Happiness Is You Quotes & Sayings

Have you noticed how often some people use the term 'killing time'? Consider for a moment what this implies. Evidently for some, we've reached a point in our evolution that excess time is now considered a hindrance. What a terrible thought! Let me tell you...if you value your time so little that you'd rather lose than enjoy it, then you need to reevaluate what you're doing with your life. — Todd William

Love is the Solution for Every Problem, when You Start to Love it, it's turning into Happiness. — Jan Jansen

We shall all live. We pray for life, children, a good harvest and happiness. You will have what is good for you and I will have what is good for me. Let the kite perch and let the egret
perch too. If one says no to the other, let his wing break. — Chinua Achebe

Envying another man's happiness is madness; you wouldn't know what to do with it if you had it. — Andre Gide

Sometimes It feels like time is an evil clown that we always imagine. It gives you everything you ask for, and when you are about to happily embrace every gift that you have received it snatches away everything laughing and clapping at you, watching you fall on your knees and break into pieces. — Akshay Vasu

When you are in love, it means that the person you love is of great personal, selfish importance to you and to your life. If you were selfless, it would have to mean that you derive no personal pleasure or happiness from the company and the existence of the person you love, and that you are motivated only by self-sacrificial pity for that person's need of you. I don't have to point out to you that no one would be flattered by, nor would accept, a concept of that kind. Love is not self-sacrifice, but the most profound assertion of your own needs and values. It is for your own happiness that you need the person you love, and that is the greatest compliment, the greatest tribute you can pay to that person. — Ayn Rand

Happiness is anyone and anything that's loved by you — Charlie Brown

Have you known what it is to give your meal to another and to go without yourself? It gives a happiness that no dinner eaten by yourself can give. Have you known what it is to give your coat to another and do without it yourself? It gives a joy that the satisfaction of your own wants cannot give you. — Hazrat Inayat Khan

The only reason I am living is to express my love for you and for the universe. — Debasish Mridha

Machinations are divined. Response is by nature, nurture, experience and if sought peer pressure. You are the owner of free will. Choose. — Truth Devour

Sometimes it is good to lose in a game to make the rival happy; when you see the happiness on the face of your rival, you become the winner of your own game! — Mehmet Murat Ildan

If I do anything, I have to start over, but all I have is fragments of ideas. Just pieces. Like a germ of an idea for this, and a germ of an idea for that. Nothing whole or concrete" - Violet

" 'Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.' Pearl S. Buck. Maybe a germ is enough. Maybe it's all you need. We can start small. Open up a new document or pull out a black piece of paper. We'll make it our canvas. Remember what Michelangelo said about the sculpture being in the stone - it was there from the beginning, and his job was to bring it out. Your words are in there too" -Finch — Jennifer Niven

'Unicorn Island' is the synonym for my happy place. It's a really beautiful message: that happiness is one of the hardest things you'll ever fight for, but it's the only thing worth fighting for. — Lilly Singh

It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: that is the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go - let it die away - go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow - and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time. But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life. — C.S. Lewis

Positiveness is a most absurd foible. If you are in the right, it lessens your triumph; if in the wrong, it adds shame to your defeat. — Laurence Sterne

You say that imperishable happiness lies elsewhere. Tell me about this 'elsewhere.'" "I only know that it does not lie in perishable objects. It lies not outside but within. It is the mind that determines what is fearful, worthless, desirable, or priceless, and therefore it is the mind, and only the mind, that must be altered." "What — Irvin D. Yalom

Once you are satisfied with your goal, it is the real happiness. — Saina Nehwal

You know, wanting what you have is supposedly the secret of happiness. — Jean Hanff Korelitz

For action, whatever its immediate purpose, also implies relief at doing something, anything, and the joy of exertion. This is the optimism that is inherent in, and proper and indispensable to action, for without it nothing would ever be undertaken. It in no way suppresses the critical sense or clouds the judgment. On the contrary this optimism sharpens the wits, it creates a certain perspective and, at the last moment, lets in a ray of perpendicular light which illuminates all one's previous calculations, cuts and shuffles them and deals you the card of success, the winning number. — Blaise Cendrars

