Happiness About Work Quotes & Sayings

When you focus on lack and scarcity and what you don't have, you fuss about it with your family, you discuss it with your friends, you tell your children that you don't have enough - "We don't have enough for that, we can't afford that" - then you'll never be able to afford it, because you begin to attract more of what you don't have. If you want abundance, if you want prosperity, then focus on abundance. Focus on prosperity. (Lisa Nichols)
Many people in Western culture are striving for success. They want the great home, they want their business to work, they want all these outer things. But what we found in our research is that having these outer things does not necessarily guarantee what we really want, which is happiness. So we go for these outer things thinking they're going to bring us happiness , but it's backward. You need to go for the inner joy, the inner peace, the inner vision first, and then all of the outer things appear. (Marci Shimoff)
— Rhonda Byrne

Magazines devoted to the religion of success appear as Makers of America. They mean just about that when they preach evolution, progress, prosperity, being constructive, the American way of doing things. It is easy to laugh, but, in fact, they are using a very great pattern of human endeavor. For one thing it adopts an impersonal criterion; for another it adopts an earthly criterion; for a third it is habituating men to think quantitatively. To be sure the idea confuses excellence with size, happiness with speed, and human nature with contraption. Yet the same motives are at work which have ever actuated any moral code, or ever will. The desire fir the biggest, the fastest, the highest, or if you are a maker of wristwatches or microscopes the smallest; the love in short of the superlative and the "peerless," is in essence and possibility a noble passion. — Walter Lippmann

There is a new survey out about the happiest professions. I think the whole premise is flawed. You're supposed to find true happiness outside of work. From friends, family, and YouTube videos of old people falling down. — Craig Ferguson

Happiness at work is not about eliminating all the bad stuff from your job. It's about being happy at work even though some of these bad things are present. It's about building your skills and your energy to fix the problems, and to create more and more positive experiences at work. — Alexander Kjerulf

Each and every component that makes up your life experience is drawn to you by the powerful Law of Attraction's response to the thoughts you think and the story you tell about your life. Your money and financial assets; your body's state of wellness, clarity, flexibility, size, and shape; your work environment, how you are treated, work satisfaction, and rewards - indeed, the very happiness of your life experience in general - is all happening because of the story that you tell. — Esther Hicks

A writer can live by his writing. If not so luxuriously as by other trades, then less luxuriously. The nature of the work he does all day will more affect his happiness than the quality of his dinner at night. Whatever be your calling, and however much it brings you in the year, you could still, you know, get more by cheating. We all suffer ourselves to be too much concerned about a little poverty; but such considerations should not move us in the choice of that which is to be the business and justification of so great a portion of our lives; and like the missionary, the patriot, or the philosopher, we should all choose that poor and brave career in which we can do the most and best for mankind. — Robert Louis Stevenson

It was about the inestimable burden of their lives: the work, the houses, the friendships, the marriages, the children, as if all the things they'd wanted and worked for had cemented the impossibility of any sort of happiness. The — Ann Patchett

It's about living in the moment and appreciating the smallest things. Surrounding yourself with the things that inspire you and letting go of the obsessions that want to take over your mind. It is a daily struggle sometimes and hard work but happiness begins with your own attitude and how you look at the world. — Gretchen Rubin

I often would think about how we have built our society, and when you describe it out loud, it sounds rather insane. The idea of being funnelled through a conventional life progression of education, work, career, marriage, kids, divorce, retirement and then death doesn't seem that inspiring to me.
Then we're told we have to struggle to make a living, sacrifice enjoyment to have a family, delay our happiness until we're retired, fight the next person for a job, climb the ladder of success to get an even more stressful job,
spend more money than we earn, go into debt, live in fear of being blown up by some terrorist and then have TV passed off as the only way to escape it all. And when all of this gets too much and you can't keep up, you get prescribed antidepressants and made to feel like you've failed. — Josh Langley

I'm by no means an expert at giving advice on depression, but I would say that a lot of my show is about making the decision to be happy. We all think that happiness is something that just falls into our lap. But it's something you have to really work on. — Lilly Singh

