What Is Happy Life Quotes & Sayings

A risk to own anything: a car, a pair of shoes, a packet of cigarettes. Not enough to go around, not enough cars, shoes, cigarettes. Too many people, too few things. What there is must go into circulation, so that everyone can have a chance to be happy for a day. That is the theory; hold to the theory and to the comforts of theory. Not human evil, just a vast circulatory system, to whose workings pity and terror are irrelevant. That is how one must see life in this country: in its schematic aspect. Otherwise one could go mad. Cars, shoes; women too. There must be some niche in the system for women and what happens to them. — J.M. Coetzee

For of what use is existence to the creature if it cannot know its Maker? How could men be reasonable beings if they had no knowledge of the Word and Reason of the Father, through Whom they had received their being? They would be no better than the beasts, had they no knowledge save of earthly things; and why should God have made them at all, if He had not intended them to know Him? But, in fact, the good God has given them a share in His own Image, that is, in our Lord Jesus Christ, and has made even themselves after the same Image and Likeness. Why? Simply in order that through this gift of Godlikeness in themselves they may be able to perceive the Image Absolute, that is the Word Himself, and through Him to apprehend the Father; which knowledge of their Maker is for men the only really happy and blessed life. — Athanasius Of Alexandria

Counting our blessings can transform melancholy into cheerful mass; laughter and joy are expressions of praise and thanksgiving for life's glories. When looking at the glass that symbolizes our life, we can view it as half full or half empty. The choice is ours ... The more joyful we are, the more attractive we become. When we feel gratitude for our experiences, it becomes easier to see the good that always exists. When we give a smile to someone else, we are likely to receive one in return, and that smile reflects a happy heart that is open and receptive to what the good life has in store. — John Templeton

Well, you have adventures. All start out with troubles, but then you admit your problems and become a better person by working really hard, which is what fertilizes the happy ending and allows it to bloom - just like the end of all the Rocky films, Rudy, The Karate Kid, the Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies, and The Goonies, which are my favorite films, even though I have sworn off movies until Nikki returns, because now my own life is the movie I will watch, and well, it's always on. — Matthew Quick

It's the same struggle for each of us, and the same path out: the utterly simple, infinitely wise ultimately defiant act of loving one thing and then another, loving our way back to life ... Maybe being perfectly happy is not really the point. Maybe that is only some modern American dream of the point, while the truer measure of humanity is the distance we must travel in our lives, time and again, "twixt two extremes of passion
joy and grief," as Shakespeare put it. However much I've lost, what remains to me is that I can still speak to name the things I love. And I can look for safety in giving myself away to the world's least losable things. — Barbara Kingsolver

Where do we get the energy to keep on hoping and praying that things will get better? What makes us believe we DESERVE a happy life to begin with? Is this just an American phenomenon? We just assume that we are entitled to happiness? And when we do get the things we wished so hard for, are we happy? Or do we just want more...? And what about people in less developed countries who's lives are REALLY hard? People who live in places where infant death, widespread disease, rape, general oppression, poverty and starvation are the norm. Why do THEY keep going? Do they hope for happiness too, or do they think there are no other options but to keep living. I need to know. — Jessica Kenley

I am responsible for my personal happiness. One of the characteristics of immaturity is the belief that it is someone else's job to make me happy - much as it was once my parents' job to keep me alive. If only someone would love me, then I would love myself. If only someone would take care of me, then I would be contented. If only someone would spare me the necessity of making decisions, then I would be carefree. If only someone would make me happy. Here's a simple but powerful stem to wake one up to reality: If I take full responsibility for my personal happiness - . Taking responsibility for my happiness is empowering. It places my life back in my own hands. Ahead of taking this responsibility, I may imagine it will be a burden. What I discover is that it sets me free. — Nathaniel Branden

Happiness is not a goal, it is a by-product. Paradoxically, the one sure way not to be happy is deliberately to map out a way of life in which one would please oneself completely and exclusively. For what keeps our interest in life and makes us look forward to tomorrow is giving pleasure to other people. — Eleanor Roosevelt

People think about life in terms of changes, not levels. They can be changes from the status quo or changes from what was expected, but whatever form they take, it is changes that make us happy or miserable. — Richard H. Thaler

An Attempt at Jealousy"

How is your life with an ordinary
woman? without the god inside her?
The queen supplanted -

How do you breathe now?
Flinch, waking up?
What do you do, poor man?

