Happiness quotes
What makes a life feel good has been argued over since the Stoics. These quotes come down on different sides (contentment, work, gratitude, company) and each one names its source.
The library has 1,292 quotes on this topic. Here are 60 of the most quoted, no more than four from any one writer.
60 happiness quotes
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A cheerful heart makes good medicine, but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.
Bible (World English Bible) Proverbs, 17:22 -
Always rejoice. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus toward you.
Bible (World English Bible) 1 Thessalonians, 5:16–18 -
Silence is the perfectest herald of joy: I were but little happy, if I could say how much.
William Shakespeare Much Ado About Nothing, Act ii. Sc. 1 -
Clouds come floating into my life from other days no longer to shed rain or usher storm but to give colour to my sunset sky.
Rabindranath Tagore Stray Birds, 292 -
The robb’d that smiles, steals something from the thief.
William Shakespeare Othello, Act i. Sc. 3 -
I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.
Charles Dickens A Christmas Carol -
Think only of the past as its remembrance gives you pleasure.
Jane Austen Pride and Prejudice -
Happy are they that hear their detractions, And can put them to mending.
William Shakespeare Much Ado About Nothing, Act ii., Sc. 3 -
Poor and content is rich and rich enough; But riches fineless is as poor as winter To him that ever fears he shall be poor.
William Shakespeare Othello, iii. 3 -
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose.
Walt Whitman Song of the Open Road, Leaves of Grass -
Reason’s whole pleasure, all the joys of sense, Lie in three words,—health, peace, and competence.
Alexander Pope Essay on Man. Epistle iv, Line 79 -
Eternal smiles his emptiness betray, As shallow streams run dimpling all the way.
Alexander Pope Epistle to Dr. Arbuthnot, Prologue to the Satires. Line 315 -
We are never so happy or so unhappy as we suppose.
François de La Rochefoucauld Maxims, Maxim 49 · translated by J. W. Willis Bund and J. Hain Friswell -
Vain, very vain, my weary search to find That bliss which only centres in the mind.
Oliver Goldsmith The Traveller, Line 423 -
I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.
Lucy Maud Montgomery Anne of Green Gables -
The lark’s on the wing; The snail’s on the thorn: God’s in his heaven— All’s right with the world!
Robert Browning Pippa Passes, 1841 (Pippa’s song) -
How much lies in laughter, the cipher-key wherewith we decipher the whole man.
Thomas Carlyle Sartor Resartus -
Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.
Ralph Waldo Emerson Self-Reliance, Essays: First Series -
Smiles from reason flow, To brute denied, and are of love the food.
John Milton Paradise Lost, Bk. IX -
There’s not a joy the world can give like that it takes away.
Lord Byron Stanzas for Music -
Far from all resort of mirth Save the cricket on the hearth.
John Milton Il Penseroso, Line 81 -
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
William Blake Proverbs of Hell, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, c. 1790 -
Condition, circumstance, is not the thing; Bliss is the same in subject or in king.
Alexander Pope Essay on Man, Epis. iv., Line 57 -
How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Alexander Pope Eloisa to Abelard, Line 207 -
Never to blend our pleasure or our pride With sorrow of the meanest thing that feels.
William Wordsworth Hart-leap Well, Part ii -
And often, glad no more, We wear a face of joy because We have been glad of yore.
William Wordsworth The Fountain -
As high as we have mounted in delight, In our dejection do we sink as low.
William Wordsworth Resolution and Independence, Stanza 4 -
Even children follow’d with endearing wile, And pluck’d his gown, to share the good man’s smile.
Oliver Goldsmith The Deserted Village, Line 183 -
Where wealth and freedom reign contentment fails, And honour sinks where commerce long prevails.
Oliver Goldsmith The Traveller, Line 91 -
This world is all a fleeting show, For man’s illusion given; The smiles of joy, the tears of woe, Deceitful shine, deceitful flow,—There’s nothing true but Heaven.
Thomas Moore This World is all a fleeting Show -
Base Envy withers at another’s joy, And hates that excellence it cannot reach.
James Thomson The Seasons. Spring, Line 283 -
Be thou the rainbow to the storms of life, The evening beam that smiles the clouds away, And tints to-morrow with prophetic ray!
Lord Byron The Bride of Abydos, Canto ii. Stanza 20 -
Energy is Eternal Delight.