One Dilbert Blog reader noted that current research shows that happiness causes success more than success causes happiness. That makes sense to me. There's plenty of research about people having a baseline of happiness that doesn't vary much with circumstances. And given that happy people are typically optimistic, energetic, and fun to work with, I can see how happiness would lead to success. — Scott Adams

It's all about quality of life and finding a happy balance between work and friends and family. — Philip Green

A pity, he thought, as he signed his name. It was a masterly piece of work. But once you began admitting explanations in terms of purpose-well, you didn't know what the result might be. It was the sort of idea that might easily decondition the more unsettled minds among the higher castes-make them lose their faith in happiness as the Sovereign Good and take to believing, instead, that the goal was somewhere beyond, somewhere outside the present human sphere, that the purpose of life was not the maintenance of well-being, but some intensification and refining of consciousness, some enlargement of knowledge. Which was, the Controller reflected, quite possibly true. But not, in the present circumstance, admissible. He picked up his pen again, and under the words "Not to be published" drew a second line, thicker and blacker than the first; then sighed, "What fun it would be," he thought, "if one didn't have to think about happiness! — Aldous Huxley

Life is open to us all. No one will ever see life exactly the same as another. Some folks will argue that one who is on a focused path to expanding into the best they can be has changed or is changing.
To that I say: I haven't changed I'm just growing better and more confident about moving towards my vision.. I feel ready. Since I'm ready everything has opened to me. Beyond that, just remember that- No one can see the goal like you can. No one will, ever. But team work still works!
People can feel the passion in your movement. Help comes when we free ourselves from fearing success. Call out your dream and move on it. Step by step. Yes, you can. Just keep striving! Much love and honor. — Sereda Aleta Dailey

Liberals are more likely to see people as victims of circumstance and oppression, and doubt whether individuals can climb without governmental help. My own analysis using 2005 survey data from Syracuse University shows that about 90 percent of conservatives agree that "While people may begin with different opportunities, hard work and perseverance can usually overcome those disadvantages." Liberals - even upper-income liberals - are a third less likely to say this. — Arthur C. Brooks

(about William Blake)
As for Blake's happiness
a man who knew him said: "If asked whether I ever knew among the intellectual, a happy man, Blake would be the only one who would immediately occur to me."
And yet this creative power in Blake did not come from ambition ... He burned most of his own work. Because he said, "I should be sorry if I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural glory a man has is so much detracted from his spiritual glory. I wish to do nothing for profit. I wish to live for art. I want nothing whatever. I am quite happy."
... He did not mind death in the least. He said that to him it was just like going into another room. On the day of his death he composed songs to his Maker and sang them for his wife to hear. Just before he died his countenance became fair, his eyes brightened and he burst into singing of the things he saw in heaven. — Brenda Ueland

At 83, if I were enjoying life any more I couldn't stand it! My fast-walks, gym work, mountain hiking and interplay long-distance with my family are the basis of my happiness. My writings reflect my work and life experiences, education and research and covers about 75 years. — Jerry Lemonds

We all have these weird rules about what we SHOULD love and what SHOULD make us happy and how things SHOULD work. SHOULD is a warning sign, frankly. When you're using the word SHOULD more and more often, it's a sign that you're living further and further from your truest, best self, that you're living for some other set of parameters or affirmations that you think will bring you happiness. SHOULD never brings happiness. — Shauna Niequist

The prison population consists of heterogeneous elements; but, taking only those who are usually described as 'the criminals' proper, and of whom we have heard so much lately from Lombroso and his followers, what struck me most as regards them was that the prisons, which are considered as preventive of anti-social deeds, are exactly the institutions for breeding them. Every one knows that absence of education, dislike of regular work, physical incapability of sustained effort, misdirected love of adventure, gambling propensities, absence of energy, an untrained will, and carelessness about the happiness of others are the causes which bring this class of people before the courts. Now I was deeply impressed during my imprisonment by the fact that it is exactly these defects of human nature
each one of them
which the prison breeds in its inmates; and it is bound to breed them because it is a prison, and will breed them so long as it exists. — Pyotr Kropotkin

