Happiness Philosophers Quotes & Sayings

If you want to know what happiness is, you need to go to the philosophers. Start with the Wikipedia article "Philosophy of Happiness." Then go to the Stanford Online Encyclopedia of Philosophy, search for "happiness," and follow through the articles that come up to see what various philosophers have said. Then read the philosophers' works themselves. By the time you're done, you'll probably be dead, whether or not you are happy. — John Perry

City government can and must help San Franciscans prepare for emergencies in order to avoid tragedy where possible and minimize loss of life and property when emergencies occur. — Gavin Newsom

As useful as an unhappy artist. As useless as a happy philosopher. — Mokokoma Mokhonoana

The psalmist saith more to the point about true happiness in this short Psalm than any one of the philosophers, or all of them put together; they did but beat the bush, God hath here put the bird into our hand. John Trapp, 1660 — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Nonviolence is a weapon of the strong. — Mahatma Gandhi

As time went by, I realized that the particular place I'd chose was less important than the fact that I'd chosen a place and focused my life around it. Although the island has taken on great significance for me, it's no more inherently beautiful or meaningful than any other place on earth. What makes a place special is the way it buries itself inside the heart, not whether it's flat or rugged, rich or austere. wet or arid, gentle or harsh, warm or cold, wild or tame. Every place, like every person, is elevated by the love and respect shown toward it, and by the way in which its bounty is received. — Richard Nelson

The most important lesson we can draw from this, of course, is that it's best, if at all possible, not to become romantically involved with philosophers. — Will Buckingham

The range of genre that we is very diverse, which makes for a fun and multi-dimensional show, but creating something that flows, depending on what kind of vibe the show is going to be [loud dive bar, small theatre, festival] is a bit of an art a haphazard art at times. — Sarah Burton

A more promising hypothesis is that happiness comes from within and cannot be obtained by making the world conform to your desires. This idea was widespread in the ancient world: Buddha in India and the Stoic philosophers in ancient Greece and Rome all counseled people to break their emotional attachments to people and events, which are always unpredictable and uncontrollable, and to cultivate instead an attitude of acceptance. This ancient idea deserves respect, and it is certainly true that changing your mind is usually a more effective response to frustration than is changing the world. — Jonathan Haidt

Your friend Plato holds that commonwealths will only be happy when either philosophers rule or rulers philosophize: how remote happiness must appear when philosophers won't even deign to share their thoughts with kings. — Thomas More

But from this earth, this grave, this dust, My God shall raise me up, I trust. — Walter Raleigh

Philosophers there are who try to make themselves believe that this life is happy; but they believe it only while they are saying it, and never yet produced conviction in a single mind. — Samuel Johnson

Since ancient times, philosophers have maintained that to strive too hard for one's own happiness is self-defeating. — Peter Singer

In the U.S., I think there is an ideology of not telling kids what to do. Nobody to tell you who to marry, not tell you what job to pick. You're your own person. You have the freedom to choose, including the freedom to fail in magnificent ways. And I think that's the big difference. In other countries there is basically a social norm about saving that is passed from generation to generation. In the U.S. there isn't. — Dan Ariely

Described in this way, utilitarianism has little in common with the prosaic, visionless notion of the 'merely utilitarian,' in the sense of a narrowly or mundanely functional or efficient option. No such limited horizon confined the thought and character of the great English-language utilitarian philosophers, whose influence ran its course from the period just before the French Revolution through the Victorian era. Happiness, for them, was more of a cosmic calling, the path to world progress, and whatever was deemed 'utilitarian' had to be useful for that larger and inspiring end, the global minimization of pointless suffering and the global maximization of positive well-being or happiness. It invokes, ultimately, the point of view of universal benevolence. And it is more accurately charged with being too demanding ethically than with being too accommodating of narrow practicality, material interests, self-interestedness, and the like. — Bart Schultz

Philosophy can add to our happiness in no other manner but by diminishing our misery; it should not pretend to increase our present stock, but make us economists of what we are possessed of. Happy were we all born philosophers; all born with a talent of thus dissipating our own cares by spreading them upon all mankind. — Oliver Goldsmith

I think, if there's a God out there, He could at least put in an appearance and tell us what the truth is.'
'But, Neil, don't you know? That's what God did. That's exactly what he did. He wrapped himself in skin ... to tell us what the truth is ... His first coming was only the opening act. He's been relentless in His pursuit of us ever since. He's on your heels right now. — Ann Tatlock

Nothing can replace the feel of the paper against your fingers, the ink soaked up by paper, the sensation of turning a page with the wind rustling your hair, or the deliberate and intricate presentation of images and text that you can only get in the real world, on real pages. And few things can be as torturous as sitting in front of a computer screen for hours on end. — CrimethInc.

