Quotes & Sayings About Wanting To Be Happy

When you find yourself wanting a better moment -wanting something else in the future- it can be helpful to ask: What will that give me? We think we will finally be happy when that moment arrives. What we discover when we do get what we want is that even that wonderful moment disappears. Life keeps moving on, bringing us a mixture of what we like and don't like. Why not like- love - it all because it won't be here for long, it will never be this way again, and it's all you've got. — Gina Lake

There is nothing wrong with wanting to be happy and believing you deserve to be happy. — Karina Halle

Love? I wanted to go with him, to be on the stronger side, for him to spare me, like one who seeks shelter in the arms of the enemy to stay far from his arrows. It was different than love, I was finding out: I wanted him as a thirsty person desires water, without feelings, without even wanting to be happy. — Clarice Lispector

While I slept you stood in the
colorful night market
with pyramids of bright
fruit piled high
Where those who loved you,
rushing back to their intimate stalls,
held out pears that had been
dreamed for you
And would the dream pear not
come gladly
once it knew this was you
wanting to take it in?
The dream pear chose reality,
wanting your mouth as I did -
Honestly, it was happy to be bitten. — Brenda Hillman

The mind is a machine that is constantly asking: What would I prefer? Close your eyes, refuse to move, and watch what your mind does. What it does is become discontent with That Which Is. A desire arises, you satisfy that desire, and another arises in its place. This wanting and rewanting is an endless cycle for which, turns out, there is already a name: samsara. Samsara is at the heart of the vast human carnival: greed, neurosis, mad ambition, adultery, crimes of passion, the hacking to death of a terrified man on a hillside in the name of A More Pure And Thus Perfect Nation
and all of this takes place because we believe we will be made happy once our desires have been satisfied.
I know this. But still I'm full of desire ...
Buddha Boy — George Saunders

There's nothing wrong with making little kids happy, but there's nothing wrong with wanting to be an adult actress. I mean a grown-up actress. — Anne Hathaway

When I stopped wanting my New Year's Eve to be perfect, to bring in the New Year right, is when it started working out right. When I was young, I was always looking for the best party to be at, to ring in the New Year, and I always ended up in the car going, "Happy New Year." — Hilary Swank

I will try to be happy, you think, and your heart and chest feel a plummeting, as in the case of the hurtling rollercoaster, and your heart wants to cry and sob, but you, not wanting to cry, hit yourself hard in the center of your chest and it hurts so much but you drive on, your face dry and remaining dry, though it had been a close call, after all. — Patrick DeWitt

There are worse addictions than wanting to be happy. — Joshua McCune

For stories teach us, that liberty sought out of season, in a corrupt and degenerate age, brought Rome itself to a farther slavery: for liberty hath a sharp and double edge, fit only to be handled by just and virtuous men; to bad and dissolute, it becomes a mischief unwieldy in their own hands: neither is it completely given, but by them who have the happy skill to know what is grievance and unjust to a people, and how to remove it wisely; what good laws are wanting, and how to frame them substantially, that good men may enjoy the freedom which they merit, and the bad the curb which they need. — John Milton

Because here's the thing that's wrong with all of the "How to Be Happy" shit that's been shared eight million times on Facebook in the past few years - here's what nobody realizes about all of this crap: The desire for more positive experience is itself a negative experience. And, paradoxically, the acceptance of one's negative experience is itself a positive experience. This is a total mind-fuck. So I'll give you a minute to unpretzel your brain and maybe read that again: Wanting positive experience is a negative experience; accepting negative experience is a positive experience. It's what the philosopher Alan Watts used to refer to as "the backwards law" - the idea that the more you pursue feeling better all the time, the less satisfied you become, as pursuing something only reinforces the fact that you lack it in the first place. The — Mark Manson

How can you possibly hope to reform her after the life she's been leading?'
'It's not her I'm wanting to reform - it's me,' he replied. 'Besides, it's taking me into a world where I can do some good.'
'I can't imagine you happy.'
'That's not the point.'
'Of course it isn't. But if she has a heart, she can't be happy either. She can't want you to do that.'
'No, she doesn't.'
'I see. But life ... '
'What about life?'
'Life demands something different.'
'Life only wants us to do the right things,' said Nekhlyudov.
-Resurrection — Leo Tolstoy

