c2p-cmd/Good-Quotes-Authors huggingface dataset:
Sometimes we assume that the new person in our life is better for us because they are totally different from the last person we dated. Only later do we see that we have chosen a different version of the same thing and they both leave us unsatisfied.
— Kristen Crockett, The Gift of Past Relationships
Maybe this is a characteristic of happy people. An ability to be entertained by the world.
— Clare Morrall, The Language Of Others
There's a difference between living and just surviving. Do something you love, and find someone to love who loves that you love what you do.It is really that simple.And that hard.
— John Connolly, The Infernals
It's all about the smiles!
— Emmy Swain
Happiness is the best revenge
— Jacki Kane, Sass Mouth: Destiny is a Joke
You know what my father told me when I was little, one day, when he found me crying? He told me that God gave people a fixed number of tears and are of two kinds: tears of sadness and tears of happiness. And that I should not waste my tears elsewhere, but keep them for the moments of happiness. Would be a shame to not have tears to cry then ... 
— Irina Binder, Fluturi
She still cared for me, and the best way I could make amends to her was to be happy.I do have a knack for finding great women.
— Craig Ferguson, American on Purpose: The Improbable Adventures of an Unlikely Patriot
Remember, someone, somewhere in some corner of this somewhat big world, is out there crying if you’re unhappy and is happy if you are! And you know who that someone is!
— Faraaz Kazi
Wake up! If you knew for certain that you had a terminal illness - if you had precious little time left to make use of your life and consider who you are, you'd not waste time on self-indulgence or fear, lethargy or ambition. Be happy now, without reason - or you never will be at all.
— Dan Millman, Way of the Peaceful Warrior: A Book That Changes Lives
Happiness is something you lay siege to, it is a battle like a game of go. I will take hold of all the pain and snuff it out.
— Shan Sa, The Girl Who Played Go
Know you will win and you will win!
— Stephen Richards
A woman laughing is a woman conquered.
— Napoléon Bonaparte, In the Words of Napoleon: A Collection of Quotations of Napoleon Bonaparte
Insecurities have the ability to shape and mold our minds to live with everything that’s bad; like crying on the inside, while smiling on the outside…thus creating pain…but, alas, I have the answer; forget about what you thought and enjoy (embrace) what you feel
— Jeremy Aldana
Talking about someone who makes you happy actually makes you happy.
— Elizabeth Scott, Bloom
I’d rather be miserable loving you than happy with anyone else.
— Angela Morrison, Sing Me to Sleep
Deep within everyone's heart there always remains a sense of longing for that hour, that summer, that one brief moment of blossoming. For several weeks or months, rarely longer, a beautiful young woman lives outside ordinary life. She is intoxicated. She feels as if she exists beyond time, beyond its laws; she experiences not the monotonous succession of days passing by, but moments of intense, almost desperate happiness.
— Irène Némirovsky, Jezebel
You are forgiven for your happiness and your successes only if you generously consent to share them.
— Albert Camus
My request today is simple. Today. Tomorrow. Next week. Find somebody, anybody, that’s different than you. Somebody that has made you feel ill-will or even hateful. Somebody whose life decisions have made you uncomfortable. Somebody who practices a different religion than you do. Somebody who has been lost to addiction. Somebody with a criminal past. Somebody who dresses “below” you. Somebody with disabilities. Somebody who lives an alternative lifestyle. Somebody without a home.Somebody that you, until now, would always avoid, always look down on, and always be disgusted by.Reach your arm out and put it around them.And then, tell them they’re all right. Tell them they have a friend. Tell them you love them.If you or I wanna make a change in this world, that’s where we’re gonna be able to do it. That’s where we’ll start.Every. Single. Time.
— Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing
To like many people spontaneously and without effort is perhaps the greatest of all sources of personal happiness.
— Bertrand Russell
I do want more. I am not content with being happy. I was not made for it. It is not my destiny. My destiny is the opposite.
— Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf
Most people think, when they're young, that they're going to the top of their chosen world, and that the climb up is only a formality. Without that faith, I suppose, they might never start. Somewhere on the way they lift their eyes to the summit and know they aren't going to reach it; and happiness then is looking down and enjoying the view they've got, not envying the one they haven't.
— Dick Francis, Reflex
Monsters don’t get happy endings.
— Paula Stokes, Ferocious
Because I was more often happy for other people, I got to spend more time being happy. And as I saw more light in everybody else, I seemed to have more myself. (250)
— Victoria Moran, Lit From Within: Tending Your Soul For Lifelong Beauty
May those who follow their fate be granted happiness
—  may those who defy it be granted glory
You are beautiful. Your beauty, just like your capacity for life, happiness, and success, is immeasurable.
— Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
Free yourself from the complexities of your life! A life of simplicity and happiness awaits you.
— Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
We have everything we need to be happy, but we aren't happy. Something's missing.
— Ray Bradbury
Perhaps some people really are born unhappy. I surely hope not. Speaking for my sister and myself: We were born with the capacity and determination to be utterly happy all the time. Perhaps even in this we were freaks. Hi ho.
— Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!
Happiness comes from righteous living and the development of a noble character. You can observe this by noticing that people who are truly happy are honest, unselfish, kind, responsible and have a high moral standards. On the other hand, unhappy people are invariably selfish, lazy, irresponsible and lacking of self discipline. And people who are miserable tend to be immoral, dishonest, greedy, cruel, or in other ways dark in character. 
— Helen B. Andelin
Happiness is what you choose, what you follow, not what follows you. These are the things I have seen, these are the things I now know, these are the things I will carry with me as I go.
— Allison Winn Scotch
A life of happiness, peace, and love is all within our grasp.
— Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free
You don’t have to be happy to smile.
— Daniel Willey
my child, if you want to have a beautiful and happy life... 2 things you need... learn the art of love and practice it with your beloved one.
— Carlos Barrios
When you win and the other fellow loses, what do you see? A losing face. There is great joy in losing and making the other person win and have a happy face. Who will be the happiest person? The one who brings happiness to others.
— Swami Satchidananda
JOY goes against the foundations of mathematics: it multiplies when we divide.
— Paulo Coelho
The British do not expect happiness. I had the impression, all the time that I lived there, that they do not want to be happy; they want to be right.
— Quentin Crisp
You will be your best self when you take time to understand what you really need, feel and want.
— Deborah Day, BE HAPPY NOW!
Taking a risk to survive isn’t that impressive. Taking a risk to be happy, that takes guts.
— Sarah Noffke, Revived
The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ‘em, join ‘em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe a happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.
— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Wind's Twelve Quarters, Volume 1
Do not sabotage your new relationship with your last relationship’s poison.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
I've learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our disposition and not on our circumstances.
— Martha Washington
He went to the church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and for, and patted the children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of homes, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed of any walk, that anything, could give him so much happiness. (p. 119)
— Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
And for a moment―for a split second―everything else falls away, the whole pattern and order of my life, and a huge joy crests in my chest. I am no one, and I owe nothing to anybody, and my life is my own.
— Lauren Oliver, Hana
The devil's happy when the critics run you off.
— Criss Jami, Venus in Arms
Last weekend a young man asked me how I remain so positive. “It seems all the negativity in the world doesn’t affect you,” he said. I had no more than a minute with the young man so I offered this: It’s all about where you choose to put your attention, and I choose to be happy.
— Jason Mraz
We all look for happiness, but without knowing where to find it: like drunkards who look for their house, knowing dimly that they have one
— Voltaire
Live Today! Do not allow your spirit to be softened of your happiness to be limited by a day you cannot have back or a day that does not yet exist.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
Sometimes when you're young, you have moments of such happiness, you think you're living on someplace magical, like Atlantis must have been. Then we grow up and our hearts break into two.
— Stephen King, Hearts in Atlantis
I sit quietly and think about my mom. It's funny how memory erodes, If all I had to work from were my childhood memories, my knowledge of my mother would be faded and soft, with a few sharp memories standing out.
— Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife
Who’s happy? Happy is just what people think they are when they can’t find anything to bitch about.
— Rasmenia Massoud, Human Detritus
The happiness you feel is in direct proportion to the love you give.
— Oprah Winfrey
We are young, but We already know that in life's great game those who are most unhappy are those who haven't taken the risk to be happy. And I don't want to be one of those
— Guillaume Musso, Que serais-je sans toi?
Sometimes it just feels really really wonderful to be alive.
— Doug Coupland
Happiness must be grown in one's own garden. 
— Mary Engelbreit
Today is Your Day to Dance Lightly with Life. It Really Is.
— Jonathan Lockwood Huie
You can be right or you can be happy.
— Gerald G. Jampolsky, Love Is Letting Go of Fear
They luxuriated in the feeling of deep and all pervading satisfaction, a feeling of knowing absolutely that all was well with the world and them and that the world was not only their oyster it was also their linguine with clam sauce. Not only were all things possible, but all things were theirs. 
— Hubert Selby Jr., Requiem for a Dream
Erase from your vocabulary the word “someday.” Do not save things for “special occasions.” Take into account the fact that every day is special. Every day is a gift that we must appreciate and be thankful for. Wear your attractive clothes, wear your nice perfume, use your fine silverware and dishes, and drink from your expensive crystal glasses … just because. Live every day to the fullest and savor every minute of it.
— Rodolfo Costa, Advice My Parents Gave Me: and Other Lessons I Learned from My Mistakes
Max." Fang let go of my hand. "Right now, it's really all about—us." He swooped down to the right in a big semicircle, ending facing me. Slowly we climbed upward, until we were almost vertical, flying straight up to the sun. While carefully synchronizing our wings—they almost touched—Fang leaned in, gently put one hand behind my neck, and kissed me. It was just about as close to heaven as I'll ever get, I guess. I closed my eyes, lost in the feeling of flying and kissing and being with the one person in the world I completely,utterly trusted. When we finally broke apart, we looked down at the others, who were way far below us now. Angel was shading her eyes, looking up at us with a big smile. She was sitting on a dolphin's back, and I hoped soon someone would explain to the dolphin that he shouldn't let Angel take advantage of his good nature. Still looking up at us, Angel gave us a big thumbs-up. "She approves," Fang said with a hint of amusement."Jeez," I wondered aloud. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
— James Patterson, Max
Pure joy is rare. That’s why for every meal I eat a really bloody steak.
— Bauvard, Some Inspiration for the Overenthusiastic
People who say that money can't buy happiness just don't know where to shop.
— Kathy Lette
I had always been taught that the pursuit of happiness was my natural (even national) birthright. It is the emotional trademark of my culture to seek happiness. Not just any kind of happiness, either, but profound happiness, even soaring happiness. And what could possibly bring a person more soaring happiness than romantic love.
— Elizabeth Gilbert, Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage
When we fulfill our function, which is to truly love ourselves and share love with others, then true happiness sets in.
— Gabrielle Bernstein, May Cause Miracles: A 40-Day Guidebook of Subtle Shifts for Radical Change and Unlimited Happiness
It had seemed like the beginning of happiness, and Clarissa is still sometimes shocked, more than thirty years later to realize that it was happiness; that the entire experience lay in a kiss and a walk. The anticipation of dinner and a book. The dinner is by now forgotten; Lessing has been long overshadowed by other writers. What lives undimmed in Clarissa's mind more than three decades later is a kiss at dusk on a patch of dead grass, and a walk around a pond as mosquitoes droned in the darkening air. There is still that singular perfection, and its perfect in part because it seemed, at the time, so clearly to promise more. Now she knows: That was the moment, right then. There has been no other.
— Michael Cunningham
Yes, faith; it is my cousin's duty to make curtsy and say 'Father, as it please you.' But yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say 'Father, as it please me.
— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
Well,’ you may ask, ‘how may I know when I am in love?’. . . George Q. Morris [who later became a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, gave this reply]: ‘My mother once said that if you meet a girl in whose presence you feel a desire to achieve, who inspires you to do your best, and to make the most of yourself, such a young woman is worthy of your love and is awakening love in your heart.
— David O. McKay
A psychiatrist once told me early in treatment, “Stop trying to make me like you,” and what a sobering and welcome smack in the face that statement was. Yet somehow, every day of my life is still a campaign for popularity, or better yet, a crowded funeral.
— John Waters
To live long and achieve happiness, cultivate the art of radiating happiness.
— Malcolm Forbes
If we live our lives looking for the excitement and exhilaration that change can bring, we will be much happier than when we are eventually forced to accept it anyways.
— Daniel Willey
Many people are like garbage trucks. They run around full of garbage, full of frustration, full of anger, and full of disappointment. As their garbage piles up, they look for a place to dump it. And if you let them, they’ll dump it on you. So when someone wants to dump on you, don’t take it personally. Just smile, wave, wish them well, and move on. Believe me. You’ll be happier.
— David J. Pollay, The Law of the Garbage Truck: How to Respond to People Who Dump on You, and How to Stop Dumping on Others
The purpose of life is the expansion of happiness.
— Deepak Chopra
Friendship is thinking of the other person first.
— George Alexiou
I would cling to unhappiness because it was a known, familiar state. When I was happier, it was because I knew I was on my way back to misery. I've never been convinced that happiness is the object of the game. I'm wary of happiness.
— Hugh Laurie
Happiness does not depend on outward circumstances, but on the state of the heart.
— J.C. Ryle, A Call to Prayer
Happiness consists not of having, but of being; not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is a warm glow of the heart at peace with itself. A martyr at the stake may have happiness that a king on his throne might envy. Man is the creator of his own happiness. It is the aroma of life, lived in harmony with high ideals. For what a man has he may be dependent upon others; what he is rests with him alone.
— David O. McKay, Pathways to Happiness
To be happy you must have taken the measure of your powers, tasted the fruits of your passion, and learned your place in the world.
— George Santayana
When a small child, I thought that success spelled happiness. I was wrong, happiness is like a butterfly which appears and delights us for one brief moment, but soon flits away. 
— Anna Pavlova
There is nothing worse for the lying soul than the mirror of reality.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
It is not as much about who you used to be, as it is about who you choose to be.
— Sanhita Baruah
Our life is like a land journey, too even and easy and dull over long distances across the plains, too hard and painful up the steep grades; but, on the summits of the mountain, you have a magnificent view--and feel exalted--and your eyes are full of happy tears--and you want to sing--and wish you had wings! And then--you can't stay there, but must continue your journey--you begin climbing down the other side, so busy with your footholds that your summit experience is forgotten.
— Lloyd C. Douglas, The Robe
The happiness of love is in action
—  its test is what one is willing to do for others.
When we give freely, we feel full and complete; when we withhold, we feel small, petty, impotent, and lacking. We are meant to learn this great truth, that giving fulfills us, while withholding and trying to get causes us to feel empty and even more needy. This truth runs counter to our programming, which drives us to try to get something from others to fulfill our neediness, only to end up even more needy, grasping, lacking, and unfulfilled.
— Gina Lake, What about Now?: Reminders for Being in the Moment
Happiness doesn't have to be chased...it merely has to be chosen.
— Mandy Hale, The Single Woman: Life, Love, and a Dash of Sass
Make the most of every moment. Get excited about every little thing. Why not? Why not have your wonderful moment of excited anticipation? Why not be happy NOW? This is my greatest challenge, but something I'm pouring my heart into: learning how to enjoy what I have, right here, right now. Every moment is precious and although sometimes I struggle to see it, I see it more and more every day.
