Single But Not Happy Quotes & Sayings

He is the luckiest man in the world to have you, Rosie, but he doesn't deserve you and you deserve far better. You deserve someone who loves you with every single beat of his heart, someone who thinks about you constantly, someone who spends every minute of every day just wondering what you're doing, where you are, who you're with, and if you're okay. You need someone who can help you reach your dreams and who can protect you from your fears. You need someone who will treat you with respect, love every part of you, especially your flaws. You should be with someone who can make you happy, really happy, dancing-on-air happy. Someone who should have taken the chance to be with you years ago instead of getting scared and being too afraid to try. I am not scared anymore , Rosie. I am not afraid to try. — Cecelia Ahern

Either to die the death or to abjure
For ever the society of men.
Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires;
Know of your youth, examine well your blood,
Whether, if you yield not to your father's choice,
You can endure the livery of a nun,
For aye to be in shady cloister mew'd,
To live a barren sister all your life,
Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.
Thrice-blessed they that master so their blood,
To undergo such maiden pilgrimage;
But earthlier happy is the rose distill'd,
Than that which withering on the virgin thorn
Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness. — William Shakespeare

Mother, monogamy, romance. High spurts the fountain; fierce and foamy the wild jet. The urge has but a single outlet. My love, my baby. No wonder those poor pre-moderns were mad and wicked and miserable. Their world didn't allow them to take things easily, didn't allow them to be sane, virtuous, happy. What with mothers and lovers, what with the prohibitions they were not conditioned to obey, what with the temptations and the lonely remorses, what with all the diseases and the endless isolating pain, what with the uncertainties and the poverty - they were forced to feel strongly. And feeling strongly (and strongly, what was more, in solitude, in hopelessly individual isolation), how could they be stable? — Aldous Huxley

It makes me happy to think that not one single suggestion of Our Rose's has ever been adopted. Needless to say, when the water garden was eventually made, she claimed that it was all her own idea, merely because of the 'gleam' which she had 'seen,' out on the bare earth, that desolate day in January. She even suggested that she should be photographed with it, stretching out her hands for a lily. But if Our Rose is ever photographed with my pool, she will be well inside it, and she will be stretching out her hands for help. — Beverley Nichols

"The Hallmark Sessions" is an extraordinary release. Breau plays beautiful chords (sounding a little like Johnny Smith in spots) and inventive single-note lines. It is remarkable that this music was not released until 2003, but a happy event that it was finally put out. This is a must for Breau fans and an important release for all jazz guitar lovers. — Scott Yanow

What happy and successful single people are threatening is not the institution of marriage but the cultural consensus on its special value. Same-sex marriage does not threaten the institution of marriage, either. The sticking point (or at least one of them) is that large numbers of Americans remain unconvinced that gay men and lesbians are the moral equivalent of straight people. To them, keeping marriage pure and sacred means keeping same-sex partners out. — Bella DePaulo

I am quite happy that the Beatles came and went. There is even a sort of glory in not having it go on forever. There is a complete body of work that went from A to Z and it is all pretty damn good stuff. The one thing I am particularly proud of is that nearly every single bit of it has some good message. I feel fortunate when I look back. Life is not easy, but I've been very lucky - and I'm touching wood as I say that. — Paul McCartney

Sometimes our thoughts turn back toward a corner in a forest, or the end of a bank, or an orchard powdered with flowers, seen but a single time on some happy day, yet remaining in our hearts and leaving in soul and body an unappeased desire which is not to be forgotten, a feeling that we have just rubbed elbows with happiness. — Guy De Maupassant

Our purpose in founding our state was not to promote the happiness of a single class, but, so far as possible, of the whole community. Our idea was that we were most likely to justice in such a community, and so be able to decide the question we are trying to answer. We are therefore at the moment trying to construct what we think is a happy community by securing the happiness not of a select minority, but of a whole. — Plato

I know this will come as a shock to you, Mr. Goldwyn, but in all history, which has held billions and billions of human beings, not a single one ever had a happy ending. — Dorothy Parker

