What Are Some Good Happy Quotes & Sayings

We don't go out there into the world and do what would make us feel happy and fulfilled with our lives, because what if it's not good enough for our parents? What if it's not cool enough for our friends? What if our choices aren't good enough for everybody else? "But know this: no matter what you do, you will never escape judgment and criticism. Don't even take this as bad news. It just is. It's what people do. They can't help it. You're getting judged either way, so you might as well do what makes you happy. — Katie Morton

One has to spend so many years in learning how to be happy. I am just beginning to make some progress in the science, and I hope to disprove Young's theory that "as soon as we have found the key of life it opes the gates of death." Every year strips us of at least one vain expectation, and teaches us to reckon some solid good in its stead. I never will believe that our youngest days are our happiest. What a miserable augury for the progress of the race and the destination of the individual if the more matured and enlightened state is the less happy one! — George Eliot

Don't worry about him. He's an old curmudgeon who hates women. I've heard tell it's because he can't satisfy one in bed, if you know what I mean. Some sort of old war injury." Barnaby cast Louisa an ingratiating smile that showed fine white teeth. "If it's a husband you're looking for, you'd be better off with me. All my parts are in fine working order." A chilly smile touched Louisa's lips as she snatched her arm away. "Are they, indeed? Then I suggest you find a wife who'd be happy to oil and pamper them and keep them in good working order. I'm afraid I'd be more likely to smash them to bits." With that, she lifted her skirts and hurried after Silas, leaving Barnaby to gape after her as he instinctively jerked his legs together. — Sabrina Jeffries

I became aware that our love was doomed; love had turned into a love affair with a beginning and an end. I could name the very moment when it had begun, and one day I knew I should be able to name the final hour. When she left the house I couldn't settle to work. I would reconstruct what we had said to each other; I would fan myself into anger or remorse. And all the time I knew I was forcing the pace. I was pushing, pushing the only thing I loved out of my life. As long as I could make believe that love lasted I was happy; I think I was even good to live with, and so love did last. But if love had to die, I wanted it to die quickly. It was as though our love were a small creature caught in a trap and bleeding to death; I had to shut my eyes and wring its neck. — Graham Greene

Why would you want to make them happy?" Amberdrake turned back to his little friend, and sat with a sad smile on his face. "Because they are bitter, unhappy people, and very little else makes them happy. They say what they do out of envy, for any number of reasons. It may be because I lead a more luxurious life than they, or at least they believe I do. It may be because there are many people who do call me friend, and those are all folk of great personal worth; a few of them are people that occupy high position and deservedly so. Perhaps it is because they cannot do what I can, and for some reason, this galls them. But they have so little else that gives them pleasure, I see no reason to deprive them of the few drops of enjoyment they can extract from heaping scorn and derision on me." Gesten shook his head. "Drake, you're crazy. But I already knew that. I'm getting some sleep; this is all too much for me. Good night." "Good night, Gesten," Amberdrake said — Mercedes Lackey

What does normally activate the fear of happiness is an experience that is judged to be too much, too big, or too good to be true. I have coached many people who have gotten themselves out of a hole, and are about to be truly happy again, when suddenly they turn around and run back into the hole. Sometimes it's a different hole, perhaps a slightly more interesting one, but it is still a hole. And if it's not a hole they find, then it's a drama, or a crisis, or a health issue, or some other distraction. This looks like bad luck, and as if some external force has intervened, but I assure you what's really happened is that your ego has performed a maneuver that I call the Ego U-Turn. — Robert Holden

People are often unreasonable, irrational, and self-centered. Forgive them anyway.

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives. Be kind anyway.

If you are successful, you will win some unfaithful friends and some genuine enemies. Succeed anyway.

If you are honest and sincere people may deceive you. Be honest and sincere anyway.

What you spend years creating, others could destroy overnight. Create anyway.

If you find serenity and happiness, some may be jealous. Be happy anyway.

The good you do today, will often be forgotten. Do good anyway.

Give the best you have, and it will never be enough. Give your best anyway.

In the final analysis, it is between you and God. It was never between you and them anyway.

~Mother Teresa — Mother Teresa

The more my heart is parked in a place of thanksgiving and rejoicing, the less room I have for grumpiness.
My kids are driving me crazy? At least they are healthy enough to have that kind of energy. Don't miss this chance to rejoice.
My laundry is piled to the ceiling? Every stitch of clothing is evidence of life in my home. Don't miss this chance to rejoice.
My husband isn't all skippy romantic about the two of us shopping together? In the grand scheme of life, so what? He's a good man. Don't miss this chance to rejoice.
I feel unorganized and behind and late on everything? Scale back, let unrealistic expectations go, and savor some happy moments today. Don't miss this chance to rejoice.
The more I rejoice, the more I keep things in perspective. The more I keep things in perspective, the gentler I become. — Lysa TerKeurst

Life's like a lottery. Sometimes you're lucky, sometimes bad luck follows you. Life is not fair. I'd trade away my computer to be a boy. But God chose me to be a girl, and I can't change that. So you just gotta deal with what you have, and try to be happy about it. Nothing's all bad. There are some good stuff in bad stuff, and sometimes bad stuff in good stuff. Just deal with it. — Janice Liang