Friends and family came and went, sometimes helping her with her tears, other times making her laugh. But even in her laughter there was something missing. She never seemed to be truly happy; she just seemed to be passing time while she waited for something else. She was tired of just existing; she wanted to live. But what was the point in living when there was no life in it? These questions went through her mind over and over until she reached the point of not wanting to wake up from her dreams
they were what felt real.
Deep down, she knew it was normal to feel like this, she didn't particularly think she was losing her mind. She knew that one day she would be happy again and that this feeling would just be a distant memory. It was getting to that day that was the hard part. — Cecelia Ahern

People haven't stopped believing in love. They haven't stopped wanting to be in love. They just don't believe in a happy ending anymore. They still believe in love, and falling in love, but they know now that ... they know that romances almost never end as well as they begin. — Gregory David Roberts

I realized I would always be missing something. That no matter what I did, I would always be missing something else. And the only way to live, the only way to be happy, was to make sure the things I didn't miss meant more to me than the things I missed. I had to think about what I wanted, outside the heat of wanting. — David Levithan

Because I want you to be happy. With or without me, whatever it takes." Theo sighs. "That's the difference between wanting someone and loving them. — Claudia Gray

Think of your moods as a thermometer that takes the temperature of your life, if you just want to be happy all the time, it's like wanting to break your thermometer. — Robert Biswas-Diener

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

In order to be happy we must first possess inner contentment; and inner contentment doesn't come from having all we want; but rather from wanting and appreciating being grateful for all we have. — Dalai Lama

Truly, love is something a lot more than to sleep with someone else, more than just to talk with that person. It's to think of that person, wanting them to be happy, to wish them well, to care about them, showing consideration, listening when they are happy or when they're sad, encouraging, it is to show your love, to make that someone feel special, it is always waiting to hear their voice, keeping them in your mind, in your thoughts, and in your heart. — Jose N. Harris

There is an urge to believe that getting something you want will make you happy. The secret is to be happy without wanting anything. Is that so hard? — Chloe Thurlow

I thought of how much they all wanted to be free; how they went mad wanting their freedom; I began to wonder whether it was I that was mad because I was happy to be bound; whether I was alone in knowing that I could not live without the clamour of the voices within me. — Amitav Ghosh

You don't come into this life wanting to be anything other than happy. — Demi Moore

Because every desire has its proper object ... people spend their lives wanting things the shouldn't. The world confuses them into taking heir love and aiming it where it doesn't belong ... All it takes to be happy is to love the right things, in the right amounts. Not money. Not books. People. Adults who don't understand that never feel fulfilled ... — Ian Caldwell

The wise begin with whys." Everyone wants to be happy, healthy, and successful, but wanting is rarely an effective strategy for getting. Those who overcome the temptations of mediocrity and achieve everything they want in life have an extraordinarily compelling why that drives them. They — Hal Elrod

It is because we know happiness that we want to be happy, and since nothing is more certain than our wanting to be happy (beatum esse velle), our notion of happiness guides us in determining the respective goods that then became objects of our desires. — Hannah Arendt

My happiness doesn't rely on other people. It doesn't depend on them needing me, wanting me, approving of me. It's inside me, just where it was when I was little and My Little Pony reigned supreme, before life got twisted and turned upside down, before
everyone else moved on and left me behind. Somehow I lost the power to be happy, but I'm taking it back. Starting today. Today, I choose me. — Mandy Hubbard

But you could, if you were wrong and if you had a crooked heart, forget this most obvious and endearing thing and instead speak of a time you were all alone, in the country, with no one wanting a thing from you, not even love. You could say that was your happiest time. And if you did this then telling about this happiest of times would cause the person you most want to be happy to be unhappy. — Jenny Offill

I'm an optimist and my heroines seem to be that way, too. It's too much work to be cynical and distrusting. That doesn't mean I create perfect stories and perfect people, however. What this means is that my stories are resolved in a manner that leaves the reader with a feeling of hope and happy expectation ... and wanting to reach for another one of my books. — Debbie Macomber

Love is wanting others to be happy. — Dalai Lama

I don't think you comprehend the depth of my feeling for you. It goes beyond wanting to be near you, or protect you. I want you to be happy, and I want you to be treated with respect. — Sylvain Reynard

I feel like I'm as mischievous as you can be while still never wanting to hurt anyone's feelings. I really want everyone to be happy all the time, but I do like seeing what new things you can talk about. — Megan Amram

