Happiness
Happiness can give life meaning:
Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.
– Aristotle
The purpose of our lives is to be happy.
– Tenzin Gyatso, Dalai Lama
Success, in life, is most easily measured by the number of days you are truly happy.
– Eric Edmeades
I don’t know whether the universe, with its countless galaxies, stars and planets, has a deeper meaning or not, but at the very least, it is clear that we humans who live on this earth face the task of making a happy life for ourselves.
– Tenzin Gyatso, Dalai Lama
What is our ultimate goal in life? What are all our daily efforts ultimately trying to achieve? Surely increasing happiness is as worthwhile goal as any?
– A Godsons Truth
Happiness is a state of mind:
Happiness is a state of mind, a way of perceiving and approaching ourselves and the world in which we reside. So if you want to be happy tomorrow, the day after, and for the rest of your life, you can do it by choosing to change and manage your state of mind.
– Sonja Lyubomirsky
How you think about yourself, your world and other people is more important to your happiness than the objective circumstances of your life.
– Sonja Lyubomirsky
Happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely upon what you think.
– Zig Ziglar
I have learned a lesson from two of my friends, who made me realise on what happiness depends. They both have exactly equal things in life, a job, a car, a home and a wife. Yet one is happy the other is sad; one thinks life is good, the other thinks it bad. The difference is in their point of view, and the way they look at what they do.
– Tycho
The mind is its own place, and in itself, can make a Heaven of Hell, and a Hell of Heaven
– John Milton, Paradise Lost
We don’t see the world as it is, we see it as we are.
– Anais Nin
The mind is everything. What you think you become.
– Buddha
Life is just the story we tell ourselves about what life is. It’s a very subjective story and personal intrepretation about what we choose to focus on (and ignore). Change your story, change your life.
– A Godsons Truth
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts; therefore guard accordingly.
– Marcus Aurelius
Get the inside right. The outside will fall into place.
– Eckhart Tolle
No one is responsible for your happiness, only you are responsible for it.
– Michael Malecki
Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold, the feeling of happiness dwells in the soul.
– Democritus
There is only one person who could ever make you happy, and that person is you.
– David Burns
Happiness depends upon ourselves.
– Aristotle
People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.
– Unknown
The interesting thing about greed is that although the underlying motive is to seek satisfaction, even after obtaining what you want, you’re still not satisfied. It’s this endless, nagging desire for more that leads to trouble. On the other hand, if you’re truly contented, it doesn’t matter whether you get what you want or not. Either way, you remain content.
– Dalai Lama
The wise man chooses the path of joy, the fool the path of pleasure.
– Katha Upanishad
To be happy takes work:
Happiness doesn’t just happen to you, you have to work at it.
– Dalai Lama
Pursuing happiness takes work, it requires effort and commitment everyday [to change your patterns of thinking and behaving] but consider that this happiness work may be the most rewarding work you ever do.
– Sonja Lyubomirsky
We all have to learn to make our own happiness in life. We should take personal responsibility for our actions. No state of mind is permanent unless we choose to make it so. By examining our thinking and exercising the same control over our thoughts, we can all gain enough awareness to break free of our negative patterns. We all encounter difficult experiences in life, but we can use these and learn to grow from them.
– Gordon Smith
Being happy is a skill, relating to a certain way of thinking and percieving that you bring into your every day life – and like any skill – you develop it by practicing it often.
– A Godsons Truth
Learn how to be happy with what you have while you pursue all that you want.
– Jim Rohn
You only get one go at life, if your not happy change it, if you are then ENJOY IT.
– A Godsons Truth
Remember this, that very little is needed to make a happy life.
– Marcus Aurelius
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet.
– James Oppenheim
Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity, but in doing it.
– Greg Anderson
Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling.
– Margaret Lee Runbeck
Live your life each day as you would climb a mountain. An occasional glance toward the summit keeps the goal in mind, but many beautiful scenes are to be observed from each new vantage point. Climb slowly, steadily, enjoying each passing moment; and the view from the summit will serve as a fitting climax for the journey.