Something snapped inside her. "Of course I'm afraid! Relationships do bad things to me." He started to respond, but the pain had gone on long enough, and she didn't want to hear it. "You know what I want? I want peace. I want a good job and a decent place to live. I want to read books and listen to music and have time to make some female friendships that are going to last. When I wake up in the morning, I want to know that I have a decent shot at being happy. And here's what's really sad. Until I met you, I was almost there. — Susan Elizabeth Phillips

...The happy Warrior... is he... whose powers shed round him in the common strife, or mild concerns of ordinary life, a constant influence, a peculiar grace; but who, if he be called upon to face some awful moment to which Heaven has joined great issues, good or bad for human kind, is happy as a lover; and attired with sudden brightness, like a man inspired; and, through the heat of conflict, keeps the law in calmness made, and sees what he foresaw; or if an unexpected call succeed, come when it will, is equal to the need: he who, though thus endued as with a sense and faculty for storm and turbulence, is yet a soul whose master-bias leans to homefelt pleasures and to gentle scenes; sweet images! which, wheresoe'er he be, are at his heart; and such fidelity it is his darling passion to approve; more brave for this, that he hath much to love:- — William Wordsworth

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

But if you're asking what I think you are, I don't think relationships should be like our wrestling matches. Relationships are supposed to make you happy, and bring something good to your life. When that stops, for me at least, then it's time to think about moving on. It's just my opinion, of course, but I think you should get out while you still have some peace of mind. Why stick around until you're yelling mercy, you know?
Campbell, Steph (2012-07-16). Delicate (Risk the Fall) (Kindle Locations 1794-1797). Kindle Edition. — Steph Campbell

The compliments you are about to pay could only sadden me, because what you love in our dear peninsula is exactly the object of our hatreds. Indeed, you crisscross Italy only to meticulously sniff out the traces of our oppressive past, and you are happy, insanely happy, if you have the good fortune to carry home some miserable stone on which our ancestors have trodden. — Filippo Tommaso Marinetti

But I had a good uncle, my late Uncle Alex. He was my father's kid brother, a childless graduate of Harvard who was an honest life-insurance salesman in Indianapolis. He was well- read and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, "If this isn't nice, I don't know what is."
SO I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, "if this isn't nice, I don't know what is."
-Kurt Vonnegut "A man without a country" p. 132 — Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I get back in the Continental and continue down the road to the cafe. Then I pull in and there's Larry Johnson's '57 Ford pickup in the parking lot. As I enter the little cafe, I see Larry and Briggs in the corner, drinking some coffee and having a late breakfast. I go right over and sit down with them. We don't say much. David says something about Kirby getting a job at one of the studios. Kirby is very good with his hands and can fix anything, plus he has a very friendly personality. We are happy for him. Larry has to make a call and gets up, heading for the pay phone in the corner. He has us get him another coffee when the waitress comes back. Briggs looks at me and asks what I've been doing. — Neil Young

Owl felt happy as he filled his cup. It tastes a little bit salty, he said, but tear-drop tea is always very good. — Arnold Lobel

Huamns, uregulated, are cruel and capricious; violet and selfish; miserable and quarrelsome.
It is only after their instincts and basic emotions have been controlled that they can be happy, generous, and good. — Lauren Oliver

Karl Popper, in The Open Society and Its Enemies, made a comment that sounds almost prophetic now: that the happy, primitive society (which, by the way, never existed) is lost for all those who have eaten of the fruit of the tree of knowledge. The more we try to return to the heroic age of tribalism, Popper warns, the more certainly we will reach the Inquisition, the secret police, and a romanticized gangsterism. But once the existential problems of the individual, who is good by nature, can be blamed on the "evil" society, nothing stands in the way of sheer imagination. The definition of the benevolent society free of all power is only a question of fantasy. — Paul Watzlawick

Yet are you so certain, good mistress, you wish to be free of this mist? Is it not better some things remain hidden from our minds?"
"It may be for some, father, but not for us. Axl and I wish to have again the happy moments we shared together. To be robbed of them is as if a thief came in the night and took what's most precious from us."
"Yet the mist covers all memories, the bad as well as the good. Isn't that so, mistress?"
"We'll have the bad ones come back too, even if they make us weep or shake with anger. For isn't it the life we've shared? — Kazuo Ishiguro

For almost half a century, Fermilab has occupied center stage as physicists have sought to understand the fundamental structure of the universe. The lab deserves a good history, and I'm happy to say that in this book it has one. The authors present a compelling, nuanced, and richly detailed account of the place from its beginnings to the present. — James Trefil

Nature designed with a random set of genes and circumstances in which we were born. To be happy, we have to accept it and make the most of nature's design. Are you? Goals will help you do that. I must add, don't just have career or academic goals. Set goals to give you a balanced, successful life. I use the word balanced before successful. Balanced means ensuring your health, relationships, mental peace are all in good order. — Chetan Bhagat

To be successful you need to have good, happy Players. — Norm Sloan