Work Hard Happy Quotes & Sayings

Making art, good art, is always a struggle. It can make you happy when you pull it off. There's no better feeling. It's beauteous. But it's always about hard work and inspiration and sweat and good ideas. — Damien Hirst

I've had opportunities. But I'm happy at Utah. I can do a lot of nice things and I love the kids. We work hard and we have fun. — Rick Majerus

My life has been a happy accident. Anybody who succeeds in anything should count their lucky stars, because that's the biggest element. It's not hard work; it's not necessarily talent. — Terry Wogan

Life is about your soul, not about your body and not about your mind. Most people work hard to keep the body happy. Then they seek to stimulate their mind. Then ... if there is time ... they look after their soul. Yet the most beneficial priority has it just the other way around ... When was the last time you paid attention to your soul? — Neale Donald Walsch

I worked out what would make me happy, and I worked out what I wanted to do, and I trained myself to do the job that would make those two things happen'
'You make it sound so simple.'
'It is simple,' he said. 'The thing is, it's also a lot of hard work. And people don't want to put in a lot of work. — Jojo Moyes

I turned back to my work and lifted the lid of the last crate.

I sat down. Hard. And stared.

It was filled with paper. Ink. Blank journals.

In one wonderful, horrible moment I knew that I was lost. Keir, Warlord, had taken me, claimed me, made me his warprize. But somewhere, somehow, he had managed to find a way into my heart as well.

How had this happened? I'd given myself to a barbarian, a ravaging, crazed warlord, expecting little more than abuse and dishonor at his hands. But this man had offered nothing but kindness and respect to me, his property. I knew this gift was by his hand, I'd not spoken to Sal about paper or ink, and she'd not understand its importance.

Could he care so much that he paid attention to this tiny detail?

Did he want me to be happy? — Elizabeth Vaughan

I'm always trying to be the best, on and off the pitch, is also very important. I've always taken things very seriously, since I was very young, and that's reflected in my career. Always being nominated, winning trophies for the club or individual awards, that's the culmination of many years of dedication, hard work and professionalism and that makes me very happy. — Cristiano Ronaldo

Do what makes you happy. Keep it simple. Do the research. Work hard. Look ahead. — Gary Vaynerchuk

I am just a hard-working 23-year-old. When Maxim asked me to be on their cover, I was quite surprised. Of course, I was happy about it. — Priyanka Chopra

When you work towards your goals, you become healthier and healthier, mentally. It is very hard to do with a negative attitude. You just need to become more and more positive. And then you start to succeed. And starting to succeed is like winning a race and having the audience cheer. That makes you feel happy and motivates you to work even harder and achieve even more. — Brian Tracy

It's a question of attitude. If you really work at something you can do it up to a point. If you really work at being happy you can do it up to a point. But anything more than that you can't. Anything more than that is luck. — Haruki Murakami

To spend your life living in fear, never exploring your dreams is cruel. To work hard for money, thinking that it will buy you things that will make you happy is also cruel. To wake up in the middle of the night terrified about paying bills is a horrible way to live. To live a life dictated by the size of a paycheck is not really living a life. Thinking that a job makes you secure is lying to yourself. That's cruel, and that's a trap I want you to avoid ... - rich dad poor dad — Robert T. Kiyosaki

Well, I think some people are very happy in retirement. And in a year and a half I'm going to see how happy I feel in retirement. I'm just going to not work quite so hard, but I'll continue to write as long as God gives me breath. — Jan Karon

She was a woman who made mistakes, who sometimes cried on a Monday morning or at night alone in bed. She was a woman who often became bored with her life and found it hard to get up for work in the morning. She was a woman who more often than not had a bad hair day, who looked in the mirror and wondered why she couldn't just drag herself to the gym more often; she was a woman who sometimes questioned what reason had she to live on this planet. She was a woman who sometimes just got things wrong.
On the other hand, she was a woman with a million happy memories, who knew what it was like to experience true love and who was ready to experience more life, more love and make new memories. — Cecelia Ahern