Sometimes, when we pray for miracles what we are really praying for is God to do the work that we are too afraid to take action about. Often, the miracle resides in us and we need to simply "be all in", rather than standing on the fence waiting. — Shannon L. Alder

But sometimes you simply can't make yourself feel like acting. And in those situations, motivational advice risks making things worse, by surreptitiously strengthening your belief that you need to feel motivated before you act. By encouraging an attachment to a particular emotional state, it actually inserts an additional hurdle between you and your goal. The subtext is that if you can't make yourself feel excited and pleased about getting down to work, then you can't get down to work. — Oliver Burkeman

True health begins with your thoughts. Thinking about comfort, strength, flexibility and youthfulness attracts those qualities into your life and body. Dwelling on illness, fear, disease and pain does just the opposite. Your work is to notice and change your thoughts and move them in the direction of health and happiness. — Christiane Northrup

Live by the creed that a strong work ethic, playing by the rules, and doing things the right way will bring about opportunities for success and, ultimately, happiness. — Nick Saban

You know, Maneck, the human face has limited space. My mother used to say, if you fill your face with laughing, there will be no more room for crying."
"What a nice saying," he answered bitterly.
"Right now, Dinabai's face, and Om's, and mine are all occupied. Worrying about work and money, and where to sleep tonight. But that does not mean we are not sad. It may not show on the face, but it's sitting inside here." He placed his hand over his heart. "In here, there is limitless room- happiness, kindness, sorrow, anger, friendship- everything fits in here. — Rohinton Mistry

The first person who ever told me that happiness was work was this manic-depressive artist I knew when I was in my 20s. I was like, 'What are you talking about? Happiness just happens. That's even the root of that word. How could it be work?' — Ariel Gore

I don't know any more about the future than you do. I hope that it will be full of work, because I have come to know by experience that work is the nearest thing to happiness that I can find ... I want a busy life, a just mind and a timely death. — Zora Neale Hurston

So when a colleague stops you in the hallway at work to say hello and ask about your day, the brief interaction actually sparks a continual upward spiral of happiness and its inherent rewards. — Shawn Achor

I sit quietly and think about my mom. It's funny how memory erodes, If all I had to work from were my childhood memories, my knowledge of my mother would be faded and soft, with a few sharp memories standing out. — Audrey Niffenegger

What I like about cooking is that, so long as you follow the recipe exactly, everything always turns out perfect. It's too bad there's no recipe for happiness. Happiness is more like pastry - which is to say that you can take pains to keep cool and not overwork the dough, but if you don't have that certain light touch, your best efforts still fall flat.
The work-around is to buy what you need. I'm talking about pastry, not happiness, although money does make things easier all around. — Josh Lanyon

I want to fight, Becky. Can you understand that? I want struggle, I want danger. You know, Sally said something to me once: we were talking about happiness and what that might mean. She said she didn't want to be /happy/, that was a weak, passive sort of thing; she wanted to be alive and active. She wanted /work/. That's the spirit I like. That's what I want; and my work is a rough dirty dangerous kind of work. Oh, I want other things too. I want to write a play and see Henry Irving perform in it. I want to swank about town smoking Havanas and have supper with pretty girls in the Cafe Royal. I want to play poker on a Mississippi riverboat. I want to see Dan Goldberg get into Parliament. I want to see you go to university and get a first-class degree. Sally ... Sally can do anything we wants, by me. There's a whole world I want, Becky. — Philip Pullman

The reality is that fulfillment, success and all of these good things comes from trying to help those that we care about to achieve those things. How can I help somebody I care about find the job they love? How can I help somebody I care about find happiness in their work? And when we commit to service it actually biologically and anthropologically is more likely to lead to our own success and our own happiness. — Simon Sinek

[Poem: Slates of Grey]
Sullen faces like slates of grey
What I'd seen on a walk today.
Bodies rushing bodies bolting
Time for life a disregarding.
Money to make and to grow old
What about the hands to hold?
Deadlines, projects, people to meet
What about our own two feet.
Sullen faces like slates of grey ...
What I'd see most anyday. — Jess C. Scott

