Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy…. Formulate and stamp indelibly on your mind a mental picture of yourself as succeeding. Hold this picture tenaciously. Never permit it to fade. Your mind will seek to develop the picture … Do not build obstacles in your imagination … Do not be awestruck by other people and try to copy them. Nobody can be you as efficiently as you can.
—Norman Vincent Peale (1898–1993) American Clergyman, Self-Help Author
We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.
—Charles Kingsley (1819–75) English Clergyman, Academic, Historian, Novelist
Without our stories, we are not only able to act clearly and fearlessly, we are also a friend, a listener. We are people living happy lives. We are appreciation and gratitude that have become as natural as breath itself. Happiness is the natural state for someone who knows that there’s nothing to know and that we already have everything we need, right here now.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
Happily achieve instead of achieving to be happy.
—Tony Robbins (b.1960) American Self-Help Author, Entrepreneur
But when you think you’re supposed to do something with it and imagine that you’re the doer, that’s pure delusion. Just follow your passion. Do what you love. Inquire, and have a happy life while you’re doing it.
—Byron Katie (b.1942) American Speaker, Author
Shall I tell you what philosophy holds out to humanity? Counsel … You are called in to help the unhappy.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
A long, healthy, and happy life is the result of making contributions, of having meaningful projects that are personally exciting and contribute to and bless the lives of others.
—Stephen Covey (1932–2012) American Self-help Author
If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (b.1935) Tibetan Buddhist Leader, Civil Rights Advocate, Author
My advice to you is to get married. If you find a good wife, you’ll be happy; if not, you’ll become a philosopher.
—Socrates (469BCE–399BCE) Ancient Greek Philosopher
It is not the big mansion that makes the happy home.
—Irish Proverb
If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy and inspires your hopes.
—Andrew Carnegie (1835–1919) Scottish-American Industrialist
You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.
—Barbara De Angelis (b.1951) American Self-Help Author
Half a century ago, the Austrian psychiatrist Viktor Frankl wrote that happiness cannot be attained by wanting to be happy – it must come as the unintended consequence of working for a goal greater than oneself.
—Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1934–2021) Hungarian-American Psychologist
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
A heart free from care is better than a full purse.
—Arabic Proverb
Why choose to be right instead of happy when there is no way to be right?
—Hugh Prather (b.1938) American Christian Author, Minister, Counselor
Comfort kills! If your goal in life is to be comfortable, I guarantee two things. First, you will never be rich. Second, you will never be happy. Happiness doesn’t come from living a lukewarm life, always wondering what could have been. Happiness comes as a result of being in our natural state of growth and living up to our fullest potential.
—T. Harv Eker (b.1954) American Motivational Speaker, Lecturer, Author
Happy people learn that happiness, like sweat, is a by-product of activity. You can only achieve happiness if you are too busy living your life to notice whether you are happy or not.
—Frank Pittman (1935–2012) American Psychiatrist
So long as we believe in our heart of hearts that our capacity is limited and we grow anxious and unhappy, we are lacking in faith. One who truly trusts in God has no right to be anxious about anything.
—Paramahansa Yogananda (1893–1952) Indian Hindu Mystic, Philosopher, Religious Leader
Wake up! If you knew for certain you had a terminal illness—if you had little time left to live—you would waste precious little of it! Well, I’m telling you…you do have a terminal illness: It’s called birth. You don’t have more than a few years left. No one does! So be happy now, without reason—or you will never be at all.
—Dan Millman (b.1946) American Children’s Books Writer, Sportsperson
Risk takers: their goal in life is not to succeed, make money, be happy or be anything other than engaged.
—Unknown
To be free, to be happy and to be fruitful, can only be attained through sacrifice of many common but overestimated things.
—Robert Henri (1865–1929) American Painter, Teacher
Mysticism is: a. An advanced state of inner enlightenment. b. Union with Reality. c. A state of genuinely satisfying success. d. Insight into an entirely new world of living. e. An intuitive grasp of Truth, above and beyond intellectual reasoning. f. A personal experience, in which we are happy and healthy human beings.
—Vernon Howard (1918–92) American Author, Philosopher
If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born Physicist
It’s never too late to have a happy childhood.
—Anonymous
O, happy the soul that saw its own faults.
—Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi (1207–73) Persian Muslim Mystic
Why be miserable when you can be happy?
—Susan Jeffers (1938–2012) American Psychologist, Self-Help Author
A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
What’s the good of dragging up sufferings which are over, of being unhappy now just because you were then.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
I believe that the very purpose of life is to be happy. From the very core of our being, we desire contentment. In my own limited experience I have found that the more we care for the happiness of others, the greater is our own sense of well-being. Cultivating a close, warmhearted feeling for others automatically puts the mind at ease. It helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have and gives us the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter. It is the principal source of success in life. Since we are not solely material creatures, it is a mistake to place all our hopes for happiness on external development alone. The key is to develop inner peace.
—The 14th Dalai Lama (b.1935) Tibetan Buddhist Leader, Civil Rights Advocate, Author
Leave a Reply