I wasn't handed college or graduate school or anything else on a silver platter. I had to work very hard, but I did it because I wanted to. That's the real key to happiness. I think unhappy people are those who feel that circumstances are forcing them into a pattern. Happy people are not slaves to the system. — Rosalyn Sussman Yalow

Music can give you your dreams. It will teach you hard work, it will break your heart and make you so happy, you can't stand it ... I don't think I'd have been president if it hadn't been for music. — William J. Clinton

Fight if you must, work hard, give your best but never quit in the face of difficulty. — Sanchita Pandey

Happy we do our work. — Lailah Gifty Akita

Logically, you should go to school, get good grades, go to college, get a good degree, go into the workplace, then work hard and be happy.
The only problem is that happiness isn't logical. — A.C. Ping

They have an understanding regime; they work hard and get results, they are a happy team. — David Gower

I work extremely hard to stay positive and happy. But I get sad and anxious, too, just like everyone. — Rachel Platten

Yes, there is plenty of hard work for them in addition to that which they do when they appear, smiling and happy, when the curtain goes up. Giving a performance is the least of their worries. — Florenz Ziegfeld

The profound realization, thanks to the practice of Stoicism, that acquiring the things that those in my social circle typically crave and work hard to afford will, in the long run, make zero difference in how happy I am and will in no way contribute to my having a good life. — William B. Irvine

You are not supposed to be happy all the time. Life hurts and it's hard. Not because you're doing it wrong, but because it hurts for everybody. Don't avoid the pain. You need it. It's meant for you. Be still with it, let it come, let it go, let it leave you wtih the fuel you'll burn to get your work done on this earth. — Glennon Doyle Melton

Don't be lazy. Hard work brings happiness. There is no other time to avoid being a lazy. Take that decision now. Kick laziness out. — Israelmore Ayivor

Being in a relationship doesn't mean that you never get aroused by anything else ever again. It just means that you don't act on it. I think it's healthy to maintain the ability to be aroused in other situations. Relationships shouldn't be a prison.
You'd have gotten hard before, and you should now. As long as you know that the only person you're going to be sliding your big hard cock in to, we're fine. There really is a happy medium between the craziness of your parents with their compulsion to continue having sex with anyone they wanted, and couples who expect one another to be perfect at all times with the idea that no feelings of sexuality outside of the relationship are acceptable. Both of those types of relationships would never work for me. What's perfect for me is that we stay ourselves, and make each other truly happy — Ella Fox

The ambition of most beings is just to stay alive, overeat, spend too much, and avoid hard work. I'm happy that I can achieve much more than that ... and we all die sooner or later. A death in service of a great ideal is a fine thing. — Karen Traviss

I wanna be remembered for my hard work that I've done for over 25 years. Winning championships, making money, being a star, all the luxurious things ... they don't count. What counts is being able to open up a path for the new generation to come in and continue to innovate and evolve. I'm just very happy to be a pioneer. — Oscar Gutierrez

Some people might think that the smartest way to guarantee their own well-being is to isolate themselves from others and to work hard at their own happiness, without consideration for what other people are experiencing. They probably assume that if everybody did that, we'd all be happy. But the result would be exactly the opposite: instead of being happy, they would be torn between hope and fear, make their own lives miserable, and ruin the lives of the people around them too. — Matthieu Ricard

Scott told me about the Riviera and how my wife and I must come there' the next summer and how we would go there and how he would find a place for us that was not expensive and we would both work hard every day and swim and lie on the beach and be brown and only have a single aperitif before lunch and one before dinner. Zelda. would be happy there, he said. She loved to swim and was a beautiful diver and she was happy with that life and would want him to work and everything would be disciplined. He and Zelda. and their daughter were going to go there that summer. I was trying to get him to write his stories as well as he could and not trick them to conform to any formula, as he had explained that he did. — Ernest Hemingway,

I would be happy if they just gave out nominations and there weren't any Oscars. But winning them is definitely an experience - to get up there and make a speech. Every film is hard work, and a few lucky people do get Oscars for what they do, and it's recognition for all that hard work on a certain level. — Walter Murch