How's your life with a tourist
on Earth? Her rib (do you love her?)
is it to your liking?

How do you live with cheap goods: is the market rising?
How's kissing plaster-dust?

Are you bored with her new body?
How's it going, with an earthly woman,
with no sixth sense?

Are you happy?
No? In a shallow pit - how is your life,
my beloved? Hard as mine
with another man? — Marina Tsvetaeva

I only hope that for right now, you remember that there is no place for hate in a happy life. I don't care who you are, where you come from or what God you believe in. I can guarantee you that if you hate, you will never achieve true happiness. — A.S. King

Success is not about having a lot but about making the most of what you have. But success alone however will not necessarily make you fulfilled or happy. It is how you share your achievements with others to make their lives better that will. This is called greatness. It is about living life with a purpose beyond self and family. — Tony Meloto

Joy. The joy of my joy. There through everything. A shocking sense of vitality and beauty present in both happiness and in the midst of pain. The only thing I can think to compare this experience to is the experience of an excellent story - reading a great novel, say, or watching a great movie. The scene before you might be a happy one or a sad one. You might feel uplifted or you might feel heartbroken or you might feel afraid. But whatever you feel, you're still loving the story. Through prayer, I came to experience both pleasure and sorrow in something like that way. In God, the life of the flesh became the story of the spirit. I loved that story, no matter what. During — Andrew Klavan

Grow up, Bailey."
"That is precisely what I'm doing," Bailey says. "I don't care if you don't understand that. Staying here won't make me happy. It will make you happy because you're insipid and boring, and an insipid, boring life is enough for you. It's not enough for me. It will never be enough for me. So I'm leaving. Do me a favor and marry someone who will take decent care of the sheep. — Erin Morgenstern

What is the point of finding the reason as long as you know that you are on the right path? And I have realized lately that the right path is the one where you feel happy within yourself, at ease within yourself. - The Monk (Pg-95) — Shashi

The old thing where it always was, back again. As when a man, having found at last what he sought, a woman, for example, or a friend, loses it, or realises what it is. And yet it is useless not to seek, not to want, for when you cease to seek you start to find, and when you cease to want, then life begins to ram her fish and chips down your gullet until you puke, and then the puke down your gullet until you puke the puke, and then the puked puke until you begin to like it. The glutton castaway, the drunkard in the desert, the lecher in prison, they are the happy ones. To hunger, thirst, lust, every day afresh and every day in vain, after the old prog, the old booze, the old whores, that's the nearest we'll ever get to felicity, the new porch and the very latest garden. I pass on the tip for what it is worth. — Samuel Beckett

It isn't any single thing," Mrs. Waite repeated earnestly, the tears on her cheeks, "It's just that - well, look, Natalie. This is the only life I've got - you understand? I mean, this is all. And look what's happening to me. I spend most of my time just thinking about how nice things used to be and wondering if they'll ever be nice again. If I should go on and on and die someday and nothing was ever nice again - wouldn't that be a fine thing? I get to feeling like that and then I think I'll make things be nice, and make him behave, and just make everything all happy and exciting again the way it used to be - but I'm too tired. — Shirley Jackson

The saying is, life is short, but what if it's not? But if life is short, is this how you would like to spend your last days? And if life is long, is this how you want to spend 50, 60, or 70 years? Being ashamed? Being quiet? Hoping no one notices you? Not telling the truth? Walking around heavy? If I die in my sleep tonight, God forbid, I am happy with how I've lived my life. I've lived it truthfully. — Karrine Steffans

Certainly my inner world will never be a peaceful place of bloom; it will have some peace, and occasional riots of bloom, but always a little fight going on too. There is no way I can be peacefully happy in this society and in this skin. I am committed to Uneasy Street. I like it; it is my idea that this street leads to the future, and that I am being true to a way of life which is not here yet, but is more real than what is here. — James Tiptree Jr.