William Blake The Marriage of Heaven and Hell, c. 1790 -
A high moral tone can hardly be said to conduce very much to either one’s health or one’s happiness.
Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous Aphorisms -
He who gives himself to vanity, and does not give himself to meditation, forgetting the real aim and grasping at pleasure, will in time envy him who has exerted himself in meditation.
The Buddha Dhammapada, v. 209 · translated by F. Max Müller -
The aim of the liar is simply to charm, to delight, to give pleasure. He is the very basis of civilised society.
Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous Aphorisms -
An eternal smile is much more wearisome than a perpetual frown. The one sweeps away all possibilities, the other suggests a thousand.
Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous Aphorisms -
The happy people of the world have their value, but only the negative value of foils. They throw up and emphasise the beauty and the fascination of the unhappy.
Oscar Wilde Miscellaneous Aphorisms -
Happy is the arising of the awakened, happy is the teaching of the True Law, happy is peace in the church, happy is the devotion of those who are at peace.
The Buddha Dhammapada, v. 194 · translated by F. Max Müller -
The Bhikshu, full of delight, who is calm in the doctrine of Buddha will reach the quiet place, cessation of natural desires, and happiness.
The Buddha Dhammapada, v. 381 · translated by F. Max Müller -
Domestic happiness, thou only bliss Of Paradise that has survived the fall!
William Cowper The Task, Book iii. The Garden. Line 41 -
Let us live happily then, though we call nothing our own! We shall be like the bright gods, feeding on happiness!
The Buddha Dhammapada, v. 200 · translated by F. Max Müller -
Washington was a happy man, because he was engaged in benefiting his race.
Abraham Lincoln September 18 -
Grief can take care of itself; but to get the full value of a joy you must have somebody to divide it with.
Mark Twain Following the Equator -
With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow; I have still joy in the midst of these things. Riches and honours acquired by unrighteousness, are to me as a floating cloud.
Confucius Analects, VII.15 · translated by James Legge -
Happy day, when, all appetites controlled, all passions subdued, all matter subjugated, mind, conquering mind, shall live and move, the monarch of the world!
Abraham Lincoln November 12 -
His home! the Western giant smiles, And twirls the spotty globe to find it; This little speck, the British Isles? ’Tis but a freckle,—never mind it.
Oliver Wendell Holmes A Good Time going -
Some people say they could not take very well to my proclamation, but now that I have the varioloid, I am happy to say I have something that everybody can take.
Abraham Lincoln April 7 -
And grasps the skirts of happy chance, And breasts the blows of circumstance.
Alfred Tennyson In Memoriam. lxiv, Stanza 2 -
Now the heart is so full that a drop overfills it; We are happy now because God wills it.
James Russell Lowell The Vision of Sir Launfal. Prelude to Part First -
Men show their character in nothing more clearly than by what they think laughable.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe -
Is not the royal dignity sufficiently great in itself to make its possessor happy by the mere contemplation of what he is?
Blaise Pascal Pensées, No. 142 · translated by W. F. Trotter -
In omnibus requiem quaesivi. If our condition were truly happy, we would not need diversion from thinking of it in order to make ourselves happy.
Blaise Pascal Pensées, No. 165 · translated by W. F. Trotter -
Pride takes such natural possession of us in the midst of our woes, errors, etc. We even lose our life with joy, provided people talk of it.
Blaise Pascal Pensées, No. 153 · translated by W. F. Trotter -
The imagination disposes of everything; it makes beauty, justice, and happiness, which is everything in the world.
Blaise Pascal Pensées, No. 82 · translated by W. F. Trotter -
Therefore all in the world delight to exalt him and do not weary of him. Because he does not strive, no one finds it possible to strive with him.
Laozi Tao Te Ching, ch. 66.3 · translated by James Legge -
Riches and Art are spurious receipts for the production of Happiness and Beauty.
George Bernard Shaw Maxims for Revolutionists -
The man with toothache thinks everyone happy whose teeth are sound. The poverty stricken man makes the same mistake about the rich man.
George Bernard Shaw Maxims for Revolutionists -
Precepts or maxims are of great weight; and a few useful ones at hand do more toward a happy life than whole volumes that we know not where to find.
Seneca -
O fleeting joys of Paradise, dear bought with lasting woes.
John Milton Paradise Lost