They tell you: Follow your dreams. Listen to your spirit. Change the world. Make your mark. Find your inner voice and make it sing. Embrace failure. Dream. Dream and dream big. As a matter of fact, dream and don't stop dreaming until your dream comes true.
I think that's crap.
I think a lot of people dream. And while they are busy dreaming, the really happy people, the really successful people, the really interesting, powerful, engaged people? Are busy doing. — Shonda Rhimes

My point is this - if you want to be happy in showbiz (or any creative field), listen to that voice inside you. Even if it says "Fuck it" sometimes. Work with your friends. Avoid chasing fame or money. Just do what you want to do, when and how you want to do it. And if it's not making you happy, quit. Quit hard, and quit often. Eventually you'll end up somewhere that you never want to leave."
- Bobcat Goldthwait — Bobcat Goldthwait

I haven't had a cramp since '99. That was my only time, in Davis Cup, when I was panicky. I was young. I'm very proud of that. Never pulled out. Never had cramps. Never lost very much because of fitness, especially later on in my career where I knew I've put in the hard work. I've done that. I've been very fortunate and clever as well to understand how I need to work, when I need to work. So I'm very happy to have stayed injury free for so long. I hope I can still maintain a few good years on the tour. I really hope so. — Roger Federer

Hard work does pay, and you just have to continue to work, and you got two guys, when you're talking about Gary and myself, we have a God-given talent, but we worked at it and we're happy to be where we are today. — Jason Kidd

Marriage isn't a love affair. It isn't even a honeymoon. It's a job. A long hard job, at which both partners have to work, harder than they've worked at anything in their lives before. If it's a good marriage, it changes, it evolves, but it does on getting better. I've seen it with my own mother and father. But a bad marriage can dissolve in a welter of resentment and acrimony. I've seen that, too, in my own miserable and disastrous attempt at making another person happy. And it's never one person's fault. It's the sum total of a thousand little irritations, disagreements, idiotic details that in a sound alliance would simply be disregarded, or forgotten in the healing act of making love. Divorce isn't a cure, it's a surgical operation, even if there are no children to consider. — Rosamunde Pilcher

The glory is being happy. The glory is not winning here or winning there. The glory is enjoying practicing, enjoy every day, enjoying to work hard, trying to be a better player than before. — Rafael Nadal

You try too hard to make life fit your way of doing things. If you don't want to spend time in an insane asylum, you have to open up a little more and let yourself go with life's natural flow. I'm just a powerless and imperfect woman, but still there are times when I think to myself how wonderful life can be! Believe me, it's true! So stop what you're doing this minute and get happy. Work at making yourself happy! — Haruki Murakami

Egypt is a fertile valley of rich river soil, low-lying, warm, monotonous, a slow-flowing river, and beyond the limitless desert. Greece is a country of sparse fertility and keen, cold winters, all hills and mountains sharp cut in stone, where strong men must work hard to get their bread. And while Egypt submitted and suffered and turned her face toward death, Greece resisted and rejoiced and turned full-face to life. For somewhere among those steep stone mountains, in little sheltered valleys where the great hills were ramparts to defend, and men could have security for peace and happy living, something quite new came into the world: the joy of life found expression. Perhaps it was born there, among the shepherds pasturing their flocks where the wild flowers made a glory on the hillside; among the sailors on a sapphire sea washing enchanted islands purple in a luminous air. — Edith Hamilton

YESTERDAY IS HISTORY. TOMORROW IS A MYSTERY. TODAY IS A GIFT. THAT'S WHY IT'S CALLED THE PRESENT. WORK HARD, BE HAPPY, AND ENJOY YOUR LIFE IN WAYWARD PINES! — Blake Crouch

Best thing that's ever happened to me. I focus so much less on me. It's made me content, it's made me happy. It's like a Christmas present every single day that I get to unwrap. It's hard work. — Molly Sims

