Isn’t it true that we all desire to be happy? These quotations on happiness are a great place to start.
After all, we’re happier, healthier, and more successful when we’re happy, healthy, and successful.
So, to assist you on your journey, here are some inspirational quotes about happiness and being happy to help you discover joy and fulfillment in life.
170+ Happiness Quotes to Fill Joy in Your Life
For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.― Ralph Waldo Emerson
Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness.__Robertson Davies
Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.― Marthe Troly-Curtin
Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.― Robert A. Heinlein
Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.― Abraham Lincoln
The secret of happiness is to find a congenial monotony.__V.S. Pritchett
The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.___Victor Hugo
There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.___George Sand
Happiness depends upon ourselves. – Aristotle
All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.__Baruch Spinoza
It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.― Chuck Palahniuk
Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.― Ernest Hemingway
Happiness is a direction, not a place. – Sydney J. Harris
Happiness is not the absence of problems, it’s the ability to deal with them.___Steve Maraboli
Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.__Thomas Jefferson
Happiness consists more in conveniences of pleasure that occur everyday than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom.___Benjamin Franklin
Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.___Immanuel Kant
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.___Bertrand Russell
To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind. If a man can control his mind he can find the way to Enlightenment, and all wisdom and virtue will naturally come to him.___Buddha
There is some kind of a sweet innocence in being human—in not having to be just happy or just sad—in the nature of being able to be both broken and whole, at the same time.___C. JoyBell C.
You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.― Albert Camus
A great obstacle to happiness is to expect too much happiness.___Bernard de Fontenelle
Happiness is a form of courage. – Holbrook Jackson
Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.__Carl Jung
The secret of happiness is freedom, the secret of freedom is courage.__Carrie Jones
The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.___Chuck Palahniuk
Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Nobody really cares if you’re miserable, so you might as well be happy.___Cynthia Nelms
Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.― John Lennon
Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product. – Eleanor Roosevelt
Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.___Dalai Lama
It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.___Dale Carnegie
If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.― J.R.R. Tolkien
People are unhappy when they get something too easily. You have to sweat – that’s the only moral they know.___Dany Laferrière
They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.― Tom Bodett
There’s nothing like deep breaths after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore stomach for the right reasons.― Stephen Chbosky
The most important thing is to enjoy your life—to be happy—it’s all that matters.― Audrey Hepburn
We can’t control the world. We can only (barely) control our own reactions to it. Happiness is largely a choice, not a right or entitlement.___David C. Hill
Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.___Denis Waitley
I think the key to life is just being a happy person, and happiness will bring you success.___Diego Val
Happiness is a warm puppy.― Charles M. Schulz
It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.___Charles Spurgeon
There is no happiness like that of being loved by your fellow creatures, and feeling that your presence is an addition to their comfort.___Charlotte Bronte
If you want happiness for an hour, take a nap. If you want happiness for a day, go fishing. If you want happiness for a year, inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime, help someone else.___Chinese Proverb
Happiness is being content with what you have, living in freedom and liberty, having a good family life and good friends.___Divyanka Tripathi
Happiness is only real when shared.– Jon Krakauer
Happiness is the interval between periods of unhappiness.___Don Marquis
The world is full of people looking for spectacular happiness while they snub contentment.__Doug Larson
Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in strangers’ gardens.___Douglas Jerrold
Happiness is excitement that has found a settling down place. But there is always a little corner that keeps flapping around.___E.L. Konigsburg
Happiness is always the serendipitous result of looking for something else.__Dr. Idel Dreimer
Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.___Franklin D. Roosevelt
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
There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.___Freya Stark
Give a man health and a course to steer, and he’ll never stop to trouble about whether he’s happy or not.__George Bernard Shaw
Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.___George Burns
Happiness is a place between too much and too little. – Finnish Proverb
How simple it is to see that we can only be happy now, and there will never be a time when it is not now.__Gerald Jampolsky
Happiness is a by-product of an effort to make someone else happy.__Gretta Brooker Palmer
Cheerfulness is what greases the axles of the world. Don’t go through life creaking.__H.W. Byles
Happiness and sadness run parallel to each other. When one takes a rest, the other one tends to take up the slack.___Hazelmarie Elliott
Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future.___Earl Nightingale
The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.___Epictetus
No medicine cures what happiness cannot. – Gabriel García Márquez
The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.___Eric Hoffer
My family didn’t have a lot of money, and I’m grateful for that. Money is the longest route to happiness.___Evangeline Lilly
True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.___Helen Keller
All happiness depends on courage and work.___Honoré de Balzac
Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.___Guillaume Apollinaire
Happiness is the natural flower of duty. – Phillips Brooks
Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.___Hosea Ballou
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.___James Oppenheim
I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.___Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
Happiness is where we find it, but very rarely where we seek it.– J. Petit Senn
Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though it were his own.___Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so.___John Stuart Mill
You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.___Jonathan Safran Foer
So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?___Hunter S. Thompson
Happiness is a matter of one’s most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.___Iris Murdoch
Happiness is distraction from the human tragedy.___J.M. Reinoso
Real happiness is not of temporary enjoyment, but is so interwoven with the future that it blesses for ever.___James Lendall Basford
In my life I’ve learned that true happiness comes from giving. Helping others along the way makes you evaluate who you are. I think that love is what we’re all searching for. I haven’t come across anyone who didn’t become a better person through love.___Marla Gibbs
Happiness is a well-balanced combination of love, labour, and luck.___Mary Wilson Little
Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.___Maxim Gorky
Many things can make you miserable for weeks; few can bring you a whole day of happiness.___Mignon McLaughlin
Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination. – Mark Twain
Happiness is a dry martini and a good woman. Or a bad woman.___George Burns
Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained.___Nathaniel Hawthorne
Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.___Joseph Addison
The happiness which is lacking makes one think even the happiness one has unbearable.__Joseph Roux
t’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.___L.M. Montgomery
If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never be fulfilled. If your happiness depends on money, you will never be happy with yourself. Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the world belongs to you.___Lao Tzu
Happiness is a function of accepting what is. – Werner Erhard
You can’t be happy unless you’re unhappy sometimes.___Lauren Oliver
As people spin faster and faster in the pursuit of merely personal happiness, they become exhausted in the futile effort of chasing themselves.___Andrew Delbanco
In order to have great happiness you have to have great pain and unhappiness – otherwise how would you know when you’re happy?___Leslie Caron
There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want; and after that, to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.___Logan Pearsall Smith
Let us be grateful to people who make us happy, they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.__Marcel Proust
He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.___Marcus Aurelius
The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.___Marcus Aurelius
There is no cosmetic for beauty like happiness. – Lady Blessington
Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling.___Margaret Lee Runbeck
Happiness is a constant work-in-progress, because solving problems is a constant work-in-progress – the solutions to today’s problems will lay the foundation for tomorrow’s problems, and so on. True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving.___Mark Manson
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.__Mahatma Gandhi
Happiness is the default state. It’s what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in life.___Naval Ravikant
Those who can laugh without cause have either found the true meaning of happiness or have gone stark raving mad.___Norm Papernick
Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world.___Orhan Pamuk
Happiness is the resultant of the relative strengths of positive and negative feelings rather than an absolute amount of one or the other.___Norman Bradburn
Happiness is an accident of nature, a beautiful and flawless aberration.___Pat Conroy
There is no way to happiness — happiness is the way. – Thich Nhat Hanh
It’s the moments that I stopped just to be, rather than do, that have given me true happiness.___Sir Richard Branson
To be happy, you must fancy that everything you have is a gift, and you the chosen, though you worked your tail off for every bit of it.___Robert Brault
People should find happiness in the little things, like family.___Amanda Bynes
If only we’d stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time.___Edith Wharton
Happiness is an inside job. – William Arthur Ward
Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.___Aristotle
Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.___Robert Frost
Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.___Franklin D. Roosevelt
Most people would rather be certain they’re miserable, than risk being happy.___Robert Anthony
Don’t waste your time in anger, regrets, worries, and grudges. Life is too short to be unhappy.___Roy T. Bennett
Happiness is the experience of loving life. Being happy is being in love with that momentary experience. And love is looking at someone or even something and seeing the absolute best in him/her or it. Love is happiness with what you see. So love and happiness really are the same thing…just expressed differently.___Robert McPhillips
Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.___Robert A. Heinlein
The happiness of life is made up of the little charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment___Samuel Taylor Coleridge
Happiness is a state of activity.– Aristotle
Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response.___Mildred Barthel
Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.___Ayn Rand
Our capacity to draw happiness from aesthetic objects or material goods in fact seems critically dependent on our first satisfying a more important range of emotional or psychological needs, among them the need for understanding, for love, expression and respect.___Alain De Botton
The true secret of happiness lies in the taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.___William Morris
The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.___William Saroyan
Quotes about Being Happy
These happiness quotes are all about being happy.