The real sign of His blessings is if you can have more and more happiness inside. Learn always to be happy; to be happy with the happiness of God. Even- minded and cheerful. This is the fastest route to divine bliss. — Goswami Kriyananda

All life worth living is difficult, nobody promised us happiness; it is not a commodity you have earned, or shall ever earn. It is a by-product of brave living, and it never comes in the form we expect, or at the season we hoped for, or as the result of our planning for it ... — Katherine Anne Porter

Finding and creating your life's work, even if it is entirely different from what you have done most of your life, will bring you more happiness and health than any other action you can take. If your primary responsibility in life is being true to yourself, that can only be accomplished by carrying out what you are called to do - your unique and special vocation ... Your life's work involves doing what you love and loving what you do. — Dennis Kimbro

I think the secret to happiness is having a Teflon soul. Whatever comes your way, you either let it slide or you cook with it. — Diane Lane

One's happiness is very largely a question of state of mind rather than the world you are looking at. — Geoff Dyer

Don't just sit there. Go do something and don't expect that it's going to be fun unless you make it fun. You have got to work on things. That is when you are happy. — Frederick Lenz

You are beautiful. Your beauty, just like your capacity for life, happiness, and success, is immeasurable. — Steve Maraboli

And wasn't it this bright boy you selected for beating and tortures after hours? Of course it was. We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, as the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of every other; then all are happy, for their are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against. So! A book is a loaded gun in the house next door. Burn it. Take the shot from the weapon. Breach man's mind. Who knows who might be the target of the well-read man? Me? I won't stomach them for a minute. And so when houses were finally fireproofed completely, all over the world (you were correct in your assumption the other night) there was no longer need of firemen for the old purposes. They were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior: official censors, judges and executors. That's you, Montag, and that's me. — Ray Bradbury

There is a silent beauty hidden amongst pain, if you sit in it you may never find it; if you grow through it, You'll find the treasure. — Nikki Rowe

Don't try to change the world; just change yourself. Why? Because the whole world is only relative to the eyes that are looking at it. Your world actually only exists for as long as you exist and with the death of you, includes the death of your world. Therefore, if there is no peace in your heart; you will find no peace in this world, if there is no happiness in your life; you will find no happiness anywhere around you, if you have no love in your heart; you will not find love anywhere and if you do not fly around freely inside your own soul like a bird with perfectly formed wings; then there will never be any freedom for you regardless if you are on a mountaintop removed from all attachments to all of mankind! Even the mountaintop cannot give you freedom if it is not already flying around there inside your own soul! So I say, change yourself. Not the world. — C. JoyBell C.

Even if I only wrote erotica, I wouldn't care what you have to say. I make people happy! Blake and I provide readers with fun and entertainment and an escape from their lives, which is a damn good thing because life is hard and really sucks sometimes. Life isn't a fairy-tale and not everyone in gets a happily-ever-after, but in our book world they do. — Karina Halle

The loving and much loved wife is satisfied with the love of her husband; his smile is her joy, she cares little for any other. So, if you have come to Christ, thy Maker is thine husband - His free love to you is all you need, and all you can care for - there is no cloud between you and God - there is no veil between you and the Father; you have access to Him who is the fountain of happiness - what have you to do any more with idols? Oh! If your heart swims in the rays of God's love, like a little mote swimming in the sunbeam, you will have no room in your heart for idols. — Robert E. Murray

When you have received Him, stir up your heart to do Him homage; speak to Him about your spiritual life, gazing upon Him in your soul where He is present for your happiness; welcome Him as warmly as possible, and behave outwardly in such a way that your actions may give proof to all of His Presence. — Saint Francis De Sales