So what motivates people to work hard every day to do things that will satisfy the economy's needs but not their own? Like so many thinkers, Smith believed that people want just one thing - happiness - hence economies can blossom and grow only if people are deluded into believing that the production of wealth will make them happy.14 If and only if people hold this false belief will they do enough producing, procuring, and consuming to sustain their economies. — Daniel M. Gilbert

My focus had always been the on-side. My coach wanted me to work on the offside strokes since he was convinced of my ability and timing on the leg side. I worked hard and firmed up my defensive technique. I am happy getting runs all around the wicket now, and getting a lot of boundaries. No one calls me a 'leggie batsman' anymore. — Virat Kohli

True art, when it happens to us, challenges the 'I' that we are. A love-parallel would be just; falling in love challenges the reality to which we lay claim, part of the pleasure of love and part of its terror, is the world turned upside down. We want and we don't want, the cutting edge, the upset, the new views. Mostly we work hard at taming our emotional environment just as we work hard at taming our aesthetic environment. We already have tamed our physical environment. And are we happy with all this tameness? Are you? — Jeanette Winterson

Apathy. Pretending to be happy, pretending to be sad, pretending to have an orgasm, pretending to be having fun, pretending that you've slept well, pretending that you're alive. Until there comes a point where you reach an imaginary red line and realize that if you cross it, there will be no turning back. Then you stop complaining, because complaining means that you are at least still battling something. You accept the vegetative state and try to conceal it from everyone. And that's hard work. — Paulo Coelho

One of the most touching things my mother said to me was that if I ever wanted to come back to live in India, she would build me a home and go out and work hard so that I could be happy. — Saroo Brierley

Oh happy day! A day to make a hay! And when it is mid-day, think about the day! And when you think about the day, don't forget the hay! Oh happy day! A day to make a hay! — Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Pursue joy, not happiness. This is probably the hardest lesson of all to learn. It probably seems to you that the goal in life is to be happy. Oh, you maybe have to sacrifice and study and work hard, but, by and large, happiness should be predictable. — Guy Kawasaki

If you work hard you'll be happy and if you don't then you'll go to hell! — Brigham Young

Pleasure" is different from "happiness". It has its own definition. Pleasure may or may not come from hard work; Pleasure may or may not come from sin; However, happiness is always divine and comes from fulfillment! — Israelmore Ayivor

Be a hard worker. Work and happiness are like mother and daughter. Work brings forth happiness. Hard work brings great happiness. Enjoy life. — Israelmore Ayivor

If the movie is terrible you can have fun. You can joke about it and have a ball. The movie is already sort of established as a kind of extraordinary piece of work even though it hasn't opened yet to the public. It is harder because you can't go against it and you can't be interesting. You have to go with the flow. Although one is very happy to be in it, it is sort of hard to talk about it. It is hard to talk about successful. It is much easier to talk about failure. — Christopher Plummer

The perfect ones. The beautiful ones. The right ones, the just ones, the noble ones. The ones who never break down crying in restaurants, who never do anything in secret they would be ashamed of. The normal ones. The healthy ones. The ones who always plan ahead. The content ones. The happy ones. The ones who work hard and reap the benefits, who brush and floss after every single meal. The well-adjusted ones. The popular ones. The ones who never disappoint, the little boys who do grow up to be president. The lucky ones. The ones with perfect skin and perfect teeth and perfect figures. The ones who want what they have and have what they want.

They don't exist. The ones posing as them are even more fucked up than you. — Crimethinc Ex-Workers' Collective

It's hard to be happy in the now when you can't stop worrying about the future. What I want is to trust that everything will work out. To believe with all my heart that I'll end up where I belong. — Lisa Schroeder

Aging happy and well, instead of sad and sick, is at least under some personal control. We have considerable control over our weight, our exercise, our education, and our abuse of cigarettes and alcohol. With hard work and/or therapy, our relationships with our spouses and our coping styles can be changed for the better. A successful old age may lie not so much in our stars and genes as in ourselves. — George Vaillant

