50 Quotes That Will Revolutionize The Way You Think About Happiness

50 Quotes That Will Revolutionize The Way You Think About Happiness

It's not just a matter of getting what you want.

Heidi PriebeDecember 19, 2016

Being an unhappy person does not mean you must be a sad person. You can be interested instead of happy. You can be fascinated instead of happy.

— Augusten Burroughs, This Is How: Surviving What You Think You Can't

Happy Happiness Interest Sadness fascination Personality

Share

Happy people are not people who 'feel good' all the time; they are the people who are able to be guided by their negative emotions rather than paralyzed by them.

— Brianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

Happiness Joy Acceptance Emotional Intelligence

Share

At some point you have to stop acting as though life is happening to you and acknowledge the ways you are happening to it. Once you take responsibility for your side of the street, you grant yourself the power to improve every aspect of your life.

— Jillian Michaels, By Jillian Michaels - Unlimited: How to Build an Exceptional Life (3.6.2011)

Life Resposibility Growth Happiness

Share

You often do not know what's best for your life. Predicting your future does not make it more guaranteed to happy. It just closes you off. It gets you attached to an idea that you only want to be reality because you're attached to it.

— Brianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

The future Happiness Predicting The Future Change Being Open Life Moving On

Share

A good life is not measured by what you do, it's about who you are. Not how many people you loved, but how much. It has nothing to do with how well things turn out or how seamlessly the plan is followed. It's about the bits of magic you stumble upon when you dive off path.

— Brianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

Life Magic Happiness A Good Life Love

Share

You cannot save up your happiness; you can either feel it in the moment or you miss it.

— Brianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

Share

Maybe you think you’ll be entitled to more happiness later by forgoing all of it now, but it doesn’t work that way. Happiness takes as much practice as unhappiness does. It’s by living that you live more. By waiting you wait more. Every waiting day makes your life a little less. Every lonely day makes you a little smaller. Every day you put off your life makes you less capable of living it.

— Ann Brashares, Sisterhood Everlasting

Waiting Happiness Unhappiness Delayed Gratification

Share

Happy people may lose everything they have but people who never choose to fully step into their lives never have anything at all.

— Brianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

Happiness Loss Losing Happiness Taking A Chance

Share

We risk missing out on joy when we get too busy chasing down the extraordinary.

— Brené Brown, Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Joy Extraordinary Goals Life Happiness

Share

Each day I wondered what would happen next. What happens when you stop wanting, when you are happy. I supposed I would go on being happy forever. I knew I would not mess things up by growing bored. I had done that once before.

— Miranda July, No One Belongs Here More Than You: Stories

Happiness Bored Boredom Relationships Love

Share

We cannot selectively numb emotions, when we numb the painful emotions, we also numb the positive emotions.

— Brené Brown, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You're Supposed to Be

Courage emotions vulnerability Happiness Joy Pain Suffering

Share

It’s hard for me to explain this to you in a way that will make one hundo percent sense, but I’ll try. Until recently, maybe in the last year or so, I didn’t understand that life could be good. It wasn’t like I was against happiness. I just didn’t think it was an option for someone like me.

— Ryan O'Connell, The Twenties We All Deserve

Share

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.

— Agatha Christie, Autobiography, An

Life Living Extrovert Being Alive Joy Happiness Pain

Share

Happiness is something that we have to consciously choose; otherwise we'd create the reality that we subconsciously think we deserve.

— Brianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

Happiness Choice Consciousness Reality

Share

Happiness is only real when shared.

— Chris McCandless, Into the Wild

Happiness Love Relationships Friendship

Share

Be happy for no reason, like a child. If you are happy for a reason, you’re in trouble, because that reason can be taken from you.

— Deepak Chopra, The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams

Happiness Joy Letting Go Materialism Attachment

Share

The healthiest response to life is joy.

— Deepak Chopra, Why Is God Laughing

Joy Life Happiness Living Embracing Life

Share

Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.

— J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban

Happiness Light Darkness

Share

The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.

— Chuck Palahniuk, Invisible Monsters

Share

There was a research article I read with the headline, ‘Love Is A Single Act Committed By Two Brains,’ because of the way oxytocin levels rose in a mother and a son when they hugged. I wish more poets became scientists.

— Iain Thomas, How to be Happy: Not a Self-Help Book. Seriously.

Happiness Love Science Poetry Poets

Share

There are three primary form of happiness. Just as removing one of the primary colors would make many others impossible, without any one of these happinesses, it is almost impossible to thrive.

— Brianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

Happiness Thriving Joy

Share

What makes earth feel like hell is our expectation that it should feel like heaven.

— Chuck Palahniuk, Damned

Expectations Happiness Pain Suffering Heaven Hell

Share

Did perpetual happiness in the Garden of Eden maybe get so boring that eating the apple was justified?

— Chuck Palahniuk, Survivor: A Novel

Happiness Boredom Sin Religion

Share

At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves.

— Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club

Life Happiness Destruction

Share

In fearing that happiness won't last forever, we lose it. In fearing that grief will last forever, we create it.

— Brianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

Happiness Fear Grief Self-Sabotage

Share

One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them by chance, in a lucky hour, at the world’s end somewhere, and holds fast to the days, as to fortune or fame.

— Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling On Happiness

Happiness Luck Fortune Fame

Share

The fact that we often judge the pleasure of an experience by its ending can cause us to make some curious choices.

— Daniel M. Gilbert, Stumbling On Happiness

Happiness Predicting Happiness

Share

I'd far rather be happy than right any day.

— Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Happiness Being Right Being Happy Smart vs. Happy

Share

This planet has - or rather had - a problem, which was this: most of the people living on it were unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem, but most of these were largely concerned with the movement of small green pieces of paper, which was odd because on the whole it wasn't the small green pieces of paper that were unhappy.

— Douglas Adams, The Ultimate Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

Happiness Materialism Money The Human Condition

Share

You’ll notice that I haven’t talked about love. Or about happiness. I’ve talked about becoming - or remaining – the person who can be happy, a lot of the time, without thinking that being happy is what it’s all about. It’s not. It’s about becoming the largest, the most inclusive, most responsive person you can be.

— Susan Sontag, Vassar Commencement Speech

Happiness Contentment Openness Life

Share

So, what if, instead of thinking about solving your whole life, you just think about adding additional good things. One at a time. Just let your pile of good things grow.

— Rainbow Rowell, Attachments

Happiness Life Optimism Cultivating Happiness Dealing with anxiety Count Your Blessings

Share

Happiness is the China shop; love is the bull.

— H.L. Mencken, A Little Book In C Major

Love Relationships Happiness Destruction

Share

You were in paradise, but you didn't recognize it. It's the same with most people in this world; they seek suffering in the most joyous of places because they think they are unworthy of happiness.

— Paulo Coelho, The Devil And Miss Prym

Happiness Joy Pain Suffering Accepting Happiness Paradise Hell

Share

The simple things are also the most extraordinary things, and only the wise can see them.

— Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Perspective Happiness Optimism Wisdom Simplicity Minimalism

Share

People aren't interested or attracted to just 'happy' and 'beautiful.' They're interested in people who are interested in things.

— Brianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

Happiness beauty Attraction Personality

Share

Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn’t know you left open.

— John Barrymore, No Title

Happiness Excitment Life Loving Life

Share

We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves strong. The amount of work is the same.

— Carlos Castaneda, No Title

Misery Happiness strength Self-improvement Self-Help

Share

Those who wish to sing always find a song.

— Swedish Proverb, No Title

Happiness Positivity Optimism Life Loving Life

Share

As soon as our circumstances extend beyond the amount of happiness we're accustomed to and comfortable feeling, we unconsciously begin to self-sabotage. We are programmed to seek what we've known. So, even though we think we're after happiness, we're actually trying to find whatever we're most accustomed to, and we project that on whatever actually exists, over and over again.

— Brianna Wiest, 101 Essays That Will Change The Way You Think

Happiness Self-Sabotage Comfort Change Resisting Happiness

Share

You can’t just hope for happy endings. You have to believe in them. Then do the work, take the risks.

— Nora Roberts, Dark Witch

Happiness Work Taking Risks

Share

Mattering makes us happy.

— Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling On Happiness

Happiness Mattering Belonging

Share

I’m going to find a way to be happy, and I’d really love to be happy with you, but if I can’t be happy with you, then I’ll find a way to be happy without you.

— Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Happiness Love Self-Sufficiancy Being Alone Alone Relationships Self-Worth Empowering

Share

Don't surrender all your joy for an idea you used to have about yourself that isn't true anymore.

— Cheryl Strayed, Tiny Beautiful Things: Advice on Love and Life from Dear Sugar

Joy Happiness The Past Moving On Change

Share

Develop an interest in life as you see it; the people, things, literature, music - the world is so rich, simply throbbing with rich treasures, beautiful souls and interesting people. Forget yourself.

— Henry Miller, No Title

Life Experience Interest Happiness

Share

Happiness is a garden walled with glass: there's no way in or out. In Paradise there are no stories, because there are no journeys. It's loss and regret and misery and yearning that drive the story forward, along its twisted road.

— Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin

Happiness Joy Pain Loss Grieving Stories Paradise Change

Share

Happiness is not you arrive at but a matter of traveling.

— Margaret Lee Runback, Facebook

Traveling Happiness

Share

Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.

— Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby

Happiness Expectations enjoy the moment

Share

We’re only here briefly and while I’m here I want to allow myself joy.

— Amy, Her

Happiness Living In The Moment

Share

Plant seeds of happiness, hope, success, and love; it will all come back to you in abundance. This is the law of nature.

— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience

Happiness Success

Share

To live every day as if it had been stolen from death, that is how I would like to live. To feel the joy of life, as Eve felt the joy of life. To separate oneself from the burden, the angst, the anguish that we all encounter every day. To say I am alive, I am wonderful, I am. I am. That is something to aspire to.

— Garth Stein, The Art of Racing in the Rain: A Novel

Death Joy Happiness

Share