The venerable teachers, philosophers & spiritual practitioners throughout history have concluded that the greatest happiness we can experience comes from the development of an open, loving heart. — Allan Lokos

One of the things that you see ancient philosophers and contemporary scientists agree on is that strong relationships are a key to happiness, maybe the key to happiness. People who have more strong relationships in their lives just feel happier. — Gretchen Rubin

In proposing a solution to the problem of the individual and the community, Marx was contributing to a tradition in moral philosophy going back at least to Plato. Plato had argued that personal happiness is to be found in virtuous conduct and in serving one's community. He thus found harmony between the individual's interest in happiness and the needs of the community. But Plato's arguments did not convince later philosophers. — Anonymous

Here was the secret of happiness, about which philosophers had disputed for so many ages, at once discovered; happiness might now be bought for a penny, and carried in the waistcoat-pocket; portable ecstasies might be had corked up in a pint-bottle; and peace of mind could be sent down by the mail. — Thomas De Quincey

Since then, as philosophers prove, appearance tyrannizes over truth and is lord of happiness, to appearance I must devote myself. — Plato

Philosophers should consider the fact that the greatest happiness principle can easily be made an excuse for a benevolent dictatorship. We should replace it by a more modest and more realistic principle - the principle that the fight against avoidable misery should be a recognized aim of public policy, while the increase of happiness should be left, in the main, to private initiative. — Karl Popper

The angel tumbles down to Earth into my own personal realm of lust, hedonism and shame. With eyes the color of the ocean and her halo of fire burning as bright as the desert sun, she speaks to me. And while she is raw and sullied, tainted by this beautiful hell, her words breathe life into the darkest, loneliest parts of me. — S.L. Jennings

If true happiness depended on the thoughts of man, then all philosophers and deep thinkers would be filled to overflowing with it. — Sadhu Sundar Singh

said: 'Until philosophers are kings, or the kings and princes of this world have the spirit and power of philosophy, and political greatness and wisdom meet in one, and those commoner natures who pursue either to the exclusion of the other are compelled to stand aside, cities will never have rest from their evils, - nor the human race, as I believe, - and then only will this our State have a possibility of life and behold the light of day.' Such was the thought, my dear Glaucon, which I would fain have uttered if it had not seemed too extravagant; for to be convinced that in no other State can there be happiness private or public is indeed a hard thing. Socrates, — Plato

Sooner or later, jihadist-style terror and WMD are going to come together and the consequences could be horrendous. — Noam Chomsky

The love of truth, virtue, and the happiness of mankind are specious pretexts, but not the inward principles that set divines at work; else why should they affect to abuse human reason, to disparage natural religion, to traduce the philosophers as they universally do? — George Berkeley

Every now and then we discover in the seething mass of humanity round us a person who does not seem to need anybody else, and the contrast with ourselves is stinging. — Ernest Dimnet

Still, the frequent absence of happiness is what keeps us pursuing it, and thus makes us productive."10 This is a curious notion of productivity - at once overtly political and yet presented innocently enough, as if there were only one possible meaning of "productivity." This perspective on life incorporates the Protestant work ethic (that "productivity" is what makes an animal "effective") and echoes the Old Testament notion that life must be endured, not enjoyed. These assumptions are embedded throughout the literature of evolutionary psychology. Ethologist/primatologist Frans de Waal, one of the more open-minded philosophers of human nature, calls this Calvinist sociobiology. — Christopher Ryan

Everything passes. Nothing is forever. Least of all love. Cameron — Sidney Sheldon

Pain may be the only reality but if mankind had any sense it would pursue the delusion called happiness. All the philosophers and poets who tell us that pain and suffering have a place and purpose in the cosmic order of things are welcome to them. They are frauds. We justify pain because we do not know what to make of it, nor do we have any choice but to bear it. Happiness alone can make us momentarily larger than ourselves. — Kiran Nagarkar

Her face turned to the window, and he saw her swallow. She was not as calm as she appeared, but for some reason, it was important for her to seem so. He drew a breath and remembered the advice another woman had given him: Everyone is brave in his own way. You must not blame others if they don't fit your mold. — Meredith Duran

What's up Brandon?" "She's fine and you're dead." ********* — D. Camille

Bigger questions, questions with more than one answer, questions without an answer are the hardest to cope with in silence. Once asked they do not evaporate and leave the mind to its serener musings. Once asked they gain dimension and texture, trip you on the stairs, wake you at night-time. A black hole sucks up its surroundings and even light never escapes. Better then to ask no questions? Better then to be a contented pig than an unhappy Socrates? Since factory farming is tougher on pigs than it is on philosophers I'll take a chance. — Jeanette Winterson

The only interesting philosophers are the ones who have stopped thinking and have begun to search for happiness. — Emil Cioran