'Sugar, aint you ever had no good time?' she said with a bit of sadness in her voice.
'What you mean?' Sugar said, ...
'Seems to me that I ain't never see you look up from whatever you were doing and just smile.'
'Just smile? Smile at what? At who?'
'Smile into the air, girl!' she said and waved her arm through the air ... you better start, 'cause time is running and a life without good times ain't a life worth having. — Bernice L. McFadden

I know absolutely nothing about where I'm going. I'm fine with that. I'm happy about it. Before, I had nothing. I had no life, no friends, and no family really, and I didn't really care. I had nothing, and nothing to lose, and then I knew loss. What I cared about was gone; it was all lost. Now I have everything to gain; everything is a clean slate. It's all blank pages waiting to be written on. It's all about going forward. It's all about uncertainty and possibilities. — Gregory Galloway

Happy?" asked Aquilina, with dreadful look, and a smile full of pity and terror. "Ah, you do not know what it is to be condemned to a life of pleasure. — Honore De Balzac

The years move forward and everyone is attending to their life's priorities, focusing on how to be happy, make a living, raise a family. The years turn into decades and sooner or later, (hopefully later) sickness or accidents happen and all are again confronted with the big questions: Why? What's next? What has this life that I've lived been about? As one begins to consider their own eventual departure: What have I been able to do to make things a little better? What have I passed along to make others' lives more beautiful? — Gene O'Neil

I felt somehow happy to be so high above the world - a childish feeling, I grant, but we can't help becoming children as we leave social conventions behind and come nearer to nature. All life's experience is shed from us and the soul becomes anew what it once was and will surely be again — Mikhail Lermontov

Well, it seems to me that there are books that tell stories, and then there are books that tell truths ... The first kind, they show you life like you want it to be. With villains getting what they deserve and the hero seeing what a fool he's been and marrying the heroine and happy endings and all that ... But the second kind, they show you life more like it is ... The first kind makes you cheerful and contented, but the second kind shakes you up. — Jennifer Donnelly

In Zen, there is an old saying: The obstacle is the path. Know that a whole and happy life is not free of obstacles. Quite the contrary, a whole and happy life is riddled with obstacles-they simply become the very stepping-stones that help lift us to a new perspective. It is not what happens to us in this life that shapes us, it is how we choose to respond to what happens to us. — Dennis Merritt Jones

Living the focused life is not about trying to feel happy all the time ... rather, it's about treating your mind as you would a private garden and being as careful as possible about what you introduce and allow to grow there. — Winifred Gallagher

It's so tempting. Being told: this is who you are. This is how your life will go. This is what will make you happy. You will go to the right school, find the right job, marry the right man. You'll do those things, and even if they feel wrong, you'll keep doing them. Even if it breaks your heart, this is the way it's done. — Anna Pitoniak

This life is yours. Take the power to choose what you want to do and do it well. Take the power to love what you want in life and love it honestly. Take the power to walk in the forest and be a part of nature. Take the power to control your own life. No one else can do it for you. Take the power to make your life happy. — Susan Polis Schutz

Is it more important for you to know what happened in the First World War or to memorize other significant dates in history, or is it more important to learn the strategies they used for optimum leadership, success and joyful living?
Don't you think schools need to teach the latter? — Maddy Malhotra

As long as there is a lack of the inner discipline that brings calmness of mind, no matter what external facilities or conditions you have, they will never give you the feeling of joy and happiness that you are seeking. On the other hand, if you possess this inner quality, a calmness of mind, a degree of stability within, then even if you lack various external facilities that you would normally consider necessary for happiness, it is still possible to live a happy and joyful life. — Dalai Lama XIV

My dad doesn't have an iota of the depressive in him. He just depresses other people. Nothing brings him down. But this can't be true. I think it just comes out when absolutely no one else is around. It always seemed that while I knew he loved us a lot, my father actually needed nothing to be happy except books. There was enough in literature to challenge, entertain, amuse and inspire a man for a lifetime. Books and music were simply enough to sustain anyone was what he radiated. Humor, love, tragedy, it was all contained therein. And if all he needed was books, then he probably wouldn't mind if he lost the house and the wife and the whole life. Because the story was more important than the family. The story being that he was going to write the Great American Novel and finally be important, and in being important, he would be loved. Willing to lose his family to be loved by his family. Oh, the tragic blunder of this. It could almost drive someone mad. Wait, it did drive someone mad. — Jeanne Darst