— Bethenny Frankel, A Place of Yes: 10 Rules for Getting Everything You Want Out of Life
A dim vastness is spread before our souls; the perceptions of our mind are as obscure as those of our vision... But alas! when we have attained our object, when the distant 'there' becomes the present 'here,' all is changed; we are as poor and circumscribed as ever, and our souls still languish for unattainable happiness.
— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther
People, he thought, were as hungry for a sight of joy as he had always been--for a moment's relief from that gray load of suffering which seemed so inexplicable and unnecessary. He had never been able to understand why men should be unhappy.
— Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged
How exquisitely human was the wish for permanent happiness, and how thin human imagination became trying to achieve it.
— Toni Morrison, Paradise
The advance of regret can be so gradual that it is impossible to say "yesterday I was happy, today I am not.
— E.M. Forster, Where Angels Fear to Tread
I am thankful when I am hungry because then I know that when I eat, the food will taste better. Life has taught me that my true contentment rests in hope, and the pleasure itself is secondary. It is self-awareness, not happiness, that maintains peace.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
If you are a dreamer, come in,If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer...If you're a pretender, come sit by my fireFor we have some flax-golden tales to spin. Come in!Come in!
— Shel Silverstein
Helping others is the secret sauce to a happy life.
— Todd Stocker, Refined: Turning Pain Into Purpose
Nourishing yourself in a way that helps you blossom in the direction you want to go is attainable, and you are worth the effort.
— Deborah Day
Well, I am happy, and I won't fret, but it does seem as if the more one gets the more one wants…
— Louisa May Alcott, Little Women
There is something beautiful about watching two people lovingly act silly together
—  behaving as though no one else existed.
Happiness isn't a thing. You can't go out and get it like a cup of tea. It's the way you feel about things.
— Diana Wynne Jones, Fire and Hemlock
Happiness, it has been observed, is best achieved by those who have been most unhappy heretofore.
— Millard Kaufman, Bowl of Cherries
The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been the most dishonourable belief against the character of the divinity, the most destructive to morality, and the peace and happiness of man, that ever was propagated since man began to exist. It is better, far better, that we admitted, if it were possible, a thousand devils to roam at large, and to preach publicly the doctrine of devils, if there were any such, than that we permitted one such impostor and monster as Moses, Joshua, Samuel, and the Bible prophets, to come with the pretended word of God in his mouth, and have credit among us.Whence arose all the horrid assassinations of whole nations of men, women, and infants, with which the Bible is filled; and the bloody persecutions, and tortures unto death and religious wars, that since that time have laid Europe in blood and ashes; whence arose they, but from this impious thing called revealed religion, and this monstrous belief that God has spoken to man? The lies of the Bible have been the cause of the one, and the lies of the Testament of the other.
— Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
People who can change and change again are so much more reliable and happier than those who can’t
— Stephen Fry, Moab Is My Washpot
Sometimes I wish life was written pencil so we could erase it and write it all over again.
— Thisuri Wanniarachchi, COLOMBO STREETS
You and your purpose in life are the same thing. Your purpose is to be you.
— George Alexiou
...because if you can make yourself happy in the rain then you're doing pretty alright in life.
— David Levithan, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist
Learn from your history, but don’t live in it.
— Steve Maraboli
Free yourself from the burden of feeling the need to hold on to anything. Let go… you are a part of everything.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today.
— Groucho Marx
The best parts of life are the things we can't plan. And it's a lot harder to find happiness if you're only searching in one place. Sometimes, you just have to throw away the map. Admit that you don't know where you're going and stop pressuring yourself to figure it out. Besides...a map is a life someone else already lived. It's more fun to make your own.
— Cora Carmack, Finding It
...the face has limited space. My mother used to say, if you fill your face with laughing, there will be no more room for crying.
— Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance
After all, is not a real Hell better than a manufactured Heaven?
— E.M. Forster, Maurice
Take responsibility for your own happiness, do not expect people or things to bring you happiness, or you could be disappointed.
