Happiness Depends

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
--Marcus Aurelius

Not Real Happiness

“I have the impression of being herded towards a uniform kind of happiness, toward a kind of happiness that doesn't really make me happy, that I am being conned by the powers that be.”
--Michel Houellebecq

Viral Goodwill

“Nothing is so contagious as enthusiasm.”
--Samuel Taylor Coleridge

My Happiness

“Independence is my happiness, and I view things as they are, without regard to place or person; my country is the world, and my religion is to do good.”
--Thomas Paine

Nothing to Add

“What can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is out of debt, and has a clear conscience?”
--Adam Smith

Society and Government

“Society is produced by our wants, and government by wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher.”
--Thomas Paine

External Happiness

“The ordinary man places his life’s happiness in things external to him, so that when he loses them or finds them disappointing, the foundation of his happiness is destroyed. In other words, his center of gravity is not himself.”
--Arthur Schopenhauer

Happiness Butterfly

“Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.”
--Henry David Thoreau

Danger from Within

“From the earliest ages of history to the present day there never have been a people associated in one political body who enjoyed so much freedom and happiness as the people of these United States. You have no longer any cause to fear danger from abroad. It is from within, among yourselves - from cupidity, from corruption, from disappointed ambition and inordinate thirst for power.”
--Andrew Jackson

The Only Good

“Reason, observation and experience; the holy Trinity of science, have taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so.”
--Robert Green Ingersoll

Grow Happiness

“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.”
--J. Robert Oppenheimer

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Enlightened Truth

“Truth enlightens the mind, but won't always bring happiness to your heart.”
--Jedi Proverb

Absent Problems

“Happiness is not the absence of problems. It’s the ability to deal with them.”
--Steve Maraboli

The Door of Happiness

“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”
--Helen Keller

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Find Happiness

“Happiness is where we find it, but very rarely where we seek it.”
--J. Petit Senn

Happiness to Others

“Happiest are the people who give most happiness to others.”
--Denis Diderot

Strive for Happiness

“Since ancient times, philosophers have maintained that to strive too hard for one's own happiness is self-defeating.”
--Peter Singer

No Happiness

“There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.”
--Freya Stark

Seeds of Love

“May the seeds of love you plant today, grow into the tree of happiness you enjoy tomorrow.”
--Jeffrey Fry

Happiness Byproduct

“Happiness is not a goal; it is a byproduct. 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.”
--Eleanor Roosevelt