We're not all perfect. People always say to me: "Oh you seem happy all the time." But I'm not happy all the time. I'm a human being. I'm very sensitive. I hurt like anybody else. But I do try my best to have a good attitude and I set about tryin' to take care of myself knowing I'm not going to be exactly right, so I just try to see what I can do to improve every single day. — Dolly Parton

The secret to happiness is to lower your expectations ... that is what you compare your experience with. If your expectations and standards are very high and only allow yourself to be happy when things are exquisite, you'll never be happy and grateful. There will always be some flaw. But compare your experience with lower expectations, especially something not as good, and you'll find much in your experience of the world to love, cherish and enjoy, every single moment. — Charlie Munger

Your mother left you. Trevor used you and gave you up. Your father is dead. None of it was your fault, yet you constantly want to saddle yourself with the guilt, and this ridiculous notion of being unworthy. Its fucking destroying you. And not just you. Everyone who cares about you. So just shut up. I may not know the depth of you pain. I may not have been with you through every single dramatic incident that has happened in you life, but I love you, Sarah. And I want you to be happy. — S.J. Wright

I'm tired and exhausted and sick of living a life that I don't really want to live anymore. I'm tired of pretending to be happy for you, because I'm not happy. Every single time I smile, I feel like I'm lying to you, but I don't know how to live any other way. And I know when I'll do it, it'll break you heart. I know it'll devaste Mom and Dad. And I know you'll hate me. — Colleen Hoover

It's a hard emotion to explain - what it feels like to fake every single moment of your life. To breathe but to not exist. To smile but to not be happy. To nod and agree but to not really care. — Jay McLean

I started to get so many letters from unlikely people; a single mum going, "I watch your show, I'm not into survival, but I hold down four jobs and I get it when you say it's about persistence and putting a positive attitude into things during difficult times." That for me was a great liberator to realize that the show isn't about me running around, jumping off stuff and flexing muscles, it's about inspiring people. That makes me really happy. — Bear Grylls

Shush, listen to me. I've been thinking this over. I could see this new thing was weighing down on you, but I know you're going to be all right." "I'm not so sure." "That's OK. I can be sure for both of us. We've been together in this house for fifteen years, so I know what I'm talking about. When I first started with you I thought it was only a matter of time before depression would take you over. And there was that one summer when it came close, but it didn't happen. Every day you get up and learn something new. Every day you find something to be happy about. Every single day you have a smile for me. You worry more about your mother than you do about yourself. — Nicola Yoon

Some experimenters have reported that an angry face "pops out" of a crowd of happy faces, but a single happy face does not stand out in an angry crowd. The brains of humans and other animals contain a mechanism that is designed to give priority to bad news. — Daniel Kahneman

Meditation has made me happy, loving, and peaceful-but not every single moment of the day. I still have good times and bad, joy and sorrow. Now I can accept setbacks more easily, with less sense of disappointment and personal failure, because meditation has taught me how to cope with the profound truth that everything changes all the time. — Sharon Salzberg

Like Pascal, Nietzsche, and Simone Weil, Kierkegaard is one of those writers whom it is very difficult to estimate justly. When one reads them for the first time, one is bowled over by their originality . . . and by the sharpness of their insights. . . . But with successive readings one's doubts grow, one begins to react against their overemphasis on one aspect of the truth at the expense of all the others, and one's first enthusiasm may all too easily turn to an equally exaggerated aversion. Of all such writers, one might say that one cannot imagine them as children. The more we read them, the more we become aware that something has gone badly wrong with their affective life; . . . it is not only impossible to imagine one of them as a happy husband or wife, it is impossible to imagine their having a single intimate friend to whom they could open their hearts. — W. H. Auden

Adventures are funny things.
Many are merely happy accidents - a single spark that ignites an unexpected chain of events.
But some adventures are meant for you and you alone.
And whether you want them or not, they seek you out of a great crowd and take you somewhere you never thought you'd go.
Often, these unlooked for adventures require a sacrifice too great to imagine. — Wayne Thomas Batson