Any historian knows...that possibilities and history are connected. It's not simply our hard work, but that we lived in circumstances in which prosperity wasn't taken away. For most people, for most of history, it's not true that religion, work and love have led to successful, happy lives. Instability, fear, disease, and war are so much more common that our lives are tremendous exceptions. Isn't that miraculous? — Mark Wallace

Choice: that was the thing. Other people claimed that you can't choose who you love
it just happens!
but Grace and Roman knew that was a bunch of happy horseshit. Of course you chose who you loved. If you didn't choose, you ended up with what was left
the drunks and abusers, the debtors and vacuums, the ones who ate their food too fast or had never read a novel. Damn, marriage was hard work, was manual labor, and unpaid manual labor at that. Yet, year after year, Grace and Roman had pressed their shoulders against the stone and rolled it up the hill together. — Sherman Alexie

There are many diamonds in the world and if you lose your favorite, you can work hard, earn a lot of money and get another one to replace it. But the moments of your life aren't like that. Once they're gone, they'll never return. Each and every one is the most precious thing in existence. You can never meaningfully compare one moment with any other. You can never meaningfully compare your life with anyone else's. No matter how rich someone else may be, no matter how happy they look, no matter how enlightened they seem, they can never be you. Never, ever, ever. Only you can live your life. — Brad Warner

Life is hard and astonishingly complicated ... No one great reform will make it easy. Most of us who work
or want to work
will always have trouble or discontent. So we must learn to be calm, and train all our faculties, and make others happy. — Sinclair Lewis

A smart man can't beat a hardworking man and a hard working man can't beat a happy working man. — Taeyang

I believe in marriage. I believe that two good people can be happy together for a lifetime. It's the only thing even close to a religion that I have, and I cling to it with almost messianic zeal. But it is a belief system that makes unreasonable demands on its adherents, all of us sacrificing to the bone for a reward that may or may not come at the end of our days; and all of us steadfastly refusing to see the mounting evidence that long-term happy marriages, if they exist at all, are pretty hard to come by. We all want to think that miracles are possible. Otherwise, marriage is just a lot of hard work. — Kate Hilton

I want to beat them. Even though I'm not cool, or strong, or just, or beautiful, or cute, or pretty, I want to beat the cool, strong, just, beautiful, cute, and pretty people. Even though I wasn't blessed with talent, even though I'm stupid and have a bad personality, have bad grades, am misguided and am a good for nothing, I want to beat the talented, smart, likeable, overachieving people. I want to beat those with friends when I can't have friends. I want to beat the people who work hard when I can't work hard. I want to beat the the victorious people when I can't win. I want to beat the happy people when I'm miserable. Even if I'm hated, even if I'm despised, even if I'm useless, I want to prove that I'm better than the main characters! — NisiOisiN

A woman's work, from the time she gets up to the time she goes to bed, is as hard as a day at war, worse than a man's working day ... To men, women's work was like the rain-bringing clouds, or the rain itself. The task involved was carried out every day as regularly as sleep. So men were happy - men in the Middle Ages, men at the time of the Revolution, and men in 1986: everything in the garden was lovely. — Marguerite Duras

Building relationships is the key for being happy as a coach. Players must want to play for you. If they are comfortable with you, they will work hard for you. — Mike McConathy

You put your own joy in prison if you work hard to make other people's happiness suffocate. — Israelmore Ayivor

Often we imagine that we will work hard until we arrive at some distant goal, and then we will be happy. This is a delusion. Happiness is the result of a life lived with purpose. Happiness is not an objective. It is the movement of life itself, a process, and an activity. It arises from curiosity and discovery. Seek pleasure and you will quickly discover the shortest path to suffering. Other people, friends, brothers, sisters, neighbors, spouses, even your mother and I are not responsible for your happiness. Your life is your responsibility, and you always have the choice to do your best. Doing your best will bring happiness. Do not be overconcerned with avoiding pain or seeking pleasure. If you are concentrating on the results of your actions, you are not dedicated to your task. — Ethan Hawke

If you ever think you might want a career in politics, Inspector, think again. It's merely a continuous and mostly vain attempt to keep several groups of people with opposing needs and agendas happy, and knowing in your heart of hearts that you cannot, and being lambasted for you hard work in the bargain. — Jasper Fforde