If this beautiful life is worth living, it will be more worthy if you are loving. — Debasish Mridha

Back in those days I was stoned almost twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. The difference today is that there is nothing you or anyone else could say to persuade me to inhale enough even to fill a flea's lung with cannabis. It's actually impossible to measure how fantastic I feel. — Chris Sullivan

They said when you are in love you will be happy but when the day comes i fell in love with someone.i regret the day that i met him.. it gives to much pain inside i feel everything is wrong.
knowing that loves is happiness.but in me it has a reversed meaning.it makes my life unhappy. — O.v Grace

Happiness like this is frightening ... they only let you be this happy if they're preparing to take something away from you — Khaled Hosseini

Looking for happiness is a sure way to sadness, I think. You have to take each moment as it comes. — Benedict Cumberbatch

The real secret of happiness is not what you give or what you receive, it's what you share. — Suzanne Woods Fisher

Learn that happiness comes through self-control and not being angry or jealous. The only one that you really torment is yourself. It is easier to let go and gain new ways of looking at life. — Frederick Lenz

Getting even with the person that broke your heart will never give you peace. The only thing that will heal your wounds is believing that God loves you enough to bring someone else into your life to respect you and love you in the way you deserve! — Shannon L. Alder

He said:To love, we need passion, but also respect. Once, someone told me that all you needed to build lasting happiness was a woman who admired and respected her man. But now, I know that's wrong. Happiness is much more difficult to attain. It's like crossing a suspension bridge; it's fragile, shaky, and there's no guardrail. You have to find your own equilibrium. And for that to happen, it has to rest on two centers of gravity, on both partners. — Duong Thu Huong

Great grace is the power of great thanks. — Lailah Gifty Akita

If there is one word that describes the meaning of character, it is the word honor. Without honor, civilization would not long exist. Without honor, there could be no dependable contracts, no lasting marriages, no trust or happiness. What does the word honor mean to you? To me, honor is summarized in this expression by the poet Tennyson, "Man's word [of honor] is God in man." — Ezra Taft Benson

To get everything you want is an inside job! The outside world is the world of effects; it's just the result of thoughts. Think and bask in happy thoughts. Radiate the feelings of happiness and joy, and transmit that into the Universe with all of your might, and you will experience true heaven on earth. — Rhonda Byrne

For years of our lives the days pass waywardly, featureless, without meaning, without particular happiness or unhappiness. Then, like turning over a tapestry when you have only known the back of it, there is spread the pattern. — Jane Gardam

If you say you can't, you won't!
The only thing holding you back from success is yourself. — Jody Provost

What inspires you to do what you do is the reason why you persist, even in the face of trouble. — Innocent Mwatsikesimbe

The happiness at getting what you want is not usually commensurate with the worry leading up to it. — Ann Brashares

Is this the happiness you seek?" he whispered hoarsely. "Tell me now, and I will give it to you." He
moved down her body, his mouth on her bosom, his breath hot on her skin, and his hand freeing her
breast. Phoebe ran her fingers through his hair, thrusting her breast forward as he took the peak into his
mouth.
This was insanity!"Only a profligate would confuse happiness with desire - Oh!" The swell of pleasure
his mouth on her breast gave her was startling, and she cried out.
"And only a fool would try and separate the two," he responded hotly before he closed his mouth
around her other breast — Julia London

Table 29.1. "AA" (Avoid/Acquire) of Fighting Cancer. In closing, let me also share my new found philosophy of life: A good life is summarized in three "H's." They are, in order of importance: Happiness, Health, and . . . hmm, I forget the third one!!! Good luck in your fight and remember to stay Happy and Positive. After all, the reason it is said "you can't buy happiness" is that because it is free! — Donald I. Abrams

you really have love at home then why are you in a place where the music is too loud and men can't see you beyond an erection? If you are truly fulfilled then why are you half drunk and ready to let a random man stick his cock in you? If there is truly happiness in the club then why isn't there happiness in the music or the people and why is shit always popping off? The club is the loneliest place on Earth and I've only pretended to be a fan — LOVE VINCENT