Therein lay the root of the problem.
Sharing was not in his nature, but nature would have to adapt. Ali
needed this kid. Finn was a modern day gunslinger. Deep down he
fucking hated it, but his girl needed this one nice and close.
Preferably wrapped around her finger and deeply concerned about
her health and happiness.Every goddamn minute of every goddamn day would be best.
Daniel did not want to share her. Not with the kid, not with anyone,
not even a little. He knew it would work, this insane idea of going
halves, he just didn't want it to. He had only recently found her and
she was his. But he couldn't keep her safe on his own, a fact that bit
deep and hard and hung on as a pit bul would. How the hell to
convince her? What Ali wanted and what would keep her safe and
alive would likely be at odds in this case. She'd accused him of
being pushy a time or two. His girl had no real idea how far he'd go
to protect her. — Kylie Scott

Is there such a thing as a life without any regrets? I've never believed so. We spend our lives aiming for happiness and fulfilment in work, in love and with our friends and family, and yet often our energy is spent lamenting bad boyfriends, wrong career turns, fallouts with friends and opportunities missed. Or is that just me? I admit I'm naturally a glass-half-empty kind of girl, but I know regrets are a burden to happiness and I'm trying to let go of them because I've learned that it's all about choice. You can choose to turn regrets into lessons that change your future. Believe me when I say I'm really trying to do this. But the truth is, I'm failing. Because all I can think right now is: maybe I deserve it. Maybe this is my penance. — Ali Harris

I'm constantly in doubt about what I'm doing, I'm constantly tortured, and that's why I say happiness is irrelevant. Happiness is for children and yuppies. I'm not striving for happiness, I'm trying to get some work done. And sometimes the best work is done under doubt. Constant rethinking, and reevaluating what you're doing, working and working until you feel it's finished. And that's an interesting point too, that you've got to know when to stop. Sometimes there's a magical moment when everything comes together. — John Zorn

Yet even if their advice were to work, what would be the result afterward in the unlikely event that one did turn into a slim, well-loved, powerful millionaire? Usually what happens is that the person finds himself back at square one, with a new list of wishes, just as dissatisfied as before. What would really satisfy people is not getting slim or rich, but feeling good about their lives. In the quest for happiness, partial solutions don't work. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

But the more we learn about happiness and fulfillment, the more apparent it becomes that family, community, meaningful work and networks of trustworthy collaborators and friends are the sources of happiness and fulfillment, not the accumulation of institutional promises and more stuff, which turns out to have little impact on happiness or fulfillment. — Anonymous

Think about love, work with love, give away and live with love. — Debasish Mridha

Meeks was telling him about the value of work. He said that it had been his personal experience that if you wanted to get ahead, you had to work. He said this was the law of life and it was no way to get around it because it was inscribed on the human heart like love thy neighbour. He said these two laws were the team that worked together to make the world go round and that any individual who wanted to be a success and win the pursuit of happiness, that was all he needed to know. — Flannery O'Connor

When you have two people who love each other, are happy and gay and really good work is being done by one or both of them, people are drawn to them as surely as migrating birds are drawn at night to a powerful beacon. If the two people were as solidly constructed as the beacon there would be little damage except to the birds. Those who attract people by their happiness and their performance are usually inexperienced. They do not know how not to be overrun and how to go away. They do not always learn about the good, the attractive, the charming, the soon-beloved, the generous, the understanding rich who have no bad qualities and who give each day the quality of a festival and who, when they have passed and taken the nourishment they needed, leave everything deader than the roots of any grass Attila's horses' hooves have ever scoured. — Ernest Hemingway,

I have so much respect for the emotionally brave. The ones who put in the emotional work and take the real risks of being vulnerable and removing masks. It's easy to make chitchat, but it's hard to speak about what's really under the surface. It's easy to joke, but difficult to cry. It's easy to numb, but hard to feel.
Ironically the real victims of emotional laziness are the people themselves. They end up choosing their emotional comfort zones over happiness. So in the end, they may not be 'uncomfortable' anymore; but they are also miserable. — Yasmin Mogahed