It's just been a lot of hard work and lot of auditions. A lot of ups and downs, but a lot of ups, and I'm really happy for my downs, too. I'm really thankful. — Bresha Webb

The best artists are the ones that work the hardest, and if you work hard enough, you'll eventually experience the happy accidents that are art. — Julian Casablancas

She wasn't all that interested, as a reader, in the reader. She was still partial to that increasingly eclipsed entity: the writer. Madeleine had a feeling that most semiotic theorists had been unpopular as children, often bullied or overlooked, and so had directed their lingering rage onto literature. They wanted to demote the author. They wanted a book, that hard-won, transcendent thing, to be a text, contingent, indeterminate, and open for suggestions. They wanted the reader to be the main thing. Because they were readers.
Whereas Madeleine was perfectly happy with the idea of genius. She wanted a book to take her places she couldn't get to herself. She thought a writer should work harder writing a book than she did reading it. — Jeffrey Eugenides

[When I was with the wrong man], it felt like our relationship was a gigantic puzzle - a huge existential and emotional quiz that, if I applied myself to enough, I would solve and gain the result of True Love. After all, the ingredients for us to be the perfect couple were there ... The problem was just that he was unhappy. I knew that. I knew it in my bones. When I found the way the way to make him happy, everything would be fine. He was broken, and I was going to fix him - then the good bit of our relationship would start to happen. We were just in the tricky, early bit of love, where I'd undo all the bad stuff and let him finally be who he was, secretly, inside. Secretly, inside, he did love me. My steadfastness would provide it. If it didn't work, it was simply because I hadn't tried hard enough. — Caitlin Moran

Do you know what it's like to work so hard to make sure everyone's happy, and to have not a single person recognize it? - Tiny Copper (Will Grayson, Will Grayson) — John Green

Many animal rescue organizations hit with a hard-core, heartbreaking message. Their videos and stories can become difficult for average people to watch. By taking a more positive, heartwarming approach to animal rescue, I've been able to engage people and keep them engaged for years. Instead of selling the agony and misery - and sadly, there is no shortage of that - I start with the happy endings. I work backwards so the first message they get is joy and success due to their involvement. Opening the mind with humor and joy gets the rescue message in that much deeper. — Elayne Boosler

I drink because I don't stand a chance and I know it. I couldn't drive a truck and I couldn't get on the cops with my build. I got to sling beer and sing when I just want to sing. I drink because I got responsibilities that I can't handle ... I am not a happy man. I got a wife and children and I don't happen to be a hard-working man. I never wanted a family ... Yes, your mother works hard. I love my wife and I love my children. But shouldn't a man have a better life? Maybe someday it will be that the Unions will arrange for a man to work and to have time for himself too. But that won't be in my time. Now, it's work hard all the time or be a bum ... no in-between. When I die, nobody will remember me for long. No one will say, "He was a man who loved his family and believed in the Union." All they will say is," Too bad. But he was nothing but a drunk no matter which way you look at it." Yes they'll say that. — Betty Smith

In life we have our trophy people. These are the ones we work hard for, we are proud of. We want to show them off to our family, our friends, we want them on our arm at company functions. We take pictures with them to let everyone know we feel like a winner and we are happy.

Then you have your participation ribbons, the ribbons you get just for simply showing up. You didn't have to earn it, it was just given to you. These things usually end up in a drawer somewhere, maybe you pick them up again when you are bored and say "that was a fun night, I wonder if they are still handing out these things?" but you don't tell people about it, nothing to be proud of. — Brittany Williams

9/11/01
Gina:
Especially today, with the enormity of current events, I want to convey to you again, how much you mean to me and how proud I am to be your husband. The hard work that you are engaged in right now is exhausting, invisible and largely thankless in the short term.
But honey, please know that buried at the core of this tedium is the most noble and important work in the world- God's work; the fruits of which you and I will be lucky enough to enjoy as we grow old together. Watching these little guys grow into men is a privilege that I am proud to share with you, and the perfect fulfillment of our marriage bonds.
You are a great mom.
You are a great wife.
You are my best friend.
You are very pretty.
Happy Birthday.