Happiness is knowin' you've done a good job, whether it's professional or for another person ... — Elvis Presley

All my life I've been harassed by questions: Why is something this way and not another? How do you account for that? This rage to understand, to fill in the blanks, only makes life more banal. If we could only find the courage to leave our destiny to chance, to accept the fundamental mystery of our lives, then we might be closer to the sort of happiness that comes with innocence. — Luis Bunuel

Gratitude is a spiritual heaven. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Happiness is more about removing the blocks to Love and remembering who you are than changing your situation or another person. — Lee L Jampolsky

The key to life is imagination. If you don't have that, no mater what you have, it's meaningless. If you do have imagination ... you can make feast of straw. — Jane Stanton Hitchcock

That is the secret of happiness and virtue
liking what you've got to do. — Aldous Huxley

100% of a Guru's marketing plan depends on you holding the belief that you are not enough; that you were created less equipped than necessary to fulfill your purpose. What if you let go of that belief and connected with the truth of your innate power to change and shape your life? You ARE enough. You CAN change and shape your own life. Anyone who tells you different is simply lying. Your life has immeasurable potentiality for greatness; act accordingly. — Steve Maraboli

Power doesn't make you happy. Actually, power without knowledge and balance is problematic. Power is something that will automatically follow when you have knowledge. The two are really the same, in a certain sense. — Frederick Lenz

Your success is not measured in terms of what all you obtained but in term of what you become, how you live and what actions you do. Upon this point reflect well and attain great happiness — Swami Vivekananda

I love you, that is important to me. You love me or not its your matter. Remember I can control only myself, not you at all. — Debasish Mridha

The truth a fairly important thing to hold on to when you've been pulled out of the sea after wanting to drown in it. I could've let the sea take me. I could easily be dead now, which is funny when you think of it. When I say funny, what I actually mean is weird and kind of disturbing.
When there's the loud sound of a siren screaming in your head it doesn't take too long before a feeling of not caring what happens washed over you and you become recklessly self- destructive. I used to be full of energy and happiness but I could barely remember those kinds of feelings. The cheerful, childish things I used to think had been replaced. A whole load of new realisations had begun to grow inside me like tangled weeds, and they were starting to kill me. That's why I'd make the decision that involved heading ogg to the pier on my pike in the middle of the night and cycling off it. — Sarah Moore Fitzgerald

Always, when you know what you don't want, that's when the rocket of desire is born of what you do want. That is the fruit of your experience. Now pluck it and savor it and enjoy it. Visualize it, and find the feeling place of it. And live happily ever after, once you get the hang of this. — Esther Hicks

Oncoming death is terrible enough, but worse still is oncoming death with time to spare, time in which all the happiness that was yours and all the happiness that might have been yours becomes clear to you. You see with utter lucidity all that you are losing. — Yann Martel

'SuperBetter' is fundamentally about a mind shift. It's about claiming your power to be in charge of how you spend your time and energy, and focusing it on the things that matter the most to you. Focusing on things that will bring real happiness, real well-being. — Jane McGonigal

The secret of happiness is simple: find out what you truly love to do and then direct all of your energy towards doing it. Once you do this, abundance flows into your life and all your desires are filled with ease and grace. The Monk Who Sold His Ferrari — Robin S. Sharma

Our country is in danger, but not to be despaired of. Our enemies are numerous and powerful; but we have many friends, determining to be free, and heaven and earth will aid the resolution. On you depend the fortunes of America. You are to decide the important question, on which rest the happiness and liberty of millions yet unborn. Act worthy of yourselves. — Joseph Warren

Happiness is wanting what you have. — Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Whenever you meditate, there are glimpses. Then the mind comes in and says, 'Be happy! Look, I have done it.' And immediately the contact is lost. — Rajneesh

