On happiness

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Abraham Lincoln

The secret of happiness is to make others believe they are the cause of it.

Al Batt

The happiness of a man in this life does not consist in the absence but in the mastery of his passions.

Alfred Lord Tennyson

A person is never happy except at the price of some ignorance.

Anatole France

Happiness arises in a state of peace, not of tumult.

Ann Radcliffe

The discovery of a new dish does more for human happiness than the discovery of a new star.

Anthelme Brillat-Savarin

Happiness depends upon ourselves.

Aristotle

Content makes poor men rich; discontentment makes rich men poor.

Benjamin Franklin

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 paradise in a few years.

Bertrand Russell

All I can say about life is, Oh God, enjoy it!

Bob Newhart

The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase; if you pursue happiness you'll never find it.

C. P. Snow

Cherish all your happy moments: they make a fine cushion for old age.

Christopher Morley

This is the best kind of voyeurism, hearing joy from your neighbors.

Chuck Sigars

Sometimes it's hard to avoid the happiness of others.

David Assael

All sanity depends on this: that it should be a delight to feel heat strike the skin, a delight to stand upright, knowing the bones are moving easily under the flesh.

Doris Lessing

Slow down and enjoy life. It's not only the scenery you miss by going too fast - you also miss the sense of where you are going and why.

Eddie Cantor

A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.

George Bernard Shaw

Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.

George Burns

To be stupid, selfish, and have good health are three requirements for happiness, though if stupidity is lacking, all is lost.

Gustave Flaubert

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

Man is the artificer of his own happiness.

Henry David Thoreau

If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us least live so as to deserve it.

Immanuel Hermann Fichte

I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.

J. D. Salinger

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.

James Oppenheim

At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities.

Jean Houston

Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook and a good digestion.

Jean Jacques Rousseau

The bird of paradise alights only upon the hand that does not grasp.

John Berry