In Life you have to choose between wanting to be right or to be happy — Denis Gorce-Bourge

My mother, poor fish,
wanting to be happy, beaten two or three times a
week, telling me to be happy: "Henry, smile!
why don't you ever smile?"
and then she would smile, to show me how, and it was the
saddest smile I ever saw — Charles Bukowski

At Evensong one night, while Holly played at sax and Mrs. Bethel Utemeyer joined in, I saw him: Holiday, racing past a fluffy white Samoyed. He had lived to a ripe old age on earth and slept at my father's feet after my mother left, never wanting to let him out of his sight ... I waited for him to sniff me out, anxious to know if here, on the other side, I would still be the little girl he slept beside. I did not have to wait long: he was so happy to see me, he knocked me down. — Alice Sebold

Half a century ago, the Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl wrote that happiness cannot be attained by wanting to be happy - it must come as the unintended consequence of working for a goal greater than oneself. — Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Emma: What do you want from me, Jules? What do you want me to do?
Jules: What do I want? I want you to know what it's like. To be tortured al the time, night and day, desperately wanting what you know you should never want, what doesn't even want you back. to know how it feels to understand that a decision you made when you were twelve years old means you can never have the one thing that would make you truly happy. I want you to dream about only one thing and want onlny one thing and obsess about only one thing like I do ...
Emma: Julian...
Jules: ... like I do with you! Like I do with you, Emma. I thought you loved me. I don't know how I got that so wrong. — Cassandra Clare

I need to learn how to stop destroying myself, stop being hard on myself and be nice to myself. I need to keep telling myself that I need to keep wanting something, something nice, something warm[so] I can make other people happy. I can understand other people's pain because I can love even after all that is left of me is gone because I have that strength. — Daul Kim

As a child, I was happy without wanting to be. I mean, I never thought about whether I wanted to be happy again, I just was. — Nicolas Barreau

Just try to be happy. Unhappiness starts with wanting to be happier. — Sam Levenson

I looked at other couples and wondered how they could be so calm about it. They held hands as if they weren't even holding hands. When Steve and I held hands, I had to keep looking down to marvel at it. There was my hand, the same hand I've always had - oh, but look! What is it holding? It's holding Steve's hand! Who is Steve? My three-dimensional boyfriend. Each day I wondered what would happen next. What happens when you stop wanting, when you are happy. I supposed I would go on being happy forever. I knew I would not mess things up by growing bored. I had done that once before. — Miranda July

For five years I didn't think it was possible to be this happy.
But then he forgot all those promises he made. He forgot why he loved me. He simply stopped loving me.

And this is how he did it:
He stopped talking to me unless I spoke to him.
He stopped holding my hand.
He stopped kissing me good night.
He stopped kissing me good morning.
He stopped kissing me.
He stopped smiling at me.
He stopped laughing.
He stopped bathing and showering with me.
He stopped wanting me.
He started swearing at me.
He started lying to me.
He started cheating on me.
He hurt me.
And then he told me he was in love with another woman and wanted a divorce.
Oh, I forgot. He said he was sorry.

I wanted to blow his fucking brains out. — Terry McMillan

a happy child grows up to be a happy adult. When I was growing up, spoiling a child meant ruining a child. If something was spoiled, it either went down the drain or was tossed into the rubbish. These days, however, parents pat themselves on the back because their children want for nothing. Wanting is good. If you want for nothing, then you have no goals. And if you have no goals, you have no life, no drive, and no ambitions. Chances are, if today's children don't inherit a lot of money from their parents, they'll grow up and live off the welfare system. — Jamie Eubanks

In some ways our greatest ally in this practice of love is our wish to be happy. This wish functions as a homing instinct for freedom when we can unite it with understanding what actually brings us happiness. But sometimes we may feel that we do not really deserve happiness; we may feel almost ashamed of wanting it. Yet this wish is one of the finest things about us, opening the door to transcending our limited lives. — Sharon Salzberg

As we pass the mirror in the bedroom, my attention is drawn to the lovely couple in the reflection. There is a man, tall with broad shoulders. His red hair cut short. He has nothing but a towel on. In his arms is a female, slender but muscular. Her wheat colored hair is pulled back in a neat bun on top of her head. Both of their skin is smooth and flawless, a little paler than most, but still complete perfection. You can tell by the way the man holds her, he cares a lot for her. You can also tell that he is afraid of holding her too tight, not wanting to crush her smaller frame into his body. Looking at this young pair in the mirror, one can only wonder of all the possibilities. What led them to this place? What is in store for them? Will there be a happy ending? — Elle A. Rose