Hannah Whitehall Smith, the author of The Christian's Secret of a Happy Life, said, "God disciplines the soul by inward exercises and outward providences." What she means is that God will put into our hearts the right thing to do in every situation, but if we choose not to do it, then He will allow our circumstances to become our teacher. — Joyce Meyer

I have had a fairly long life, above all a very happy one, and I think that I shall be remembered with some regrets and perhaps leave some reputation behind me. What more could I ask? The events in which I am involved will probably save me from the troubles of old age. I shall die in full possession of my faculties, and that is another advantage that I should count among those that I have enjoyed. If I have any distressing thoughts, it is of not having done more for my family; to be unable to give either to them or to you any token of my affection and my gratitude is to be poor indeed. — Antoine Lavoisier

Cass Mastern lived for a few years and in that time he learned that the world is all of one piece. He learned that the world is like an enormous spider web and if you touch it, however lightly, at any point, the vibration ripples to the remotest perimeter and the drowsy spider feels the tingle and is drowsy no more but spring out to fling the gossamer coils about you who have touched the web and then inject the black, numbing poison under your hide. It does not matter whether or not you meant to brush the web of things. You happy foot or you gay wing may have brushed it ever so lightly, but what happens always happens and there is the spider, bearded black and with his great faceted eyes glittering like mirrors in the sun, or like God's eye, and the fangs dripping. — Robert Penn Warren

Still, despite all this, traveling is the great true love of my life. I have always felt, ever since I was sixteen years old and first went to Russia with my saved-up babysitting money, that to travel is worth any cost or sacrifice. I am loyal and constant in my love for travel, as I have not always been loyal and constant in my other loves. I feel about travel the way a happy new mother feels about her impossible, colicky, restless, newborn baby
I just don't care what it puts me through. Because I adore it. Because it's mine. Because it looks exactly like me. It can barf all over me if it wants to
I just don't care. — Elizabeth Gilbert

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

Some people say the reason I am not married is that I don't understand small business and the toughest small business in the world is a family. But when you are happy and feel every minute of your life, what is the reason to get married? — Mikhail Prokhorov

Raising her arms, she defied Heaven.
'So,' she cried, 'you prefer your God to me? You think he is stronger than I am. You think he will love you better than I would? Ah, what a child you are! Do stop talking such twaddle. What we are going to do is go back to the garden together, and love each other, be happy and free, for that is life. — Emile Zola

Listen to yourself, not the noise of the world. Only you know what is right for you. — Leon Brown

Liz: What's it like in hell?
Ketut: Same like heaven. Universe is a circle, Liss. To up, to down
all same, at end.
Liz: Then how can you tell the difference between heaven and hell?
Ketut: Because of how you go. Heaven, you go up, through seven happy places. Hell you go down, through seven sad places. This is why it better for you to go up, Liss.
Liz: You mean, you might as well spend your life going upward, through the happy places, since heaven and hell
same destinations
are the same thing anyway?
Ketut: Same-same. Same in end, so better be happy on journey. — Elizabeth Gilbert

Your life is important. Whether you achieve what you want in life matters. Whether you are happy matters. Honor and fight for your highest potential. Self-realizatio n-the realization of the best within you-is the noblest goal of your existence. — Nathaniel Branden

Something amazing happens when you're in love and don't give a damn about what day it is anymore. — Chad Sugg

The most important thing I learned is that to be truly happy, you've got to pay attention to that stupid inner voice we all have. It knows what you need and will drive you shit crazy until you listen to it. — Dorothea Benton Frank

Everybody really knows what to do to have his life filled with joy. What is it? Quit hating people; start loving them. Quit being mad at people; start liking them. Quit doing wrong; quit being filled with fear. Quit thinking about yourself and go out and do something for other people. Everybody knows what you have to do to be happy. But the wisdom of the test lies in the final words: "If ye know these things, happy are ye if ye do them." — Norman Vincent Peale

My private life is private. But at the same time, I have nothing to hide. So what I will say is that I am very happy. — Cynthia Nixon