-Matt — Michael Spehn

My son is a great kid and does super well in school. I couldn't be prouder of him. What I tell him is, 'You don't want to just be known for being the son of a rich rock 'n' roll star.' I've seen a lot of kids like that. I want him to be happy, work hard and create his own thing. I tell him, 'You're not gonna be one of these kids up on stage playing with me. If you wanna have hits - write your own. Then we can play together.' — Kid Rock

Because that's the way the world works, isn't it? You can work hard and be miserable, or do nothing and be happy. — Brian Katcher

love: a chemical history.
...The second stage, attraction, is governed by dopamine and serotonin. When, for example, couples report feeling indescribably happy in each other's presence, that's dopamine, the pleasure hormone, doing its work.
Taking cocaine fosters the same level of euphoria. In fact, scientists who study both the brains of new lovers and cocaine addicts are hard-pressed to tell the difference. — Nicola Yoon

If you want to train and work hard 3 months out of the year, well, then, UNI is a great place to go. If you want to bust your tail 6 months out of the year, you should be very happy at ISU. But if you want to train and develop into a champion 12 months out of the year, then Iowa is the place for you. — Dan Gable

Natalie was going to stay at home, cooking meals, baking pies, and making sure their life together was comfortable. When Zach came home from a hard day's work, she wanted to be there for him, not coping with her own stress and fatigue. She knew some women would object to her decision, but this was her life, and she was going to live it as she chose. — Pamela Clare

It is a hard message to swallow at first blush because it brings into question everything that we think we are, which for the most part seems to come from what we identify with, our bodies, our thoughts, our feelings, our relationships, our values, our work, our expectations of what is "supposed" to happen and how things are "supposed" to work out for me in order for me to be happy, our stories of where we came from and where we are going and of who we are. — Jon Kabat-Zinn

Now you say, alas! Christianity is hard; I grant it; but gainful and happy. I contemn the difficulty when I respect the advantage. The greatest labors that have answerable requitals are less than the least that have no regard. Believe me, when I look to the reward, I would not have the work easier. It is a good Master whom we serve, who not only pays, but gives; not after the proportion of our earnings, but of His own mercy. — Joseph Hall

You've got to be happy, you have to do this thing [music] for the love. It's not like you go into music because it's going to make a lot of money. It's something you do ... that's the thing. You got to accept all that hard work with it, too. And enjoy it, and love it. — Creed Bratton

In order that a man may be happy, it is necessary that he should not only be capable of his work, but a good judge of his work. — John Ruskin

Let us hope that for many it does mean the end of trouble so far as earning a livelihood is concerned, that it means happy and comfortable home living honestly earned. But there are other troubles ahead for her, and plenty of hard work. — Florenz Ziegfeld

I'm happy I was able to stick through it and was being very disciplined with what I had to do, because I know eventually hard work will pay off. It's only a matter of now just trying to make sure I get matches under my belt and I feel more and more comfortable playing matches. — Kim Clijsters

I got what I wanted, I guess. I'm here, in this home that I worked so hard to insulate from the problems of the world, our happy little bubble. The girls have their father every night. Adam has a newfound respect for me, the New Rachel, for the glittering, sharp edge that's emerged like a razor in the grass. When I think about my old self, I feel pity and yearning at the same time. Poor Old Rachel, the sweet, naive idiot. And lucky Old Rachel, so completely happy. There's one niggling thought I can't shake, one that keeps me awake at night. What would I tell my daughters if they came to me with the news that their husband had a mistress? That he told her, my precious daughter, that sex with the other woman was amazing? Stay and work things out. Oh, and get that STD panel ASAP, darlings! But do stay. Take all that hurt and betrayal and just ball it up and swallow it. Want to bake cookies? — Kristan Higgins

