Quotes & Sayings About Happiness Aristotle

Further, the constitution of our consciousness is the ever present and lasting element in all we do or suffer; our individuality is persistently at work, more or less, at every moment of our life: all other influences are temporal, incidental, fleeting, and subject to every kind of chance and change. This is why Aristotle says: It is not wealth but character that lasts.
And just for the same reason we can more easily bear a misfortune which comes to us entirely from without, than one which we have drawn upon ourselves; for fortune may always change, but not character. Therefore, subjective blessings - a noble nature, a capable head, a joyful temperament, bright spirits, a well-constituted, perfectly sound physique, in a word, mens sana in corpore sano, are the first and most important elements in happiness; so that we should be more intent on promoting and preserving such qualities than on the possession of external wealth and external honor. — Arthur Schopenhauer

People of superior refinement and of active disposition identify happiness with honour; for this is roughly speaking, the end of political life. — Aristotle.

The activity of God, which is transcendent in blessedness, is the activity of contemplation; and therefore among human activities that which is most akin to the divine activity of contemplation will be the greatest source of happiness. — Aristotle.

Happiness belongs to the self sufficient. — Aristotle.

Happiness above all seems to be of this character, for we always choose it on account of itself and never on account of something else. Yet honor, pleasure, intellect, and every virtue we choose on their own account - for even if nothing resulted from them, we would choose each of them - but we choose them also for the sake of happiness, because we suppose that, through them, we will be happy. — Aristotle.

A state is an association of similar persons whose aim is the best life possible. What is best is happiness, and to be happy is an active exercise of virtue and a complete employment of it. — Aristotle.

The end toward which all human acts are directed is happiness. — Aristotle.

As Aristotle said, happiness is not a condition that is produced or stands on its own; rather, it is a frame of mind that accompanies an activity. But another frame of mind comes first. It is a steely determination to do well. — George Will

For Aristotle, it is not within our power to seek anything else, and thus /all/ acts have for their basic purpose the attainment of happiness or that which is good in itself and not merely as a means to something else. — Robert F. Almeder

Aristotle was but a wreck of an Adam, and Athens but the rubbish of an Eden. How completely sin has defaced the divine image in man! That man has lost his righteousness and happiness is clearly evident as we look at the state of the world today! — Robert South

Happiness is essentially perfect; so that the happy man requires in addition the goods of the body, external goods and the gifts of fortune, in order that his activity may not be impeded through lack of them. — Aristotle.

Happiness is activity of soul. — Aristotle.

The good lawgiver should inquire how states and races of men and communities may participate in a good life, and in the happiness which is attainable by them. — Aristotle.

I've just been a machine for making money. I seem to have spent my life in a golden tunnel looking for the outlet which would lead to happiness. But the tunnel kept going on. After my death there will be nothing left. — Aristotle Onassis

Some of you read with me 40 years ago a portion of Aristotle's Ethics, a selection of passages that describe his idea of happiness. You may not remember too well. — Charles Van Doren

And this activity alone would seem to be loved for its own sake; for nothing arises from it apart from the contemplating, while from practical activities we gain more or less apart from the action. And happiness is thought to depend on leisure; for we are busy that we may have leisure, and make war that we may live in peace. — Aristotle.

The happy man ... will be always or at least most often employed in doing and contemplating the things that are in conformity with virtue. And he will bear changes of fortunes most nobly, and with perfect propriety in every way. — Aristotle.

I consider a good reputation is a great part of the human happiness. Some people, if they are very, very rich can permit themselves certain negligence to their reputations. — Aristotle Onassis

Three sorts of goods, Aristotle specified, contribute to happiness: goods of the soul, including moral and intellectual virtues and education; bodily goods, such as strength, good health, beauty, and sound senses; and external goods, such as wealth, friends, good birth, good children, good heredity, good reputation and the like. — Sissela Bok

Here we must examine the classical understanding of happiness proclaimed by Moses, Solomon, Jesus, Aristotle, Plato, the church fathers and medieval theologians, and many more - the understanding that has recently been replaced by "pleasurable satisfaction." According to the ancients, happiness is a life well lived, a life of virtue and character, a life that manifests wisdom, kindness, and goodness. — J.P. Moreland

You can never learn anything that you did not already know — Aristotle.

Happiness is a sort of action. — Aristotle.

Happiness then is the best, noblest, and most pleasant thing in the world, and these attributes are not severed as in the inscription at Delos-
Most noble is that which is justest, and best is health;
But pleasantest is it to win what we love. — Aristotle.

Daughter, your presence is a stay and consolation to me. Begin again in the Tenth Book; tell me, how does Aristotle define true happiness?" "Father, he tells us that true happiness is found in contemplation, whereas the common idea of happiness as pleasant amusements is fostered by the courts of tyrants. — Judith Merkle Riley

Let us be well persuaded that everyone of us possesses happiness in proportion to his virtue and wisdom, and according as he acts in obedience to their suggestion. — Aristotle.

The happy life is thought to be one of excellence; now an excellent life requires exertion, and does not consist in amusement. If Eudaimonia, or happiness, is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence; and this will be that of the best thing in us. — Aristotle.