The secret of happiness is simply this ... your happiness does NOT depend on getting what you want. — Michael Neill

Then is courtesy a turncoat. But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart; for, truly, I love none.
Beatrice: A dear happiness to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that: I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me. -Much Ado About Nothing — William Shakespeare

In our quest for happiness many times we evade the truth and remain unhappy. The truth lies within our hearts, regarding faith, family and inner peace. To love yourself is the largest truth you'll ever have. It's there where happiness begins. — Ron Baratono

Possible Ending #16 (Life Imitates Art Imitates Life Imitates Art Imitates): I'd seen this movie. Obvious ending: outright betrayal, lesson learned, life is heartbreak, people who mean well still fuck you over, everyone's sad, greedy, looking out for number one, no consideration for the fragile fat boy whose displayed cynicism only masks a deeper hope that everyone's okay, will ultimately end up all right, that love exists, that happiness may not be stable but at least comes in bursts, that everything worthwhile wasn't just a self-created illusion. — Adam Wilson

And all knowledge, when separated from justice and virtue, is seen to be cunning and not wisdom; wherefore make this your first and last and constant and all-absorbing aim, to exceed, if possible, not only us but all your ancestors in virtue; and know that to excel you in virtue only brings us shame, but that to be excelled by you is a source of happiness to us. — Plato

The present life of man upon earth, O King, seems to me in comparison with that time which is unknown to us like the swift flight of a sparrow through the mead-hall where you sit at supper in winter, with your Ealdormen and thanes, while the fire blazes in the midst and the hall is warmed, but the wintry storms of rain or snow are raging abroad. The sparrow, flying in at one door and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry tempest, but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, passing from winter to winter again. So this life of man appears for a little while, but of what is to follow or what went before we know nothing at all. — Bede

Happiness increases and decreases depending on the level of power one has. When you have more power, more control on your life, you feel more happy and self-confident, as your power decreases and the control of your life slips away, you get less and less happy and when you no longer have any power to rely on you reach depression and despair. This is the point where your power meter has hit 0. You now need to rely on the good favors of others to live. For those who believe in the power of god, it sustains them through this dark hour. For those who do not believe, they think they have reached the end and may take their lives. That's why all conflict in life is about power and many lose life in its pursuit. Power is life itself. — Bangambiki Habyarimana

She knew her duty inside and out. The prosperity of the cash drawer brought happiness to husband and wife. Not that Madame Puta was bad looking, not at all, she could even, like so many others, have been rather pretty, but she was so careful, so distrustful that she stopped short of beauty just as she stopped short of life - her hair was a little too well dressed, her smile a little too facile and sudden, and her gestures a bit too abrupt or too furtive. You racked your brains trying to figure out what was too calculated about her and why you always felt uneasy when she came near you. This instinctive revulsion that shopkeepers inspire in anyone who goes near them who knows what's what, is one of the few consolations for being as down at heel as people who don't sell anything to anybody tend to be. — Louis-Ferdinand Celine

When the songs of your heart start singing, you should listen ... for its harmony will bring you happiness and the melody is the voice of your true spirit. — Paulo Coelho

Let me put it this way: You cannot live in the world without being in pain, spiritual and physical pain. We have developed mechanisms to deal with these pains, to overcome them somehow. Therapy, religion and spirituality, relationships, material success. All this can work, but also become a problem itself.
The pursuit of happiness has even been put into the American constitution a couple centuries ago. Today we're so rich, we own much more than we need, we have liberties unknown before, even though they are endangered in the current political climate in the US - and we forget how wonderful it nevertheless is, compared to most other political and economic systems. We have a saying that goes: Give a man enough rope and he hangs himself. — David Foster Wallace

I live completely without regret. Sure there are plenty of things that someone could second guess, but I see the path of life like driving down the road without a map. The thing is, some dark alleys open up in majestic places, and some bright and shiny highways to the top end in cliffs to the bottom. You never know until you get there. What I know for sure is that if many years ago I actually had a map to the path of life, the destination that I would have chosen is right here, with this family, in this place, and with these smiles. That makes anything that could have been regretful, the best decision in the world. — Michael A. Wood Jr.