But how do you see you?" she asked.
"Ever read The Brothers Karamazov?" I asked.
"Once, a long time ago."
"Well, toward the end, Alyosha is speaking to a young student named Kolya Krasotkin. And he says, Kolya, you're going to have a miserable future. But overall, you'll have a happy life."
Two beers down, I hesitated before opening my third.
"When I first read that, I didn't know what Alyosha meant," I said. "How was it possible for a life of misery to be happy overall? But then I understood, that misery could be limited to the future."
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Neither do I," I said. "Not yet. — Haruki Murakami

Commitment ... is a binding, but happy, response to duty. It is at once peaceful yet compelling, for it obligates one to action. It is essential to the good life. It is doing what everyone can do. — James M. Paramore

Before the beginning of the world, the triune God existed as Father, Son, and Spirit -- existing as three persons, yet one essence. Before there was an earth, before there was a cosmos, before there was anything, there was the triune God existing in this circular relationship between each person of the Godhead. He is perfectly happy, perfectly content, and perfectly together. When God creates, what is the purpose of creation? What is the purpose of making people? Why is God speaking with them and walking in the garden with them? He is increasing the circle. This is how God made the world; he enlarged the circle. Adam and Eve were in paradise because they were in the circle of God's love. — Zach Weihrauch

...this is your life. It's not your mom's. You have to do what makes you happy too — Jessica Verdi

Only danger is real, and difficulty. Yet we live to make our lives safe - and those of others. (..) I will fight my own people to keep them from fighting, for as long as can be. Never fight, until it is unsafe not to fight, unsafe for our souls as well as our bodies. Then fight for their safety, - but when it is won, remember that safety itself is unsafe. For what is safety? It is sleepy thing. It does not make one happy. It does not remind one that it is good to be alive. Life is taken for granted, so it is no longer surprise. It grows dull and monotonous, one lives as a tree or a cabbage or a cow in the straw of the byre. Our forefathers scorned "a straw death". A straw life is worse. — Margaret Irwin

Your life AFTER Christ is not static or an end result. You are not suspended in grace above the fray of life. You are looking at God through a kaleidoscope. Your life moves, and the beads shift, and something new emerges. You are defining. Redefining. Figuring it out all over again. You are in motion, in transit, in flux. You will be sad. You will be happy. You will love and doubt and cry and rage, and all of it matters. You are human, and you are beloved, and this is what it is to be Alive. — Addie Zierman

Doesn't just about everybody disappoint their parents? They say all they want is for us to be happy, but what they really want is for us to be their do-over. Their second chance at life. — Eileen Cook

me. That's what it does. Nothing is ever enough. You get more, and more, but you're never happy. It's a trap baited with all the things you want most. That life - it's not worth living. — Christie Golden

Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say "I think," "I am," but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

So maybe that's what the difference is, is that when you intend to be happy, then you figure out ways to sustain your happiness or your ability to feel moments of joy in your life. — Goldie Hawn

What is the purpose of life?
To be loving, kind, caring, useful, and of course, to be happy. — Debasish Mridha

He was almost a poet in his old age and his notion of what happened took a poetic turn. 'I had come to the time in my life when prayer became necessary and so I invented gods and prayed to them,' he said. 'I did not say my prayers in words nor did I kneel down but sat perfectly still in my chair. In the late afternoon when it was hot and quiet on Main Street or in the winter when the days were gloomy, the gods came into the office and I thought no one knew about them. Then I found that this woman Elizabeth knew, that she worshipped also the same gods. I have a notion that she came to the office because she thought the gods would be there but she was happy to find herself not alone just the same. It was an experience that cannot be explained, although I suppose it is always happening to men and women in all sorts of places. — Sherwood Anderson

Your daily war chant: ( screaming it is mandatory! )
Ooooooooh today, today I will see,
what a happy place the world can be!
I will make someone smile,
refuse to being vile!
I will share what I love,
take someone high above,
in the sky, between the clouds
with joyful shouts!
Today, today even you will see,
What a happy place the world can be!
Make it happen, enjoy your day,
Remember it is a temporary stay,
here on earth, this single hour,
today I give my love a flower!
YEAAAAAH! Today I kick life's behind,
making good what is unkind!
Making smile who is not grinning!
And this is only the beginning!
Today.I.am. AAAAAAALIVEE! — Janosch Fingerhut

