"I believe the nicest and sweetest days are not those on which anything very splendid or wonderful or exciting happens, but just those that bring simple little pleasures, following one another softly, like pearls slipping off a string."
 L.M. Montgomery

"When fishing for happiness, catch and release." Shimon Edelman

"Energy is eternal delight." William Blake

"We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life. All that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about." Albert Einstein

"A happy heart is better than a full purse." Italian proverb

"The happiest people are those who think the most interesting thoughts. Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good company, good conversation, are the happiest people in the world. And they are not only happy in themselves, they are the cause of ahppiness in others." William Lyon Phelps

"You search endlessly for permanent happiness in a world where nothing is permanent." Christopher Pike

"Be happy. It's one way of being wise." Colette

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." Marcel Proust

"A single smile is a cure for anything. It penetrates the human heart causing it to beat faster. A single smile means warmth, satisfaction, happiness, and most of all it means life. People smiling know and understand they have something worth living for." Andriana Kelisakieva

"A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships." Helen Keller

"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet." James Oppenheim

"All seasons are beautiful for the person who carries happiness within." Horace Friess

"Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself." Ralph Waldo Emerson

"The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun. If you want to get more out of life, you must lose your inclination for monotonous security and adopt a helter-skelter style of life that will at first appear to you to be crazy. But once you become accustomed to such a life you will see its full meaning and its incredible beauty."
 Jon Krakauer

"Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead." Scottish proverb

"To find a person who will love you for no reason, and to shower that person with reasons, that is the ultimate happiness." Robert Brault, software developer, writer (1938- )

"To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness." Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)

"Just as certain selections of music will nourish your physical body and your emotional layer, so other musical works will bring greater health to your mind." John F. Kennedy

"...happiness gives us the energy which is the basis of health." Henri-Frédéric Amiel

"Make one person happy each day and in forty years you will have made 14,600 human beings happy for a little time at least." Charles Wiley

"We have an infinite number of reasons to be happy, and a serious responsibility not to be serious." Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

"Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness." Chang-Tzu

"The third-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the majority. The second-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking with the minority. The first-rate mind is only happy when it is thinking." A. A. Milne

"The ultimate challenge in life is to neither allow our fantasies to bring us too much suffering nor to prevent us from living fully." Earon Davis

"Happiness isn't something you experience; it's something you remember." Oscar Levant

"The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise man grows it under his feet." James Oppenheim

"To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring." George Santayana




"My opinion is that you never find happiness until you stop looking for it." Chuang-tzu

"All happiness depends upon a leisurely breakfast." John Gunther

"Those who won our independence believed liberty to be the secret of happiness and courage to be the secret of liberty." Abraham Lincoln

"Bliss is the same in subject and in king."  Alexander Pope

"Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wants of life, and the labors of life reduce themselves." Edwin Way Teale

"A happy life is just a string of happy moments. But most people don't allow the happy moment, because they're so busy trying to get a happy life." Abraham Hicks

"There are many things to see, unwrapped gifts and free surprises. The world is fairly studded and strewn with pennies cast broadside by a generous hand. But--and this is the point--who gets excited by a mere penny? If you follow one arrow, if you crouch motionless on a bank to watch a tremulous ripple thrill on the water and are rewarded by the sight of a muskrat paddling from its den, will you count that sight a chip of copper only, and go on your rueful way? It is dire poverty indeed when a man is so malnourished and fatigued that he won't stoop to pick up a penny. But if you cultivate a healthy poverty and simplicity, so that finding a penny will literally make your day, then, since the world is in fact planted in pennies, you have with your poverty bought a lifetime of days. It is that simple. What you see is what you get." Annie Dillard, from "Pilgrim at Tinker Creek."

"Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy." Eskimo proverb

"Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it." Boethius

If the things we believe in are different than the things we do, there can be no true happiness."  Dana Telford

"Whoever is happy will make others happy, too." Mark Twain

"There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face." Ben Williams

"If we know ourselves, we're always home, anywhere." Glinda, the good witch of the South, in THE WIZ

"The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers." M. Scott Peck, psychiatrist and author (1936-2005)

"There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave most in life -- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind -- are always attained by giving them to someone else." General Peyton C. March (1864-1955)

"The more passions and desires one has, the more ways one has of being happy." Charlotte-Catherine

"Life would be infinitely happier if we could only be born at the age of eighty and gradually approach eighteen." Mark Twain

"Your wrinkles either show that you're nasty, cranky, and senile, or that you're always smiling." Carlos Santana

"Action is the antidote to despair." Joan Baez

"We don't laugh because we're happy, we're happy because we laugh." William James

"You are not here merely to make a living. you are here to enable the world to live more amply, with greater vision, and with a finer spirit of hope and achievement. You are here to enrich the world. You impoverish yourself if you forget this errand." Woodrow Wilson

"How often we fail to realize our good fortune in living in a country where happiness is more than a lack of tragedy." Paul Sweeney

"A multitude of small delights constitute happiness." Charles Baudelaire

“Happiness walks on busy feet.” Kitte Turmell

"Keep a green tree in your heart and perhaps a singing bird will come." Chinese proverb

"Have a variety of interests . . . . These interests relax the mind and lessen the tension on the nervous system. People with many interests live, not only longest, but happiest." George Matthew Allen

"I enjoy the presence of myself. I find myself smiling and having fun, even when I am just by myself. The more I enjoy myself, the more I enjoy my life, and the more I enjoy the presence of everyone around me." Don Miguel Ruiz

"People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy." Anton Chekhov

“A man’s felicity consists not in the outward and visible blessing of fortune, but in the inward and unseen perfections and riches of the mind.” Anacharsis (fl. 6th C BC) Scythian prince and philosopher in Plutarch, “The Banquet of the Seven Wise Men”

"How strange is the lot of us mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn; for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people -- first of all for those upon whose smiles and well-being our own happiness is wholly dependent, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy. A hundred times every day I remind myself that my inner and outer life are based on the labors of other men, living and dead, and that I must exert myself in order to give in the same measure as I have received and am still receiving..." Albert Einstein

"Happy are the painters for they shall not be bored," Winston Churchill

“Cherish all your happy moments: they make a fine cushion for old age.” Christopher Morley

"To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition." Samuel Johnson

“Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.” Mark Twain

"It's kind of fun to do the impossible." Walt Disney

"Happiness...not in another place but this place, not for another hour but this hour." Walt Whitman

“The secret of happiness is this: Let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.” Bertrand Russell

“Doing what you love is freedom. Loving what you do is happiness.” Fortune cookie

“The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.” Marcel Pagnol

“People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy.” Anton Chekov

“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.” Albert Schweitzer, philosopher, physician, musician, Nobel laureate (1875-1965)

“Somehow not only for Christmas
But all the long year through,
The joy that you give to others
Is the joy that comes back to you.”
E. B. White

“Much unhappiness results from our inability to remember the nice things that happen to us.” W. N. Rieger

“Too many wish to be happy before becoming wise.” Susanne Curchod Necker

“Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.” Joseph Addison, writer, (1672-1719)

“Take time to hug a tree, look for animals in the clouds, watch a caterpillar make its way. Work feeds the belly, but wonder feeds the soul.” Anne Mathewson

“Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.” Storm Jameson

“The world's literature and folklore are full of stories that point out how futile it can be to seek happiness. Rather, happiness is a blessing that comes to you as you go along; a treasure that you incidentally find.” Louis Binstock

“When we have a toothache, we know that not having a toothache is happiness. But later, when we don’t have a toothache, we don’t treasure our non-toothache. Practicing mindfulness, we can treasure our happiness and make it last longer.” Thich Nhat Hanh

“When all is said and done, success without happiness is the worst kind of failure.” Louis Binstock

“For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” Unknown

“The person born with a talent they are meant to use will find their greatest happiness in using it.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence, but in the mastery, of his passions.” Alfred Lord Tennyson

“Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.” Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Life's greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.” Victor Hugo, Les Miserables, 1862

“In the pursuit of happiness, the difficulty lies in knowing when you have caught up with it.” R.H. Grenville

“Kindness makes a fellow feel good whether it's being done to him or by him.” Frank A. Clark

“The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions—the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look or heartfelt compliment.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge, poet (1772-1834)