This is what I wanted because I
wanted it, not because it made my neighbors gape at me'. Then he wonders why
he's unhappy.”
―
Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
“If
you think the story has a sad ending, it's because it's not over yet.”
―
Emily Henry, Beach Read
“Obscurity
and a competence—that is the life that is best worth living.”
―
Mark Twain, Notebook
“Happy.
Just in my swim shorts, barefooted, wild-haired, in the red fire dark, singing,
swigging wine, spitting, jumping, running—that's the way to live. All alone and
free in the soft sands of the beach by the sigh of the sea out there, with the
Ma-Wink fallopian virgin warm stars reflecting on the outer channel fluid belly
waters. And if your cans are redhot and you can't hold them in your hands, just
use good old railroad gloves, that's all.”
―
Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
“Seize
the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the
world, all else is folly. It is the one thing we are interested in here.”
―
Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
“The
true measure of success is how many times you can bounce back from failure.”
―
Stephen Richards
“Is
anyone anywhere happy?”
―
Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath
“You
have to participate relentlessly in the manifestation of your own blessings.”
―
Elizabeth Gilbert
“There
is no beauty in sadness. No honor in suffering. No growth in fear. No relief in
hate. It’s just a waste of perfectly good happiness.”
―
Katerina Stoykova Klemer
“Happiness
depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.”
―
Marie Rutkoski, The Winner's Curse
“What
disturbs and depresses young people is the hunt for happiness on the firm
assumption that it must be met with in life. From this arises constantly
deluded hope and so also dissatisfaction. Deceptive images of a vague happiness
hover before us in our dreams, and we search in vain for their original. Much
would have been gained if, through timely advice and instruction, young people
could have had eradicated from their minds the erroneous notion that the world
has a great deal to offer them.”
―
Arthur Schopenhauer
“Memory
is the happiness of being alone.”
―
Lois Lowry, Anastasia Krupnick
“There
are two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations.”
―
Jodi Picoult, Nineteen Minutes
“Maybe
happiness didn't have to be about the big, sweeping circumstances, about having
everything in your life in place. Maybe it was about stringing together a bunch
of small pleasures. Wearing slippers and watching the Miss Universe contest.
Eating a brownie with vanilla ice cream. Getting to level seven in Dragon
Master and knowing there were twenty more levels to go.
Maybe
happiness was just a matter of the little upticks- the traffic signal that said
"Walk" the second you go there- and downticks- the itch tag at the
back of your collar- that happened to every person in the course of the day.
Maybe everybody had the same allotted measure of happiness within each day.
maybe
it didn't matter if you were a world-famous heartthrob or a painful geek. Maybe
it didn't matter if your friend was possibly dying.
Maybe
you just got through it. Maybe that was all you could ask for.”
―
Ann Brashares, The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants
“I
believe compassion to be one of the few things we can practice that will bring
immediate and long-term happiness to our lives. I’m not talking about the
short-term gratification of pleasures like sex, drugs or gambling (though I’m
not knocking them), but something that will bring true and lasting happiness.
The kind that sticks.”
―
Dalai Lama XIV
“Happiness
only real when shared.”
― Christopher
McCandless
“Always
forgive, but never forget, else you will be a prisoner of your own hatred, and
doomed to repeat your mistakes forever.”
―
Wil Zeus, Sun Beyond the Clouds
“Because
children grow up, we think a child's purpose is to grow up. But a child's
purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn't disdain what lives only for a day. It
pours the whole of itself into the each moment. We don't value the lily less
for not being made of flint and built to last. Life's bounty is in its flow,
later is too late. Where is the song when it's been sung? The dance when it's
been danced? It's only we humans who want to own the future, too. We persuade
ourselves that the universe is modestly employed in unfolding our destination.
We note the haphazard chaos of history by the day, by the hour, but there is
something wrong with the picture. Where is the unity, the meaning, of nature's
highest creation? Surely those millions of little streams of accident and
wilfulness have their correction in the vast underground river which, without a
doubt, is carrying us to the place where we're expected! But there is no such
place, that's why it's called utopia. The death of a child has no more meaning
than the death of armies, of nations. Was the child happy while he lived? That
is a proper question, the only question. If we can't arrange our own happiness,
it's a conceit beyond vulgarity to arrange the happiness of those who come
after us.”
―
Tom Stoppard, The Coast of Utopia