You do know baby. You're just scared and that's okay. But don't throw away your
chance for happiness because you're afraid to take the leap or because you know someone ends up hurt. No matter what you choose, someone
was always going to end up heartbroken. But if there's a chance two hearts can be blissfully happy together in love, then that's worth the broken heart of one. They will mend. They will find love again and be happy. But if you do this, let them both walk away, the only heart that will break and
stay broken is yours baby. — Marie Coulson

Katy, that the whole world can be involved in this madness we call war, and all the while the flowers and the bees and the seasons keep on doing what they must, wise but never weary in their wait for humanity to come to its senses and remember the beauty of life? It is queer, but my love and longing for the world are always deepened by my absence from it; it's wondrous, don't you think, that a person can swing from despair to gleeful hunger, and that even during these dark days there is happiness to be found in the smallest things?) Anyway, — Kate Morton

With compassion you can die for other people, like the mother who can die for her child. You have the courage to say it because you are not afraid of losing anything, because you know that understanding and love is the foundation of happiness. But if you have fear of losing your status, your position, you will not have the courage to do it. — Thich Nhat Hanh

The point of sloths is to bring a sense of wonder, magic, and happiness to all other species. Did you know that every other animal's favorite animal is the sloth? — Ann Burton

Sometimes I feel like there's a hole inside of me, an emptiness that at times seems to burn. I think if you lifted my heart to your ear, you could probably hear the ocean. The moon tonight, there's a circle around it. Sign of trouble not far behind. I have this dream of being whole. Of not going to sleep each night, wanting. But still sometimes, when the wind is warm or the crickets sing... I dream of a love that even time will lie down and be still for. I just want someone to love me. I want to be seen. I don't know. Maybe I had my happiness. I don't want to believe it but, there is no man, Gilly. Only that moon. — Alice Hoffman

The good news is that I believe every woman who wants to can find a great partner. You're just going to need to get rid of the idea that marriage will make you happy. It won't. Once the initial high wears off, you'll just be you, except with twice as much laundry.
Because ultimately, marriage is not about getting something
it's about giving it. Strangely, men understand this more than we do. Probably because for them marriage involves sacrificing their most treasured possession
a free-agent penis
and for us, it's the culmination of a princess fantasy so universal, it built Disneyland. — Tracy McMillan

If one's life is simple, contentment has to come. Simplicity is extremely important for happiness. Having few desires, feeling satisfied with what you have, is very vital: satisfaction with just enough food, clothing, and shelter to protect yourself from the elements. And finally, there is an intense delight in abandoning faulty states of mind and in cultivating helpful ones in meditation. — Dalai Lama XIV

Your happiness in a relationship depends greatly on your ability to get your needs heard and taken seriously. If these decisions are taken over by an abusive or controlling partner, you experience disappointment after disappointment, the constant sacrificing of your needs. He, on the other hand, enjoys the luxury of a relationship where he rarely has to compromise, gets to do the things he enjoys, and skips the rest. He shows off his generosity when the stakes are low, so that friends will see what a swell guy he is. — Lundy Bancroft

The only thing that holds true happiness is that moment when you're in it. Nothing can be controlled. — Eliza Doolittle

Happiness is self-contained and self-sufficient. Happy men have no time and no use for you. Happy men are free men. — Ayn Rand

Maybe the reason my memory is so bad is that I always do at least two things at once. It's easier to forget something you only half-did or quarter did. — Andy Warhol