To do what you love and are passionate about is a dream come true, My life is consumed by music and entertainment - and it's the best life I could ever hope for. — Blake Lewis

The important question is not, what will yield to man a few scattered pleasures, but what will render his life happy on the whole amount. — Joseph Addison

There's a reason I said I'd be happy alone. It wasn't 'cause I thought I'd be happy alone. It was because I thought if I loved someone and then it fell apart, I might not make it. It's easier to be alone. Because what if you learn that you need love and then you don't have it? What if you like it and lean on it? What if you shape your life around it and then it falls apart? Can you even survive that kind of pain? Losing love is like organ damage. It's like dying. The only difference is death ends. This? It could go on forever. — Shonda Rhimes

The search for myself is ended. I am buried in the world, I knew I would find my place there one day, the old world cloisters me, victorious. I am happy, I knew I would be happy one day. But I am not wise. For the wise thing now would be to let go, at this instant of happiness. And what do I do? I go back again to the light, to the fields I so longed to love, to the sky all astir with little white clouds as white and light as snowflakes, to the life I could never manage, through my own fault perhaps, through pride, or pettiness, but I don't think so. — Samuel Beckett

No one really can have any idea if it's luck or happenstance or timing or fate or the universe or just smart choices that grant you a good life, a happy one. All we can do is decide to own our choices no matter what, to honor them and ourselves as best we can. That whatever is within our control (and there is plenty that is not) is ours. Mine. Responsibility. Conviction. — Allison Winn Scotch

There is one thing that, when cultivated and regularly practiced, leads to deep spiritual intention, to peace, to mindfulness and clear comprehension, to vision and knowledge, to a happy life here and now, and to the culmination of wisdom and awakening. And what is that one thing? It is mindfulness centred on the body — Gautama Buddha

Philosophies apart, life does what life can. Life does what life wants. Theories apart, we love what is natural. We do what makes us happy. — Girdhar Joshi

She's gone, but I can be happy. I can be in love. I can be both those things and scared too, and I am. I am, and this is what life is. — Elizabeth Scott

Everybody enjoys what feels good. Everyone wants to live a carefree, happy, and easy life, to fall in love and have amazing sex and relationships, to look perfect and make money and be popular and well-respected and admired and a total baller to the point that people part like the Red Sea when they walk into the room. Everybody wants that. It's easy to want that. A more interesting question, a question that most people never consider, is, "What pain do you want in your life? What are you willing to struggle for?" Because that seems to be a greater determinant of how our lives turn out. For — Mark Manson

It is my wish that you may have at better and freer life than I have had. Recommend virtue to your children; it alone, not money, can make them happy. I speak from experience; this was what upheld me in time of misery. — Ludwig Van Beethoven

The Bushmen in the Kalahari Desert talk about the two "hungers". There is the Great Hunger and there is the Little Hunger. The Little Hunger wants food for the belly; but the Great Hunger, the greatest hunger of all, is the hunger for meaning ...
There is ultimately only one thing that makes human beings deeply and profoundly bitter, and that is to have thrust upon them a life without meaning.
There is nothing wrong in searching for happiness. But of far more comfort to the soul is something greater than happiness or unhappiness, and that is meaning. Because meaning transfigures all. Once what you are doing has for you meaning, it is irrelevant whether you're happy or unhappy. You are content - you are not alone in your Spirit - you belong. — Laurens Van Der Post

Consent in virtue knit your hearts so fast,
That still the knot, in spite of death, does last;
For as your tears, and sorrow-wounded soul,
Prove well that on your part this bond is whole,
So all we know of what they do above,
Is that they happy are, and that they love.
Let dark oblivion, and the hollow grave,
Content themselves our frailer thoughts to have;
Well-chosen love is never taught to die,
But with our nobler part invades the sky. — Edmund Waller

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

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

If a happy ending is what you're after, stop the story where it makes you smile, or cry for laughter. In life, it's the rare sweetness to have tears of joy, or painless endings. People feel. It's what they know, and it's why i write. — Mark T. Barnes

I think it's sad that we'll never know her," Chase said. She glanced over at him suspiciously. "Think of how many people there are in the world that you'll never know. Like that guy right there," he said, nodding toward the car that whizzed by them. "What's that guy's name? Where's he going? Is he happy with his life? Did he want Bella to end up with Edward or Jacob? — Priscilla Glenn

