Not Fully Happy Quotes & Sayings

Happy are those who live under a discipline which they accept without question, who freely obey the orders of leaders, spiritual or temporal, whose word is fully accepted as unbreakable law; or those who have, by their own methods, arrived at clear and unshakeable convictions about what to do and what to be that brook no possible doubt. I can only say that those who rest on such comfortable beds of dogma are victims of forms of self-induced myopia, blinkers that may make for contentment, but not for understanding of what it is to be human. — Isaiah Berlin

If there is a secret, a carefully guarded secret, to human happiness, it is that one expressed in a seventeenth-century catechism that says, "Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever." The secret to happiness is found in obedience to God. How can we be happy if we are not obedient? How can we be obedient if we do not know what it is we are to obey? Thus the top and the tail of it is that happiness cannot be fully discovered as long as we remain ignorant of God's Word. — R.C. Sproul

Every generation has the illusion that things were easier and better in a simpler past. Dead wrong. Things are better today than at any time in human history. Our primal ignorance is what keeps us whacking each other over the head with sticks, and not what allows us to paint a Mona Lisa or design a space shuttle. The 'primal ignorance that keeps us happy' gives rise to obesity and global warming, not antibiotics or the Magna Carta. If human kind flourishes rather than flounders over the next thousand years, it will be because we fully embraced learning and reason, and not because we surrendered to some fantasy about returning to a world that never really was. — Daniel Todd Gilbert

By fully tuning in to the now moment in your life, you will discover that you always have enough to enjoy every moment of your life. The only reason you have not been happy every instant is that you have been dominating your consciousness with thoughts about something you don't have- or trying to hold on to something that you do have but which is no longer appropriate in the present flow of your life. — Ken Keyes Jr.

What is it with young women and exclamation points and smiley faces! So afraid of appearing somber, always wanting to appear light and happy and sparkling, even when they are dying inside. Not ever being able to escape the mask that smiles. She wants to write, really write someday. But she is not fully formed. So she does not write. Not really. Unless attempting to live is a form of attempting to write. The agony of becoming. This is what she experiences. The young girl. She would like to be someone, anyone else. She wants, vaguely, to be something more than she is. But she does not know what that is, or how one goes about doing such a thing. — Kate Zambreno

If you want to be happy, do not dwell in the past, do not worry about the future, focus on living fully in the present. — Roy Bennett

Some there are who resign themselves, but with certain reservation; they do not trust fully in God and therefore they try to provide for themselves. Others, again, at first offer all, but afterward are assailed by temptation and return to what they have renounced, thereby making no progress in virtue. These will not reach the true liberty of a pure heart nor the grace of happy friendship with Me unless they first make a full resignation and a daily sacrifice of themselves. Without this no fruitful union lasts nor will last. — Thomas A Kempis

In order to select a gear, the clutch pedal must be depressed - I don't mean 'not happy', I mean pushed fully to the floor! — Martin Woodward

Speaking of, "When is your birthday?" Strider asked Kaia.
Wide silver-gold eyes swung to him. "You don't know?"
"No."
Pouting, she twirled a strand of her hair. "How can you not know?"
"Do you know mine?" he asked.
"Of course I do. It's the day you met me.
As good a day as any. "No, it's not, because that was a trick question, baby doll. I don't actually have a birthday. I was created fully formed, not born." True story.
"You can be such a moron." She threw up her arms, exasperated. "Don't argue with me about this kind of thing. I'll always be right. Seriously. You were dead until you met me and we both know it. Which means I brought you to life. So, happy belated birthday. — Gena Showalter

Materialism, to some extent, requires that the consumer is not fully present or happy. In the moments of a spending frenzy you feel more alive so you spend, spend, spend in the pursuit of happiness. For a short period the acquisition of clothes, shoes, a house, a car, a new kitchen, anchors your life into some place of meaning. — Patsy Rodenburg

Do something you would be proud to have in your obituary, but not something that will haunt you until that day.
Live for now, hope for later, and remember then.
As you grow older always remember to never fully grow up.
This is real.
Stand up and look at the skin you're in.
Don't let the others turn you green, think about it, and make it how you want.
Now you're done reading this, do something that make to make who you are make you happy. — Audrey Regan

I was so happy it was like a food, like I'd been stuffed with it, a foie gras goose of happiness; happy enough to know, fully, that I was happy, and foolishly, for one second, to dare the thought: "Imagine - imagine if each Saturday morning could be like this," and in the middle of the singing, I blushed, not even looking at her, because even just having it I knew there was something wrong about the thought. Another boundary crossing - an acknowledgment to myself, so fleeting but so dangerous, of how hungry I was. — Claire Messud

I believe it will have become evident why, for me, adjectives such as happy, contented, blissful, enjoyable, do not seem quite appropriate to any general description of this process I have called the good life, even though the person in this process would experience each one of these at the appropriate times. But adjectives which seem more generally fitting are adjectives such as enriching, exciting, rewarding, challenging, meaningful. This process of the good life is not, I am convinced, a life for the faint-fainthearted. It involves the stretching and growing of becoming more and more of one's potentialities. It involves the courage to be. It means launching oneself fully into the stream of life. Yet the deeply exciting thing about human beings is that when the individual is inwardly free, he chooses as the good life this process of becoming. — Carl R. Rogers

Vronsky meanwhile, despite the full realization of what he had desired for so long, was not fully happy. He soon felt that the realization of his desire had given him only a grain of the mountain of happiness he had expected. It showed him the eternal error people make in imagining that happiness is in the realization of desires. — Leo Tolstoy

I think that, on the one hand, our audience, our culture is so savvy now to an assumption that teaser effects are not fully representative of the final product. But in the same breath, I would say there's no shot in the teaser that I'm not really happy with. — Shawn Anthony Levy

You are born with the yearning arrow, my Glynna, though you are not yet fully aware of it. It is not a happy thing to possess, for nothing on earth - no goal, no person how ever beloved - will answer it. It points to the sky and to the heavens and the stars and when it cannot reach them, it must fall back to pierce your heart. — Isobelle Carmody

Justine, you may remember, was a great favourite of yours; and I recollect you once remarked that if you were in an ill humour, one glance from Justine could dissipate it, for the same reason that Ariosto gives concerning the beauty of Angelica - she looked so frank-hearted and happy. My aunt conceived a great attachment for her, by which she was induced to give her an education superior to that which she had at first intended. This benefit was fully repaid; Justine was the most grateful little creature in the world: I do not mean that she made any professions I never heard one pass her lips, but you could see by her eyes that she almost adored her protectress. Although her disposition was gay and in many respects inconsiderate, yet she paid the greatest attention to every gesture of my aunt. She thought her the model of all excellence and endeavoured to imitate her phraseology and manners, so that even now she often reminds me of her. — Mary Shelley

There's a nonsensical dichotomy that exists within you after you break up with someone - especially if it's someone you loved deeply. A large part of you hopes they'll move on, be happy, follow their dreams to the fullest.
That's the side you show the world.
But a smaller part of you, whether you admit its existence or not, secretly and selfishly yearns for a reality in which that person would never move on. Never forget your love, or replace you with someone else; never be fully complete again, without you by their side.
That's the side we hide away, the innermost part of ourselves that we push down below the socially-acceptable responses to heartbreak. — Julie Johnson

Don't be gloomy. Do not dwell on unkind things. Stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight. Even if you are not happy, put a smile on your face. 'Accentuate the positive.' Look a little deeper for the good. Go forward in life with a twinkle in your eye and a smile on your face, with great and strong purpose in your heart. Love life. — Gordon B. Hinckley

Empowered Women 101: If he can't tell other women that he is happily married and acts in a way that suggests he isn't fully committed then he isn't happy. He is keeping his foot in the door for a better opportunity should it not work out with you. Real women don't need to investigate. They invest in their self confidence and worth by not allowing their man to disrespect them. They are not afraid to ask themselves the tough questions: Why am I letting this man humiliate me and value me less than others? Why have I allowed myself to become a doormat? — Shannon L. Alder

When you have children, you realize how easy it is to not see them fully, and perhaps miss all those early years. If you are not careful, you can be too absorbed in work, and they will be only too happy to tell you about it later. Being a parent is one of greatest mindfulness practices of all. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

Not every day can be an easy one, nor every day fully happy; but even a day of tough going and difficulty can be a good day. — Norman Vincent Peale

Life is about learning and growing. Experiencing. Self-expression. And overall, living love in all forms. Our soul's evolution is dependent upon embracing, and becoming, unconditional love. Acceptance is an important part of that if we wish to avoid resistance and human drama. At the end of the day, we all just want to feel good and be happy. And attaining that is all that matters because then, we can be the highest versions of ourselves. The ups and downs of life are what make it real for us. The ups and downs that we experience within ourselves are what make us real, and human. In order to fully live each and every day, we need to open to all of life and all of ourselves. Resistance puts a kink in that seamless plan and brings us more of what we do not want. — Camille Lucy

It is too often the quality of happiness that you feel at every moment its fragility, while depression seems when you are in it to be a state that will never pass. Even if you accept that moods change, that whatever you feel today will be different tomorrow, you cannot relax into happiness like you can into sadness. For me, sadness has always been and still is a more powerful feeling; and if that is not a universal experience, perhaps it is the base from which depression grows. I hated being depressed, but it was also in depression that I learned my own acreage, the full extent of my soul. When I am happy, I feel slightly distracted by happiness, as though it fails to use some part of my mind and brain that wants the exercise. Depression is something to do. My grasp tightens and becomes acute in moments of loss: I can see the beauty of glass objects fully at the moment when they slip from my hand toward the floor — Andrew Solomon