Part of loving someone is wanting them to be happy, even if it hurts you. — Leah Raeder

Love is not the doe-eyed virgin you believe her to be. Love is always hungry. Love is always wanting. Love is not rational. Love does not compromise. And Love is not happy simply possessing you. It wants to own you. Control you. Be you. The first murder was because of love. And I promise you that the last of your kind will die for it. "Love is the single-minded hunter who consumes its prey, sucking it of all it's worth and then seeks another. Love is only happy when you are on your knees, begging it to stay. And love will walk away, leaving you to your self pity just to feel your need. "Love — R.E. Vance

They have to convert our agenda into something aggressive. Two guys wanting to be happy together are invading their marriages. Helping a kid who's getting beaten up in school is promoting homosexuality. If you gave me a million dollars, I wouldn't know how to promote homosexuality. — Barney Frank

They think it's what we need to hear, but it's the opposite. Inviting glamorous people to school, asking them to parade their glamorous lives onstage, getting them to inspire us with their message that anything is possible if only we believe. Dream. Reach for the stars. Well, no thanks. That's not for me. I'm not going to get there, and neither are most people that I know, and that's fine by me. It is. It really is. When did it stop being fine for everyone else? The normal stuff. Sunday dinners and, I don't know , taking a walk in the park and listening to music and working in an ordinary job for an ordinary wage that will allow you to maybe go on holiday once a year, and really look forward to it too because you're are not a greedy bastard wanting more, more, more all the time. That's who should be doing a talk at school. Seriously. Show me someone happy with a life like that, because it's enough. It should be enough. All that other stuff is meaningless. — Annabel Pitcher

Now he understood that a man never knows for whom he suffers and hopes. He suffers and hopes and toils for people he will never know, and who, in turn, will suffer and hope and toil for others who will not be happy either, for man always seeks a happiness far beyond that which is meted out to him. But man's greatness consists in the very fact of wanting to be better than he is. In laying duties upon himself. In the Kingdom of Heaven there is no grandeur to be won, inasmuch as there all is an established hierarchy, the unknown is revealed, existence is infinite, there is no possibility of sacrifice, all is rest and joy. For this reason, bowed down by suffering and duties, beautiful in the midst of his misery, capable of loving in the face of afflictions and trials, man finds his greatness, his fullest measure, only in the Kingdom of this World. — Alejo Carpentier

Between the postwar fifties - domesticity, people happy to be alive after the Second World War, wanting to build a home, make a family, make a nest. Women were pushed back into the home after having been active in the Second World War. It was a big Doris Day moment for women, which didn't suit all women. — Sally Potter

Wanting to be happy is not stupid. — Lauren DeStefano

False love is just wanting someone else, but true love is wanting someone else to be happy. — Menna Van Praag

He looked at her. There was something about her. When he was with her he felt happy, excited; when he was apart from her he found himself wanting to be with her again. — Nicole Mones

Wanting something to make you happy is a sure way to be miserable. — Mooji

Yoga began with the first person wanting to be healthy and happy all the time. — Swami Satchidananda

Our entire society's based on discontent: people wanting more and more and more, being constantly dissatisfied with their homes, their bodies, their decor, their clothes, everything. Taking it for granted that that's the whole point of life, never to be satisfied. If you're perfectly happy with what you've got - specially if what you've got isn't even all that spectacular - then you're dangerous. You're breaking all the rules, you're undermining the sacred economy, you're challenging every assumption that society's built on. That's why Rafe's dad throws a mickey fit whenever Rafe says he's happy where he is. The way he sees it, we're all subversives. We're traitors. — Tana French

Who is my biggest inspiration? Wow ... I really, without wanting to sound 'aw gee shucks,' I'd have to say my wife who taught a rather uptight Englishman what there is to be got out of life. Susan is my greatest inspiration. She has more integrity than anyone I know, and integrity is more important than anything for a happy and successful life. — Charles Shaughnessy

I'm very happy to have the heritage that I do, but I'm not wanting to be 'the Latino actor.' I just want to be 'an actor.' — Oscar Isaac