I now know that there is a happy abundance of science writers who pen the most lucid and thrilling prose - Timothy Ferris, Richard Fortey and Tim Flannery are three that jump out from a single station of the alphabet (and that's not even to mention the late but godlike Richard Feynman) - but, sadly, none of them wrote any textbook I ever used. — Bill Bryson

For millions of years flowers have been producing thorns. For millions of years sheep have been eating them all the same. And it's not serious, trying to understand why flowers go to such trouble to produce thorns that are good for nothing? It's not important, the war between the sheep and the flowers? It's no more serious and more important than the numbers that fat red gentleman is adding up? Suppose I happen to know a unique flower, one that exists nowhere in the world except on my planet, one that a little sheep can wipe out in a single bite one morning, just like that, without even realizing what he'd doing - that isn't important? If someone loves a flower of which just one example exists among all the millions and millions of stars, that's enough to make him happy when he looks at the stars. He tells himself 'My flower's up there somewhere ... ' But if the sheep eats the flower, then for him it's as if, suddenly, all the stars went out. And that isn't important? — Antoine De Saint-Exupery

Not a thing had happened the way she had planned, no, not a single thing! But it seemed to her she had never been so happy in her life. — Dorothy Canfield Fisher

One splendid summer afternoon Kaspar realized he had never been happier in his life or both of his lives, past and present. Not fireworks-orgasms-and-champagne happy, but on waking in the morning he was glad almost every single day to be exactly where he was. He had never before experienced the feeling of genuine, constant well-being and it was a true revelation. The longer the satisfaction continued, the less he thought about his previous life as a mechanic and the extraordinary things he'd once seen and been able to do. Misery may love company but happiness is content to be alone. The funny irony of his existence now was, as long as he was this happy and content with his lot, Kaspar didn't need to make much of an effort to "walk away" from his mechanic's life because now he was sated with this one both in mind and heart. — Jonathan Carroll

Should you go on, you will surely be disappointed, perhaps even heartbroken. I have one key left on my belt, but all it opens is that final door, the one marked. What's behind it won't improve your love-life, grow hair on your bald spot, or add five years to your natural span (not even five minutes). There is no such thing as a happy ending. I never met a single one to equal "Once upon a time."
Endings are heartless.
Ending is just another word for goodbye. — Stephen King

Poor Metias. He's not supposed to be a father. He's supposed to be out on his own, independent and free to concentrate on his job as a young captain. But somebody has to take care of me, and I make his life so much harder than it needs to be. I wonder what things must have been like for him back when our parents were still alive, when I was a toddler and Metias was a teenager and he could focus on growing up instead of helping someone else grow up. Still, Metias hasn't complained once. Not a single time. And even though I wish our parents were here, sometimes I'm really happy that this is our little family unit, just me and my brother, each watching out for no one but the other. We do the best we can. — Marie Lu

Not to settle. If you're not happy with a person, leave. And wait until you find that one person who makes you feel good about yourself every single day and is not expecting you to change, but to grow. — Zoe Saldana

It's really hard to deny a kid who's father has passed away. We all just wanted you to be happy so we messed that up. Your career wasn't about the money. Not at first. It gave you both something big to do so you could stay busy and forget how much you missed your dad." His heart twisted, and he whispered, "When I think of him ... I don't remember his face, but I do remember how much it hurt to have him simply there one day and gone the next ... just gone." Nan nodded. "Imagine how your mom felt. Your dad was the love of her life. — Anne Eliot

The problem may be a literary one: we are given a single story line about what makes a good life, even though not a few who follow that story line have bad lives. We speak as though there is one good plot with one happy outcome, while the myriad forms a life can take flower - and wither - all around us.
Even those who live out the best version of the familiar story line might not find happiness as their reward. This is not necessarily a bad thing. I know a woman who was lovingly married for seventy years. She has had a long, meaningful life that she has lived according to her principles. But I wouldn't call her happy; her compassion for the vulnerable and concern for the future have given her a despondent worldview. What she has had instead of happiness requires better language to describe. There are entirely different criteria for a good life that might matter more to a person - honor, meaning, depth, engagement, hope. — Rebecca Solnit