I think I am at that stage of Life now where Success or Failure, nothing Bothers me. If I get little success then I get lots of rejections and failures on a regular basis too. But none of that bothers me at all. I can take failure as sportingly without getting bothered as I take success. And this is how my life has drastically changed in last one year or something. I don't do things anymore to please people around me and all I care about is If I am happy being where I am and I am enjoying doing what I am doing or not. I may not be where I want to be yet but I am Happy.This is what matters in Life. Isn't it? Find what you love. Sooner or Later but you need to find one day, and once you find, give your everything to it. There may be many failures and rejections on the way but you will reach where you want to be some day and most importantly, you will be happy and in Peace with where you are. — Shivam Singh

If you have not what you like, like what you have until you can change your environment. Do not waste your vitality in hating your life; find something in it which is worth liking and enjoying, while you keep steadily at work to make it what you desire. Be happy over something, every day, for the brain is a thing of habit, and you cannot teach it to be happy in a moment, if you allow it to be miserable for years. — Orison Swett Marden

My baseline function is I'm usually really happy and optimistic. I think I really genuinely like being alive, and I've got a spring in my step - that's what I've been like all my life. — Jenny Slate

In our early youth we sit before the life that lies ahead of us like children sitting before the curtain in a theatre, in happy and tense anticipation of whatever is going to appear. Luckily we do not know what really will appear. — Arthur Schopenhauer

It's easy to say that people focusing on the bad is what makes them miserable. What's not easy is to take a life full of misery and find the joy. While there may be moments of levity, never assume they can make me truly happy. — Leah Alvord

My greatest beauty secret is being happy with myself. I don't use special creams or treatments - I'll use a little bit of everything. It's a mistake to think you are what you put on yourself. I believe that a lot of how you look is to do with how you feel about yourself and your life. Happiness is the greatest beauty secret. — Tina Turner

The rival you both share is myself. I do not wish to marry ... First, because my past habituated me to loneliness. I had always thought I hated it. And now I have found I treasure it. I do not want to share my life. I wish to be what I am, not what a husband must expect me to become in marriage. My second reason is my present. I never expected to be happy in life. Yet I find myself happy where I am situated now. I have varied congenial work ... I am admitted to the daily conversation of genius. Such men have their faults. Their vices. But they are not those the world chooses to imagine. I have no genius myself, I have no more than the capacity to aid genius in very small and humble ways ... I believe I owe a debt to good fortune. I am not to seek it elsewhere. I am to see it as precarious, as a thing of which I must not allow myself to be bereft. — John Fowles

But what sets me apart from other Chinese writers is that I neither copy the narrative techniques of foreign writers nor imitate their story lines; what I am happy to do is closely explore what is embedded in their work in order to understand their observations of life and comprehend how they view the world we live in. In my mind, by reading the works of others, a writer is actually engaging in a dialogue, maybe even a romance in which, if there is a meeting of the minds, a lifelong friendship is born; if not, an amicable parting is fine, too. — Mo Yan

Any fool can be happy. What I'm interested in is satisfaction. There's got to be more to life than just being happy. You've got to be fulfilled. You've got to be satisfied; philosophically satisfied is what I mean. — Charlie Trotter

I think happiness is a choice. I believe luck is your attitude. It sounds like a really annoying bumper sticker. But there is such a great truth in that. You choose how you want to feel about what happens to you. I could have been a miserable failure. I haven't had anybody looking over me, and I've found my own way through optimistic exploration and fire-burning mistakes. I am a very happy person with an extraordinary life, so I must be doing a lot of things right. I really believe when you peel away the layers, the worlds is a beautiful place filled with beautiful people. — Drew Barrymore

Tell your children the most important things To Be when they grow up, is to be kind and compassionate, to be loving and grateful, and to be happy and at peace with who they are, no matter of what they chose to do when they grow up. — Martin Suarez

Happiness is an emotion based on positive circumstances within our lives. The origin of the word "happiness" was
derived from the same root "hap", similar to the word "happening." Depending on what's happening in our lives, we're either happy or sad. It's based on pure luck and good fortune. — Dana Arcuri