When people feel that the work environment is safe, optimistic, and yes, joyful, they are more likely to contribute their best. Quite simply it feels good when you're doing your best work. As it turns out, joy isn't just about finding happiness, but also about playing; play at work is useful when creativity and innovation are needed. The usefulness of creativity and innovation to the workplace is linked to increasing employees' knowledge and skills.21 — Shawn Murphy

We tend to think of happiness (and by happiness I also mean health or overall well-being)as a gift, and sometimes it is, a pure gratuity. But most of the time it comes about because you've done the work, prepared the ground to allow it in or tended it carefully once it has arrived. You have to practice happiness the way you practice the piano, commit to it the way you commit to going to the gym. — Norah Vincent

Last year, [Pope Francis] was asked about his secret to happiness. He said slow down. Take time off. Live and let live. Don't proselytize. Work for peace. Work at a job that offers basic human dignity. Don't hold on to negative feelings. Move calmly through life. Enjoy art, books and playfulness. — Timothy Egan

We were so busy thinking about protecting ourselves that we didn't think about the happiness of anyone else who might become involved with us. As a result, our rules focused on our own relationship. We thought that if we preserved the relationship between the two of us, the "core relationship," we were doing the right thing. We never considered that rules that worked for us might not work for the other people we would come to love, and we certainly never looked at our relationship from their perspective. — Franklin Veaux

Is success just about winning? Acclaim? Trophies? Wealth? Our personal happiness or satisfaction? I have been blessed to experience some of these over the years, and I can answer without batting an eye: No. Accomplishments, applause, awards and fortune are rewards that often come as the result of hard work and a determined spirit, but there is something bigger. Something better. Something that will outlast the winningest season, the plushest corner office, the heftiest bonus and the loudest cheers. That something can only be found when we look beyond the final score. — Tom Osborne

We don't want to be uncomfortable. We want a quick and dirty "how-to" list for happiness. I don't fit that bill. Never have. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to skip over the hard stuff, but it just doesn't work. We don't change, we don't grow, and we don't move forward without the work. If we really want to live a joyful, connected, and meaningful life, we must talk about things that get in the way. — Brene Brown

The only happiness a brave person ever troubles themselves in asking about, is happiness enough to get their work done. — Thomas Carlyle

The problem is that contemporary people think life is all about finding happiness. We decide what conditions will make us happy and then we work to bring those conditions about. To live for happiness means that you are trying to get something out of life. But when suffering comes along, it takes the conditions for happiness away, and so suffering destroys all your reason to keep living. But to "live for meaning" means not that you try to get something out of life but rather that life expects something from us. In other words, you have meaning only when there is something in life more important than your own personal freedom and happiness, something for which you are glad to sacrifice your happiness.129 — Timothy Keller

In short, when it comes to an instant fix for everyday happiness, certain types of writing have a surprisingly quick and large impact. Expressing gratitude, thinking about a perfect future, and affectionate writing have been scientifically proven to work - and all they require is a pen, a piece of paper, and a few moments of your time. — Richard Wiseman

And Lynnie understood. There were two kinds of hope: the kind you couldn't do anything about and the kind you could. And even if the kind you could do something about wasn't what you'd originally wanted, it was still worth doing. A rainy day is better than no day. A small happiness can make a big sadness less sad.
p 313
"The sky was crying outside, and as she watched the drops come down, she thought: A rainy day can actually be a very important day. And a small hope isn't really small if it makes a lost hope less sad."
p 318
Lynnie about the lost hope of finding Homan, the hope of seeing the lighthouse/connecting with her daughter and how selling her art work was doing something about it. — Rachel Simon

An argument ensued about abundance, leisure, work, nature, and what a second girl kept calling 'the American way.' When I asked her what she meant by 'the American way,' she said, 'Basically the destruction of everything
the world, your happiness, your soul, everything. The complete package. Evil and war. That's who we are, Mr. Countryman.' — David Guterson