Happiness involves pleasure.1 - Aristotle — Frederic Lenoir

True happiness comes from gaining insight and growing into your best possible self. Otherwise all you're having is immediate gratification pleasure, which is fleeting and doesn't grow you as a person. — Aristotle.

A thing chosen always as an end and never as a means we call absolutely final. Now happiness above all else appears to be absolutely final in this sense, since we always choose it for its own sake and never as a means to something else. — Aristotle.

True happiness flows from the possession of wisdom and virtue and not from the possession of external goods. — Aristotle.

Leisure of itself gives pleasure and happiness and enjoyment of life, which are experienced, not by the busy man, but by those who have leisure. — Aristotle.

A life of wealth and many belongings is only a means to happiness. Honor, power, and success cannot be happiness because they depend on the whims of others, and happiness should be self-contained, complete in itself. — Aristotle.

Happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue — Aristotle.

Happiness lies in virtuous activity, and perfect happiness lies in the best activity, which is contemplative — Aristotle.

If it is better to be happy as a result of one's own exertions than by the gift of fortune, it is reasonable to suppose that this is how happiness is won. — Aristotle.

No one praises happiness as one praises justice, but we call it a 'blessing,' deeming it something higher and more divine than things we praise. — Aristotle.

All human happiness or misery takes the form of action; the end for which we live is a certain kind of action. — Aristotle.

Aristotle would clear up this moral confusion in an Athenian minute. Happiness, he believed, meant not only feeling good but doing good. Thus, the pedophile and the suicide bomber only thought they were happy. In fact, they were not happy at all. — Eric Weiner

Happiness depends on ourselves. — Aristotle.

Happiness seems to require a modicum of external prosperity. — Aristotle.

There is an ideal of excellence for any particular craft or occupation; similarly there must be an excellent that we can achieve as human beings. That is, we can live our lives as a whole in such a way that they can be judged not just as excellent in this respect or in that occupation, but as excellent, period. Only when we develop our truly human capacities sufficiently to achieve this human excellent will we have lives blessed with happiness. — Aristotle.

Good character is the indispensable condition and chief determinant of happiness, itself the goal of all human doing. The end of all action, individual or collective, is the greatest happiness of the greatest number. — Aristotle.

What is the highest good in all matters of action? To the name, there is almost complete agreement; for uneducated and educated alike call it happiness, and make happiness identical with the good life and successful living. They disagree, however, about the meaning of happiness. — Aristotle.

Happiness seems to depend on leisure, because we work to have leisure, and wage war to live in peace. — Aristotle.

Happiness is the exercise of talent, along the lines of excellence. — Aristotle.

Happiness is a state of activity. — Aristotle.

The activity of happiness must occupy an entire lifetime; for one swallow does not a summer make. — Aristotle.

Happiness is an expression of the soul in considered actions. — Aristotle.

But what is happiness? If we consider what the function of man is, we find that happiness is a virtuous activity of the soul. — Aristotle.

If happiness, then, is activity expressing virtue, it is reasonable for it to express the supreme virtue, which will be the virtueof the best thing. — Aristotle.

All men seek one goal: success or happiness. — Aristotle.

It is our actions and the soul's active exercise of its functions that we posit (as being Happiness); — Aristotle.

To be happy you have to fulfill your nature. That's what Aristotle taught so many centuries ago, that the road to happiness isn't to go drink more or consume more. The road to happiness is to fully develop your abilities, and then apply them to do good. — Charles Koch

If happiness is activity in accordance with excellence, it is reasonable that it should be in accordance with the highest excellence. — Aristotle.

We maintain, and have said in the Ethics, if the arguments there adduced are of any value, that happiness is the realization and perfect exercise of virtue, and this not conditional, but absolute. And I used the term 'conditional' to express that which is indispensable, and 'absolute' to express that which is good in itself. — Aristotle.

Happiness does not lie in amusement; it would be strange if one were to take trouble and suffer hardship all one's life in order to amuse oneself — Aristotle.

Aristotle Onassis rescued me at a moment when my life was engulfed with shadows. He brought me into a world where one could find both happiness and love. We lived through many beautiful experiences together which cannot be forgotten, and for which I will be eternally grateful. — Jackie Kennedy

Happiness is a certain activity of soul in conformity with perfect goodness — Aristotle.

Happiness is self-connectedness. — Aristotle.

It is the active exercise of our faculties in conformity with virtue that causes happiness, and the opposite activities its opposite. — Aristotle.

He is best of all who of himself conceiveth all things; Good again is he too who can adopt a good suggestion; But whoso neither of himself conceiveth nor hearing from another Layeth it to heart; - he is a useless man. [Sidenote: V] But to return from this digression. Now of the Chief Good (i.e. of Happiness) men seem to form their notions from the different modes of life, as we might naturally expect: the many and most low conceive it to be pleasure, and hence they are content with the life of sensual enjoyment. For there are three lines of life which stand out prominently to view: that just mentioned, and the life in society, and, thirdly, the life of contemplation. — Aristotle.