– Harold V. Melchert
To be happier: Do more of the things you love doing.
– A Godsons Truth
Always find time for the things that make you happy to be alive.
– Unknown
The happiest people do not have the best of everything they make the best of everything.
– Sam Cawhorn
The best things in life are free.
– Proverb
The most important things in life aren’t things.
– Anthony J. D’Angelo
The richest people are not those who have the most – but those who need the least.
– Unknown
Whether you have a Maruti or a BMW, the road remains the same. Whether you travel economy class or business, your destination doesn’t change. Whether you have a Titan or a Rolex, the time is the same. There is nothing wrong in dreaming of a luxurious life. What needs to be taken care of is to not let the NEED become GREED. Because needs can always be met.. but greed can never be fulfilled.
– Rajinikanth
Happiness and gratitude:
In daily life we must see that it is not happiness that makes us grateful, but gratefulness that makes us happy.
– David Steindl-Rast
Just an observation: it is impossible to be both grateful and depressed.
– Steve Maraboli
Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy — because we will always want to have something else or something more.
– David Steindl-Rast
We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.
– Frederick Keonig
The happiest people take time to appreciate things that others take for granted
– Unknown
Happiness is not having what you want. It is wanting what you have.
– Hyman Schachtel
Every time we seek something we cannot afford, we grow poorer, whatever our resources. And every time we feel satisfied with what we have, we can be counted as rich, however little we may actually own.
– Alain de Botton
He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has.
– Epictetus
Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.
― Epictetus
Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.
― Epictetus
Count your blessings, not your depressings.
– Unknown
Look closely and you will find that people are happy because they are grateful. The opposite of gratefulness is just taking everything for granted.
– David Steindl-Rast
Learn to appreciate what you have, before time makes you appreciate what you had.
– Unknown
Remember to stop and smell the roses.
– Proverb
You don’t know what you’ve got ’till it’s gone.
– Proverb
What a wonderful life I’ve had, I only wish I’d realised it sooner.
– Collette
Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.
– Robert Brault
The little things? The little moments? They aren’t little.
– Jon Kabat-Zinn
Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing.
– Camille Pissarro
As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.
– John F. Kennedy
Mindfullness and happiness:
We can waste too much of our life thinking about the past or the future without fully being in, and enjoying the present moment.
– A Godsons Truth
True happiness is… to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.
– Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Here and now is all we’ve got.
– Buddha
Most humans are never fully present in the now, because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one. But then you miss your whole life, which is never not now.
– Eckhart Tolle
Realize deeply that the present moment is all you ever have. Make the Now the primary focus of your life.
– Eckhart Tolle
It is possible to live happily in the here and now. So many conditions of happiness are available—more than enough for you to be happy right now. You don’t have to run into the future in order to get more.
– Thich Nhat Hanh
Nothing is worth more than this day.
– Goethe
In the hopes of reaching the moon men fail to see the flowers that blossom at their feet.
– Albert Schweitzer
Take the time to smell the roses.
– Proverbs
Mindfulness practice means that we commit fully in each moment to be present; inviting ourselves to interface with this moment in full awareness, with the intention to embody as best we can an orientation of calmness, mindfulness, and equanimity right here and right now.
– Jon Kabat-Zinn
An awareness of the fleeting & ephemeral nature of existence helps us to fully appreciate every moment of our lives.
– A Godsons Truth
Are you experiencing or are you spending most of your time thinking about what you experienced or what you will experience?
– Richard Hittleman
Give whatever you are doing and whoever you are with the gift of your attention.
– Jim Rohn
Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
– Nathaniel Hawthorne
By living our lives one day at a time, we live all the days of our life.
– Anoymous
By a correct fulfillment of the present, the past and the future will take care of themselves.
– Mbuti People of Africa
If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.
– Lao Tzu
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, just concentrate the mind on the present moment.
– Buddha
Breathe. Let go. And remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure.
– Oprah Winfrey
Changing your thoughts to be happy:
There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our own will.