I don't think a baby will change my career because I don't plan to go about my career any differently. I'm gonna work hard because I love to work, and I love what I do. I think a baby will just add more happiness to it. — Tamar Braxton

All the external adoration, respect and adulation in the word, can't drown out the internal voices that tell us, we are not good enough and unworthy of; happiness, love and an abundant life. When we need others to tell us were amazing, worthy and lovable, in order to feel good about ourselves, it is never enough. It goes into the bottomless pit where our inherent self-worth should be. It may feel like we are reaching out to receive love, but in actuality, we are seeking external noise to help drown out our negative core beliefs.
Love blossoms from the inside out. That is why it is so important to do the work necessary to heal our emotional wounds, to love ourselves and stand strong in who we are. Only then, are we truly free to give and receive love, unconditionally and in abundance. — Jaeda DeWalt

Life is all about choices. Make the right one and find your happiness. Don't waste a minute thinking of what others have, be contented with what you have. Ask God to help you achieve. He will, if you believe in Him, if you work hard, and if you do not give up on your dreams. After all, if you give up on your dreams how can you blame others who give up on you? — Cecile Rischmann

Some people get the impression that Buddhism talks too much about suffering. In order to become prosperous, a person must initially work very hard, so he or she has to sacrifice a lot of leisure time. Similarly, the Buddhist is willing to sacrifice immediate comfort so that he or she can achieve lasting happiness. — Dalai Lama

Learn to say No - and to be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you. — Robert A. Heinlein

Modern society has never been about finding contentment in the basics; modern society is founded on the principle that happiness lies in having more. We are bred to keep up with the Jones' because he who dies with the most toys wins. If I only work a little bit harder, a little bit longer, I'll be able to afford that boat and then I'll finally be happy. The illusive concept of finding happiness in things is the gerbil wheel that perpetually powers capitalism. I had hiked 2,283 miles and now my eyes were too wide opened to want to get on the wheel. But what was the alternative? Being homeless? — Erin Miller

Um um um um um. This business of - this business about marketing yourself, there's nothing wrong with that. Unless we're allowed to think that that's - that that's it. That that's the point, that that's the goal, you know? And that's the reason we're here - because that's so empty. And you as a writer know that it's - if you as a writer think that your job is to get as many people to like your stuff and think well of you as possible ... And I could, we could both, name writers that it's pretty obvious that's their motivation? It kills the work. Each time. That that's maybe 50 percent of it, but it misses all the magic. And it misses, it doesn't let you be afraid. Or it doesn't, like, let you like make yourself be, be vulnerable. Or ... nah, see, I'm not ... Anyway, anyway. — David Foster Wallace

And yet, even so, there is a way to find happiness. That is to be curious about all of the interlocking events that add up to our lives. To notice connections. To be amused or perhaps frightened by the ways things work out. If the universe is indifferent, what a consolation that we are not. — Roger Ebert

I do not care about happiness simply because I believe that joy is something worth fighting for. — Criss Jami

When the founders wrote about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they didn't mean longer vacations and more comfortable hammocks. They meant the pursuit of learning. The pursuit of improvement and excellence. In hard work is happiness. — David McCullough

God says he will give us anything, all we have to do is ask; but he also expects us to work for what we get. He doesn't promise a perfect life, or that we won't face problems. He doesn't promise that we won't experience hurt and pain, but that through him we can also experience joy and happiness. And the more I think about it, I'm convinced that challenge is part of his plan. Think about it. When you are challenged by something and have to work harder to get it, isn't the prize you finally receive more valuable and cherished than if it had simply been handed to you? — Claudia McCants

You must want to change. It sounds simple, but it's obviously not. If things were easy, then something would be wrong. You must make a firm decision that this is what you want. If you want to change, if you want to free yourself from a depressed, mediocre mindset, then you must make a conscious decision to do something about it, and stick to it. If you don't want to change, nothing will help you. Years of endless work will be lost on you unless you internalize your strength and push forward. It is how hard you push in times of difficulty that will prove your strength. — Leigh Hershkovich