... if you refuse to let your own suffering lie upon you for an hour and if you constantly try to prevent and forestall all possible stress way ahead of time; if you experience suffering and displeasure as evil, hateful, worthy of annihilation, and as a defect of existence, then it is clear that besides your religion of pity you also harbor another religion in your heart that is perhaps the mother of the religion of pity: the religion of comfortableness. How little you know of human happiness, you comfortable and benevolent people, for happiness and unhappiness are sisters and even twins that either grow up together or, as in your case, remain small together. — Friedrich Nietzsche

From the earliest ages of history to the present day there have never been thirteen millions of people associated in one political body who enjoyed so much freedom and happiness as the people of these United States. You have no longer any cause to fear dangers from abroad ... It is from within, among yourselves - from cupidity, from corruption, from disappointed ambition and inordinate thirst for power - that factions will be formed and liberty endangered ... — Andrew Jackson

Ask yourself if you are happy and you cease to be so." That was John Stuart Mill, the nineteenth-century British philosopher who believed that happiness should be approached sideways, "like a crab." Is Bhutan a nation of crabs? Or is this whole notion of Gross National Happiness just a clever marketing ploy, like the one Aruba dreamed up a few years ago. "Come to Aruba: the island where happiness lives. — Eric Weiner

Happy roads is bunk. Weary roads is right. Get you nowhere fast. That's where I've got - nowhere. Where everyone lands in the end, even if most of the suckers won't admit it. — Eugene O'Neill

I am constantly asked: What can you, with your cold rationalism, offer to the seeker after salvation that is comparable to the cozy homelike comfort of a fenced-in dogmatic creed? To this the answer is many-sided.
First, I do not say that I can offer as much happiness as is to be obtained by the abdication of reason. I do not say that I can offer as much happiness as is to be obtained from drink or drugs or amassing great wealth by swindling widows and orphans. It is not the happiness of the individual convert that concerns me; it is the happiness of mankind. If you genuinely desire the happiness of mankind, certain forms of ignoble personal happiness are not open to you. If your child is ill, and you are a conscientious parent, you accept medical diagnosis, however doubtful and discouraging; if you accept the cheerful opinion of a quack and your child consequently dies, you are not excused by the pleasantness of belief in the quack while it lasted. — Bertrand Russell

There is no desire that anyone holds for any other reason than that they believe they will feel better in the achievement of it. Whether it is a material object, a physical state of being, a relationship, a condition, or a circumstance - at the heart of every desire is the desire to feel good. And so, the standard of success in life is not the things or the money - the standard of success is absolutely the amount of joy you feel. — Esther Hicks

Mimicry, they argue, is also one of the means by which we infect each other with our emotions. In other words, if I smile and you see me and smile in response - even a microsmile that takes no more than several milliseconds - it's not just you imitating or empathizing with me. It may also be a way that I can pass on my happiness to you. — Malcolm Gladwell

That's what it is. That's what my morning was like: all these real physical heavy positive vibrations, the soul of this tape. The fuzzy groove. The meaning of it all, if it has one: All love, all the time. Peace and happiness in every day. Peace and happiness with cow blood dripping from your hands, bright blood staining your fingerprints because you didn't glove up since you don't normally do prep work. Peace and happiness when you're making a list of everything that's wrong with the world and squinting your eyes tight trying to imagine your way out of it. Peace, peace, peace, happiness, happiness, happiness. — John Darnielle

Marriage was an economic institution in which you were given a partnership for life in terms of children and social status and succession and companionship. But now we want our partner to still give us all these things, but in addition I want you to be my best friend and my trusted confidant and my passionate lover to boot, and we live twice as long. So we come to one person, and we basically are asking them to give us what once an entire village used to provide: Give me belonging, give me identity, give me continuity, but give me transcendence and mystery and awe all in one. Give me comfort, give me edge. Give me novelty, give me familiarity. Give me predictability, give me surprise. And we think it's a given, and toys and lingerie are going to save us with that. Ideally, though, we're lucky, and we find our soul mate and enjoy that life-changing mother lode of happiness. But a soul mate is a very hard thing to find. — Aziz Ansari