Sometimes a simple shift will help you be happy and make others happy too.
If you are not happy here and now, you never will be.___Taisen Deshimaru
Most people would rather be certain they’re miserable, than risk being happy.___Robert Anthony
The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid.___J.D. Salinger
Happy girls are the prettiest.___Audrey Hepburn
Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.__Abraham Lincoln
Whoever is happy will make others happy. – Anne Frank
On the whole, the happiest people seem to be those who have no particular cause for being happy except that they are so.__William R. Inge
There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means – either may do – the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.___Benjamin Franklin
You can only have bliss if you don’t chase it.___Henepola Gunaratana
We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same.___Anne Frank
I have only two kinds of days: happy and hysterically happy.___Allen J. Lefferdink
If you want to be happy, be.– Leo Tolstoy
You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.___Albert Camus
You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.___Epicurus
Many persons have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.___Helen Keller
If a person’s basic state of mind is serene and calm, then it is possible for this inner peace to overwhelm a painful physical experience. On the other hand, if someone is suffering from depression, anxiety, or any form of emotional distress, then even if he or she happens to be enjoying physical comforts, he will not really be able to experience the happiness that these could bring.___Tenzin Gyatso, 14th Dalai Lama
Be happy with what you have. Be excited about what you want.___Alan Cohen
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
Be happy. It’s one way of being wise. – Colette
No one is in control of your happiness but you; therefore, you have the power to change anything about yourself or your life that you want to change.___Barbara DeAngelis
Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get.__W.P. Kinsella
Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.___Fyodor Dostoevsky
Too often in life, something happens and we blame other people for us not being happy or satisfied or fulfilled. So the point is, we all have choices, and we make the choice to accept people or situations or to not accept situations.__Tom Brady
Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. – Mother Teresa
The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.__George Bernard Shaw
If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias in his garden, or looking for dinosaur eggs in the Gobi desert. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that has rolled under the radiator. He will not be striving for it as a goal in itself. He will have become aware that he is happy in the course of living life twenty-four crowded hours of the day.___W. Beran Wolfe
Happiness is your dentist telling you it won’t hurt and then having him catch his hand in the drill.__Johnny Carson
Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible.__St. Augustine
The Constitution only guarantees the American people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.__Author unknown, commonly attributed to Benjamin Franklin
The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.___Mark Twain
Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.– Omar Khayyam
Can anything be so elegant as to have few wants, and to serve them one’s self?___Ralph Waldo Emerson
The habit of being happy enables one to be freed, or largely freed, from the domination of outward conditions.__Robert Louis Stevenson
Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.__Nathaniel Hawthorne
If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.__Andrew Carnegie
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.___Dalai Lama
Just as a cautious businessman avoids investing all his capital in one concern, so wisdom would probably admonish us also not to anticipate all our happiness from one quarter alone.___Sigmund Freud
A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery while on a detour.___Unknown
Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better to take things as they come along with patience and equanimity.__Carl Jung
It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.___Dale Carnegie
Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.__Jim Rohn
One joy scatters a hundred griefs. – Chinese Proverb
If you want happiness for an hour – take a nap. If you want happiness for a day – go fishing. If you want happiness for a month – get married. If you want happiness for a year – inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime – help someone else.___Chinese Proverb
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.___James Oppenheim
Judge nothing, you will be happy. Forgive everything, you will be happier. Love everything, you will be happiest.___Sri Chinmoy
Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it.___William Feather
We cannot be happy if we expect to live all the time at the highest peak of intensity. Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.___Thomas Merton
Most of us believe in trying to make other people happy only if they can be happy in ways which we approve.__Robert S. Lynd
If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years.___Bertrand Russell
When neither their property nor their honor is touched, the majority of men live content.___Niccolo Machiavelli
We have no more right to consume happiness without producing it than to consume wealth without producing it.___George Bernard Shaw
We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.___Walter Savage Landor
Unquestionably, it is possible to do without happiness; it is done involuntarily by nineteen-twentieths of mankind.__John Stuart Mill
For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Happiness consists more in conveniences of pleasure that occur everyday than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom.___Benjamin Franklin
Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.___Mahatma Gandhi