Today a reader, tomorrow a leader.
The mind is the source of happiness and unhappiness.
All sober inquirers after truth, ancient and modern, pagan and Christian, have declared that the happiness of man, as well as his dignity, consists in virtue.
There's a huge difference between achieving to be happy and happily achieving.
Success may be the ability to be happy with whatever we're stuck with.
When we numb [hard feelings], we numb joy, we numb gratitude, we numb happiness.
Happiness is present time, it has nothing to do with the future.
Books make up no small part of human happiness.
The Laws of Reasoning consist of the ground, the path, and the result. . . . Suffering is in the mind. How we perceive happiness determines our suffering or not.
Grief. The pain now is part of the happiness then. That's the deal.
The search for happiness is purely personal and not a model we can give to others.
Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see and touch or that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves.
Delicacy of taste has the same effect as delicacy of passion; it enlarges the sphere both of our happiness and our misery.
Did you ever see an unhappy horse? Did you ever see bird that had the blues? One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses.
By happiness I mean here a deep sense of flourishing that arises from an exceptionally healthy mind. This is not a mere pleasurable feeling, a fleeting emotion, or a mood, but an optimal state of being. Happiness is also a way of interpreting the world, since while it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it.
To be interested in the changing seasons is a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.
She knew that even pain can be confessed, but to confess happiness is to stand naked, delivered to the witness.
Whenever we wake up from a horrible nightmare, we don't immediately scream out of happiness. It takes a while to feel so safe and so good.
I have enjoyed earthly happiness, I have lived and loved.
My life has run from misery to happiness.