Because any fool knows that to work hard at something you want to accomplish is the only way to be happy. But beyond that it is entirely up to you. You've got to do for yourself all the seeking and finding concerned with what you want to do. Anyone but yourself is useless to you there. — Eugene O'Neill

I want you to always think of Mrs. Martin. And I want you always to remember that donkey. Never forget that fear and desire can lead you into life's biggest trap if you're not aware of them controlling your thinking. To spend your life living in fear, never exploring your dreams, is cruel. To work hard for money, thinking that it will buy you things that will make you happy is also cruel. To wake up in the middle of the night terrified about paying bills is a horrible way to live. To live a life dictated by the size of a paycheck is not really living a life. Thinking that a job makes you secure is lying to yourself. That's cruel, and that's the trap I want you to avoid. I've seen how money runs people's lives. Don't let that happen to you. Please don't let money run your life. — Robert T. Kiyosaki

I became the person people don't want to tell they're pregnant. I hate that. A friend told me her happy, fantastic news, and just a second later she burst out crying, afraid for how this would make me feel. I hate that. I work really hard to arrange my face in such a way that approximates uncomplicated glee. And I am happy for them, or course. But sometimes just after the happiness is the desperation. Some days are easier than others. — Shauna Niequist

When Epicurus defined happiness as the supreme good, he warned his disciples that it is hard work to be happy. Material achievements alone will not satisfy us for long. Indeed, the blind pursuit of money, fame and pleasure will only make us miserable. Epicurus recommended, for example, to eat and drink in moderation, and to curb one's sexual appetites. In the long run, a deep friendship will make us more content than a frenzied orgy. Epicurus outlined an entire ethic of dos and don'ts to guide people along the treacherous path to happiness. — Yuval Noah Harari

One can't be happy as I have been for very long. There's a law against it. I have worked hard and enjoyed my work and it is the punishment of man to hate his work. Sooner or later I will have work that I hate. — John Steinbeck

It bothers them that instead of taking on the role of abandoned lover, I have become a happy wife. They relish seeing strong women like you and me humiliated. They cannot forgive us that we triumphed where so many others fail ... Courage is a virtue appreciated in a male but considered a defect in our gender. Bold women are a threat to a world that is out of balance, in favor of men. That is why they work so hard to mistreat and destroy us. — Isabel Allende

I need to celebrate life because I'm in a good spot, I work hard, and I am happy with who I am and what I do for a living. — Dustin Poirier

I had to work so hard to find myself again, Alexandr." There was pain in her voice. "I was so lost without you. You left me raw and wounded and trapped in a dark place with no windows or doors. I didn't know how to live without you. I didn't know how to smile or feel or be. It took almost two years before I really accepted that it was over and I had to find a way to go on. I made myself strong. I'm alive again. I can wake up some mornings and be happy. I can look at the ocean and find peace again. Now you're asking me to risk everything all over again and I'm not certain I could survive if it all came crashing down. — Christine Feehan

I think that if you have to work very hard at dressing up and it makes you nervous or uptight, then you won't look very well because you won't be comfortable. I think it's much better to be comfortable and happy than well dressed. — Iris Apfel

When you work; don't expect your talent to be discovered. Work hard because it makes you happy. — Rita Zahara

Them smile. One read: Having Cheese Makes You Happy. Sometimes Hem and Haw would take their friends by to see their pile of Cheese at Cheese Station C, and point to it with pride, saying, "Pretty nice Cheese, huh?" Sometimes they shared it with their friends and sometimes they didn't. "We deserve this Cheese," Hem said. "We certainly had to work long and hard enough to find it." He picked up a nice fresh piece and ate it. Afterward, Hem fell asleep, as he often did. Every night the Littlepeople would waddle home, full of Cheese, and every morning they would confidently return for more. This went on for quite some time. After a while Hem's and Haw's confidence grew into the arrogance of success. Soon they became so comfortable they didn't even notice what was happening. As — Spencer Johnson

What i really want - and what i never get - is to be appreciated. do you know what it's like to work so hard to make sure everyone's happy, and to have not a single person recognize it — David Levithan