Happiness then, is found to be something perfect and self sufficient, being the end to which our actions are directed. — Aristotle.

It is the activity of the intellect that constitutes complete human happiness - provided it be granted a complete span of life, for nothing that belongs to happiness can be incomplete. — Aristotle.

Happiness is activity. — Aristotle.

Happiness is the highest good — Aristotle.

Your happiness depends on you alone. — Aristotle.

Happiness is a quality of the soul ... not a function of one's material circumstances. — Aristotle.

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

Wealth is evidently not the good we are seeking; for it is merely useful and for the sake of something else. — Aristotle.

One swallow does not make a summer,
neither does one fine day;
similarly one day or brief time of happiness does not make a person entirely happy. — Aristotle.

Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government. — Aristotle.

Happiness is the settling of the soul into its most appropriate spot. — Aristotle.

Happiness, whether consisting in pleasure or virtue, or both, is more often found with those who are highly cultivated in their minds and in their character, and have only a moderate share of external goods, than among those who possess external goods to a useless extent but are deficient in higher qualities. — Aristotle.

What is the Good for man? It must be the ultimate end or object of human life: something that is in itself completely satisfying. Happiness fits this description ... we always choose it for itself, and never for any other reason. — Aristotle.

Happiness is prosperity combined with virtue. — Aristotle.

All human happiness and misery take the form of action. — Aristotle.

Now if there is any gift of the gods to men, it is reasonable that happiness should be god-given, and most surely god-given of all human things inasmuch as it is the best. But this question would perhaps be more appropriate to another inquiry; happiness seems, however, even if it is not god-sent but comes as a result of virtue and some process of learning and training, to be among the most god-like things; for that which is the prize and end of virtue seems to be the best thing in the world, and something god-like and blessed. — Aristotle.

A man's happiness consists in the free exercise of his highest faculties. — Aristotle.

Happiness, therefore, being found to be something final; and self-sufficient, is the end at which all actions aim. — Aristotle.

Now the goodness that we have to consider is clearly human goodness, since the good or happiness which we set out to seek was human good and human happiness. But human goodness means in our view excellence of soul, not excellence of body; — Aristotle.

What is the highest of all goods achievable by action? ... both the general run of man and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness ... but with regard to what happiness is they differ. — Aristotle.

Happiness may be defined as good fortune joined to virtue, or a independence, or as a life that is both agreeable and secure. — Aristotle.

When ... we, as individuals, obey laws that direct us to behave for the welfare of the community as a whole, we are indirectly helping to promote the pursuit of happiness by our fellow human beings. — Aristotle.

A good man may make the best even of poverty and disease, and the other ills of life; but he can only attain happiness under the opposite conditions — Aristotle.

Verbally there is very general agreement; for both the general run of men and people of superior refinement say that it is happiness, and identify living well and doing well with being happy; but with regard to what happiness is they differ, and the many do not give the same account as the wise. — Aristotle.

Politicians also have no leisure, because they are always aiming at something beyond political life itself, power and glory, or happiness. — Aristotle.

The cultivation of the intellect is man's highest good and purest happiness — Aristotle.

The last part, the part you're now approaching, was for Aristotle the most important for happiness. — Charles Van Doren

It must not be supposed that happiness will demand many or great possessions; for self-sufficiency does not depend on excessive abundance, nor does moral conduct, and it is possible to perform noble deeds even without being ruler of land and sea: one can do virtuous acts with quite moderate resources. This may be clearly observed in experience: private citizens do not seem to be less but more given to doing virtuous actions than princes and potentates. It is sufficient then if moderate resources are forthcoming; for a life of virtuous activity will be essentially a happy life. — Aristotle.

Happiness does not consist in amusement. In fact, it would be strange if our end were amusement, and if we were to labor and suffer hardships all our life long merely to amuse ourselves ... The happy life is regarded as a life in conformity with virtue. It is a life which involves effort and is not spent in amusement ... — Aristotle.

Happiness is something final and complete in itself, as being the aim and end of all practical activities whatever ... Happiness then we define as the active exercise of the mind in conformity with perfect goodness or virtue. — Aristotle.

Happiness is at once the best, the noblest, and the pleasantest of things. — Aristotle.

Happiness requires both complete goodness and a complete lifetime. — Aristotle.

Happiness comes from theperfect practice of virtue. — Aristotle.

Happiness is the utilization of one's talents along lines of excellence. — Aristotle.

Happiness also requires external goods in addition. — Aristotle.

We work to have leisure, on which happiness depends. - Aristotle — Brigid Schulte

Happiness, then, is co-extensive with contemplation, and the more people contemplate, the happier they are; not incidentally, but in virtue of their contemplation, because it is in itself precious. Thus happiness is a form of contemplation. — Aristotle.

As far as the name goes, we may almist say that the great majority of mankind are agreed about this; for both the multitude and the persons of refinement speak of it as happiness, and conceive 'the good life' or 'doing well' to be the same thing as 'being happy. — Aristotle.

Happiness is an activity and a complete utilization of virtue, not conditionally but absolutely. — Aristotle.