I tried to play in this world and live life carefree. I tried, despite Antonio, to be happy. I should've realized when I was sixteen and Antonio slid onto the leather seat next to me that happiness was being stolen from me. Life is ugly and hard and I tried to do my best to dance through it but what I should've learned was that if the beat is off and you can't catch a rhythm, you just look like a fool. I was a fool to believe — Nicole Reid

Success is not measured on what you earn, it is how you manage to be happy, benevolent and contented with your life. — Sherwin Salinas

I'm fulfilled in what I do. I never thought that a lot of money or fine clothes - the finer things of life - would make you happy. My concept of happiness is to be filled in a spiritual sense. — Coretta Scott King

Functional analysis: learn your ABC's In addition to monitoring, try to track the events that immediately precede and follow your problem behavior. Do you drink more when something makes you feel angry? Lonely? Happy? What happens right after an angry outburst? Does the other person give in? Do you have a drink? Or do you withdraw to be alone? What makes you crave a piece of cake? How does eating it make you feel? This "functional analysis" can illuminate what is controlling the parts of your life that seem out of control. It is easy as A (antecedents) B (behavior) C (consequences). Antecedents can trigger a problem behavior, while the consequences reward or strengthen it, no matter how maladaptive it is. — James O. Prochaska

The thing about real life is, when you do something stupid, it normally costs you. In books the heroes can make as many mistakes as they like. It doesn't matter what they do, because everything works out in the end. They'll beat the bad guys and put things right and everything ends up cool.
In real life, vacuum cleaners kill spiders. If you cross a busy road without looking, you get whacked by a car. If you fall from a tree, you break some bones.
Real life's nasty. It's cruel. It doesn't care about heroes and happy endings and the way things should be. In real life, bad things happen. People die. Fights are lost. Evil often wins.
I just wanted to make that clear before I begun. — Darren Shan

I find no importance in showing others that I am happy; it's not important to me that they know or think that I am happy but what is important to me is that I am happy. I am interested in being happy, not in making others think or know that I am. — C. JoyBell C.

Among us, I am happy to say, old age is honorable, and regarded as a blessing from the Lord. It is our duty to desire to live long upon the earth, that we may do as much good as we possibly can. I esteem it a great privilege to have the opportunity of living in mortality. The Lord has sent us here "for a wise and glorious purpose," and it should be our business to find out what that purpose is and then to order our lives accordingly. — Lorenzo Snow

My advice is really this: what we hear the philosophers saying and what we find in their writings should be applied in our pursuit of the happy life. We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching, and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application - not far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech - and learn them so well that words become works. No one to my mind lets humanity down quite so much as those who study philosophy as if it were a sort of commercial skill and then proceed to live in a quite different manner from the way they tell other people to live. — Seneca.

That's what you might call the normal pattern of female life. I've seen many girls and women, with strong maternal instincts, keen on getting married but mainly, though they mayn't quite know it themselves - because of their urge to motherhood. And the babies come; they're happy and satisfied. Life goes back into proportion for them. They can take an interest in their husbands and in the local affairs and in the gossip that's going round, and of course in their children. But it's all in proportion. The maternal instinct, in a purely physical sense, is satisfied, you see. — Agatha Christie

I told Tamsin that I didn't believe in happily ever after anymore. I believed my heart was broken beyond repair and that anyone this broken could not possibly be happy and, therefore, never have a happy ending. I believed Trik was gone, that he had chosen a life of darkness over me. Turns out I was wrong, not about the happy part, but about Trik. He had chosen me. He saved me, or what was left of me. But I have not chosen him. I can't. He is not what I crave and what I crave I cannot have. So I can't choose Trik, and all that is left for me to choose is existence or death. Flip the coin, tails stares back at me. Death it is. ~ Cassie Tate — Quinn Loftis

Do-- not what is important--but what makes you happy. Life is not about being important, it is about being happy. — Debasish Mridha

The purpose of your life is to find your ultimate purpose that makes you happy. Then commit to it wholeheartedly. — Debasish Mridha

What civilization is, is 6 billion people trying to make themselves happy by standing on each other's shoulders and kicking each other's teeth in. It's not a pleasant situation. — Terence McKenna