– Epictetus
Men are disturbed not by things, but by the view which they take of them.
– Epictetus
I know I’m not seeing things as they are, I’m seeing things as I am.
– Laurel Lee
Live & Learn:
Simply live, and learn. Enjoy the good times, and learn from the so-called bad times, which can be used to help you grow, be wiser, stronger more resilient and better prepared to face future challenges. If you live this way, every experience can be used to contribute to your ultimate happiness.
– A Godsons Truth
If you will call your troubles experiences, and remember that every experience develops some latent force within you, you will grow vigorous and happy, however adverse your circumstances may seem to be.
– John Heyward
Happinesss is not the absence of problems, but the ability to deal with them.
– H. Jackson (Jack) Brown Jr
Worry and happiness:
Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.
– Leo F. Buscaglia
When I look back on all these worries, I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which had never happened
– Winston Churchill
Worrying doesn’t take away tomorrow troubles, it just takes away todays peace
– Unknown
Ask yourself what do you have control over in this and only worry about that
– Unknown
You cannot plough a field by turning it over in your mind.
– Proverb
Don’t cross the bridge until you come to it, is a proverb old, and of excellent wit.
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
You can’t have a better tomorrow if you are thinking about yesterday all the time.
– Charles F. Kettering
By living life as best you can in this very moment – the past and future take care of themselves.
– A Godsons Truth
Procrastination is the grave in which opportunity is buried.
– Anonymous
The mind that is anxious about future events is miserable.
– Seneca
I never think of the future – it comes soon enough.
– Albert Einstein
Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, just concentrate the mind on the present moment.
– Buddha
Live life one day at a time–this is enough. Do not look back and grieve over the past for it is gone; and do not be troubled about the future, for it has not yet come. Live in the present, and make it so beautiful it will be worth remembering.
– Unknown
Optimism and happiness:
A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.
– Winston Churchill
The best way to predict the future is to create it.
– Abraham Lincoln
I am an optimist. It does not seem too much use being anything else.
– Winston Churchill
Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We have only today. Let us begin.
– Mother Teresa
When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.
– Alexander Graham Bell
Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending.
– Maria Robinson
The future is undecided.
– Joe Strummer
Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice. It is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved.
– William Jennings Bryan
I’m a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
– Thomas Jefferson
Relationships and happiness:
Our connections with other people are at the heart of happiness – theirs and ours. Whether these connections are with our partners, families, friends, work colleagues, neighbours or people in our broader communities, they all contribute to our happiness.
– Action for Happiness
Love and affection is responsible for nine-tenths of whatever solid and durable happiness there is in our lives.
– C. S. Lewis
Life is too short to spend time with people who always suck the happiness out of you.
– Uknown
People either radiate happiness to others or drain happiness from others. Choose which you want to be, and choose who you want to be around wisely.
– Unknown
There comes a time in life when you have to let go of all the pointless drama & the people who create it and surround yourself with people who make you laugh so hard that you forget the bad and focus solely on the good. After all, lifes too short to be anything but happy.
– Karl Marx (composer)
Compassion and happiness:
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
– Tenzin Gyatso, The Dalai Lama
My Father was always very happy and content. He told me the secret before he died. He said “You won’t find happiness if you pursue happiness for yourself. You will only find it when all your focus is on trying to make other people happy.
– Unknown
The positive effect of happiness on our lives:
Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.
– ALBERT SCHWEITZER
People with many interests live, not only longest, but happiest.
– George Matthew Allen
All that we are is the result of what we have thought. If a man speaks or acts with an evil thought, pain follows him. If a man speaks or acts with a pure thought, happiness follows him, like a shadow that never leaves him.
– Buddha
Spreading happiness:
Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Just as the candle won’t be shortened, one’s happiness never decreases by being shared.
– Buddha
Choosing to live a happy life is not only our greatest gift to ourselves, it is also the greatest gift we can give to those around us. When we are happy, we radiate happiness, and that is infectious. Consider giving the gift of happiness to yourself as being your gift to all humanity.
– Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama