Quotes About Happiness, Joy, and Contentment
Enjoy a lighter and brighter day with these uplifting words of wisdom.
“To be happy, drop the words ‘if only’ and substitute instead the words ‘next time’.”
— Smiley Blanton
“Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.”
― Dalai Lama
“Believe in yourself! Have faith in your abilities! Without a humble but reasonable confidence in your own powers you cannot be successful or happy.”
— Norman Vincent Peale
“If you want to be happy, do not dwell in the past, do not worry about the future, focus on living fully in the present.”
— Roy T. Bennett
“Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.”
— W. P. Kinsella
“Be happy with what you have while working for what you want.”
— Helen Keller
“It’s never too late - never too late to start over, never too late to be happy.”
— Jane Fonda
“When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.”
― Helen Keller
“Be healthy and take care of yourself, but be happy with the beautiful things that make you, you.”
— Beyonce
“A happy person is not a person in a certain set of circumstances, but rather a person with a certain set of attitudes.”
— Hugh Downs
“Happiness is the highest form of health.”
— Dalai Lama
“Searching for that big happy moment in life, how many special little moments will we let pass us by?”
— Unknown
“The most important decision you make is to be in a good mood.”
— Voltaire
“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.”
— Fredrick Koeing
“Happiness is an attitude of mind, born of the simple determination to be happy under all outward circumstances.”
— Donald Walters
“I have found that if you love life, life will love you back.”
— Arthur Rubinstein
“You have to have the bad days to appreciate the good ones.”
— Unknown
“Don't cry because it's over; smile because it happened.”
— Dr. Seuss
“My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations.”
― Michael J. Fox
“Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.”
— Benjamin Disraeli
“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 a state of mind. It's just according to the way you look at things.”
— Walt Disney
“Happiness is a journey, not a destination.”
— Buddha
“Be happy; it drives people crazy.”
— Paul Coelho
“You can’t build joy on a feeling of self-loathing.”
— Ram Dass
“Do not set aside your happiness. Do not wait to be happy in the future. The best time to be happy is always now.”
— Roy T. Bennett
“You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”
— Jonathan Safran Foer
“Happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom to a man in the course of his life.”
— Benjamin Franklin
“To fall in love with yourself is the first secret to happiness.”
— Robert Morley
“I have chosen to be happy because it's good for my health.”
— Voltaire
“Always keep that happy attitude. Pretend that you are holding a beautiful fragrant bouquet.”
— Earl Nightingale
“The thing everyone should realize is that the key to happiness is being happy by yourself and for yourself.”
— Ellen DeGeneres
“The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.”
— Andre Maurois
“Talking about your problems is our greatest addiction. Break the habit. Talk about your joys.”
— Rita Schiano
“Being happy never goes out of style.”
— Lily Pulitzer
“There is no path to happiness; happiness is the path."
— Buddha
“Your attitude towards life influences your happiness, not what happens to you.”
— Thibaut Meurisse
“Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it.”
— Unknown
“Small helpings. Sample a little bit of everything. These are the secrets of happiness and good health.”
— Julia Child
“I am happy because I’m grateful. I choose to be grateful. That gratitude allows me to be happy.”
— Will Arnett
“Whoever is happy will make others happy too.”
— Anne Frank
“Life is too short to spend time with people who suck the happiness out of you.”
— Steve Maraboli
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.”
— Mahatma Ghandi
“Happiness is not something readymade. It comes from your own actions.”
— Dalai Lama
“Procrastination is one of the most common and deadliest of diseases and its toll on success and happiness is heavy.”
— Wayne Dyer
“Gratitude is one of the sweet shortcuts to finding peace of mind and happiness inside. No matter what is going on outside of us, there’s always something we could be grateful for.”
— Barry Neil Kaufman
“Act the way that you want to feel.”
— Gretchen Rubin
“A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships.”
— Helen Keller
“Because suffering is impermanent, that is why we can transform it. Because happiness is impermanent, that is why we have to nourish it.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“The greatest source of happiness is the ability to be grateful at all times.”
— Zig Ziglar
“She began to measure herself in contentment and laughter rather than pounds and inches.”
— Unknown
“The primary cause of unhappiness is never the situation but the thought about it. Be aware of the thoughts you are thinking. Separate them from the situation, which is always neutral. It is as it as.”
— Eckhart Tolle
“People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.”
— Abraham Lincoln
“If you see someone without a smile, give them one of yours.”
— Dolly Parton
“Happiness depends upon ourselves.”
— Aristotle
“Any path you choose will likely be full of ups and downs, so choose the ones that bring you the most joy and make you feel most alive.”
— Hilary Swank
“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The reality was my life wasn’t miserable because I was curvy; I was miserable because I thought I’d be happier if I were thinner.”
― Brittany Gibbons
“Life goes by fast. Enjoy it. Calm down. It’s all funny.”
— Joan Rivers
“We cannot cure the world of sorrows, but we can choose to live in joy.”
— Joseph Campbell
“Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.”
— Robert Frost
“We all smile in the same language.”
— Unknown
“Optimism is a happiness magnet. If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you.”
— Mary Lou Retton
“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.”
— Thich Nhat Hanh
“Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.”
— Mother Teresa
“Happiness is the best makeup.”
— Drew Barrymore
“Happiness is the real sense of fulfillment that comes from hard work.”
— Joseph Barbara
“You can’t hate yourself happy. You can’t criticize yourself thin. You can’t shame yourself worthy. Real change begins with self-love and self-care.”
— Jessica Ortner
“True happiness is to enjoy the present without anxious dependence on the future.”
— Lucius Annaeus Seneca