And, in keeping with the original Milesian Tales which had happy endings, I would conclude the episode of the lovely Atalanta Chan, who, having sold her virginity for one million dollars, ended up still a virgin.
This fact did not escape the astute mind of the financial wizard, Butes, who pointed out to the lovely girl that since her flower had already been fully paid for & since it was he who had arranged the deal, he should be the one to enjoy any benefit that remained.[MMT] — Nicholas Chong

The path to true happiness is one of integrating and fully accepting all aspects of our experience. This integration is represented in the Taoist symbol of yin/yang, a circle which is half dark and half light. In the midst of the dark area is a spot of light, and in the midst of the light area is a spot of darkness. Even in the depths of darkness, the light is implicit. Even in the heart of light, the dark is understood, acknowledged, and absorbed. If things are not going well for us in life and we are suffering, we are not defeated by the pain or closed off to the light. If things are going well and we are happy, we are not defensively trying to deny the possibility of suffering. This unity, this integration, comes from deeply accepting darkness and light, and therefore being able to be in both simultaneously. — Sharon Salzberg

A well-chosen tie could make me almost merry; a good book, an excursion in a motor car or an hour with a woman left me fully satisfied. It particularly pleased me to ensure that this way of life, like a faultlessly correct suit of English tailoring, did not make me conspicuous in any way. I believe I was considered pleasant company, I was popular and welcome in society, and most who knew me called me a happy man. — Stefan Zweig

When it comes right down to it, the challenge of mindfulness is to realize that "this is it" Right now is my life. The question is, What is my relationship to it going to be? Does my life just automatically "happen" to me? Am I a total prisoner of my circumstances or my obligations, of my body or my illness, or of my history? Do I become hostile or defensive or depressed if certain buttons get pushed, happy if other buttons are pushed, and frightened if something else happens? What are my choices? Do I have any options? We will be looking into these questions more deeply when we take up the subject of our reactions to stress and how our emotions affect our health. For now the important point is to grasp the value of bringing the practice of mindfulness into the conduct of our daily lives. Is there any waking moment of your life that would not be richer and more alive for you if you were more fully awake while it was happening? — Jon Kabat-Zinn

In order to be utterly happy the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past, which I often did not fully enjoy because I was comparing them with other moments of the future. — Andre Gide

Francis Spufford, using very contemporary idiom, calls for the same thing in this way. When discussing our sinfulness, he says: What we're talking about here is not just our tendency to lurch and stumble and screw up by accident, our passive role as agents of entropy. It's our active inclination to break stuff, "stuff" here including . . . promises, relationships we care about and our own well-being and other people's. . . . [You are] a being whose wants make no sense, don't harmonize: whose desires deep down are discordantly arranged, so that you truly want to possess and you truly want not to at the very same time. You're equipped, you realize, more for farce (or even tragedy) than happy endings. . . . You're human, and that's where we live; that's our normal experience.180 Until we fully acknowledge the chaos within us that the Bible calls sin, we live in what Calvin calls "unreality. — Timothy J. Keller

When church and state are separate, the effects are happy, and they do not at all interfere with each other: but where they have been confounded together, no tongue nor pen can fully describe the mischiefs that have ensued. — Isaac Backus

I want a gun, Happy said immediately. "A really big gun. I want a fully functioning Death Star gun."
"Not even if Godzilla himself were to show up," said JC. — Simon R. Green

He withhold that which I believe will fully nourish me? Why do I live in this sense of rejection, of less than, of pain? Does He not want me to be happy? — Ann Voskamp

Julie was downright giddy about the fully paid trip, and my promised shopping spree with the black Am Ex card that Omar gifted to me with the words, "Whatever makes you happy. There is no limit to this card, and there is no limit to what I would give you for the joy you've brought to my life." Needless to say, not only did I squeal, but when I told Julie, she fell off her chair. — Jessica Brooke

Why are you afraid of death? Is it perhaps because you do not know how to live? If you knew how to live fully, would you be afraid of death? If you loved the trees, the sunset, the birds, the falling leaf; if you were aware of men and women in tears, of poor people, and really felt love in your heart, would you be afraid of death? Would you? Don't be persuaded by me. Let us think about it together. You do not live with joy, you are not happy, you are not vitally sensitive to things; and is that why you ask what is going to happen when you die? Life for you is sorrow, and so you are much more interested in death. You feel that perhaps there will be happiness after death. But that is a tremendous problem, and I do not know if you want to go into it. After all, fear is at the bottom of all this - fear of dying, fear of living, fear of suffering. If you cannot understand what it is that causes fear and be free of it, then it does not matter very much whether yo u are living or dead. — Jiddu Krishnamurti

At the end of our time on earth, if we have lived fully, we will not be able to say, 'I was always happy.' Hopefully, we will be able to say, 'I have experienced a lifetime of real moments, and many of them were happy moments.' — Barbara De Angelis