— Rodolfo Costa, Advice My Parents Gave Me: and Other Lessons I Learned from My Mistakes
An important decision I made was to resist playing the Blame Game. The day I realized that I am in charge of how I will approach problems in my life, that things will turn out better or worse because of me and nobody else, that was the day I knew I would be a happier and healthier person. And that was the day I knew I could truly build a life that matters.
— Steve Goodier
The only horrible thing in the world is ennui.
— Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
The negation of severe suffering was the nearest approach to happiness I expected to know. Besides, I seemed to hold two lives - the life of thought, and that of reality.
— Charlotte Brontë, Villette
Justice is the only worship.Love is the only priest.Ignorance is the only slavery.Happiness is the only good.The time to be happy is now,The place to be happy is here,The way to be happy is to make others so.Wisdom is the science of happiness.
— Robert G. Ingersoll
The road is long, we carry on, try to have fun in the meantime.
— Lana Del Rey
Stop wasting your time looking for the key to happiness… the door is open and unlocked… just walk through it.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
We try to fix the outside so much, but our control of the outer world is limited, temporary, and often, illusory.
— Matthieu Ricard, Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life's Most Important Skill
Where happiness was not a possibility, the illusion of it was always more important.
— Colum McCann, Zoli
You start dying slowly if you do not travel, if you do not read, If you do not listen to the sounds of life, If you do not appreciate yourself.You start dying slowly When you kill your self-esteem; When you do not let others help you.You start dying slowly If you become a slave of your habits, Walking everyday on the same paths…If you do not change your routine, If you do not wear different colours Or you do not speak to those you don’t know.You start dying slowly If you avoid to feel passion And their turbulent emotions; Those which make your eyes glisten And your heart beat fast.You start dying slowly If you do not change your life when you are not satisfied with your job, or with your love, If you do not risk what is safe for the uncertain, If you do not go after a dream, If you do not allow yourself, At least once in your lifetime, To run away from sensible advice.
— Martha Medeiros
Life isn't all grand, but it isn't all miserable either.  There's both sweet and sour in every day.  So why focus on the ugly when you can gaze at what's beautiful?  Concentrate on the good.
— Richelle E. Goodrich, Smile Anyway
Live your life, sing your song. Not full of expectations. Not for the ovations. But for the joy of it.
— Rasheed Ogunlaru
Happiness is good, but well-overrated: what we hate most are the very motivators that put us in gear. A man drifts along with little to contribute until something agitates him enough to make a difference, whether for himself or for his communities.
— Criss Jami, Killosophy
To enlarge the sphere of social happiness is worthy of the benevolent design of a Masonic institution; and it is most fervently to be wished, that the conduct of every member of the fraternity, as well as those publications, that discover the principles which actuate them, may tend to convince mankind that the grand object of Masonry is to promote the happiness of the human race.]
— George Washington, Writings
If you want good luck
—  you must go out there and search for that luck!! Because luck is waiting for you to look for it.
When I saw you, I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew
— William Shakespeare
You are so intense. Like a storm. It's shocking how intense you are.
— Francesca Lia Block, Blood Roses
We are all doomed to seek our own happiness; we can't help ourselves. We are all, the cruel and the gentle alike, condemned to seeking that happiness in the dark. We use our need as the blind use a walking stick, to determine the safety of every forward step. 
— Jesse Browner
Making money isn't hard in itself,what's hard is to earn it doing something worth devoting your life to
— Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind
Happiness can only be achieved by looking inward & learning to enjoy whatever life has and this requires transforming greed into gratitude.
— John Chrysostom
Learn to love someone when they least deserve it, because that is when they need your love most.
— Rodolfo Costa, Advice My Parents Gave Me: and Other Lessons I Learned from My Mistakes
Today, just take time to smell the roses, enjoy those little things about your life, your family, spouse, friends, job. Forget about the thorns -the pains and problems they cause you - and enjoy life
— Bernard Kelvin Clive, Your Dreams Will Not Die
Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is at their heels.
— Bertolt Brecht
The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.
— George Bernard Shaw
I cannot tell if what the world considers ‘happiness’ is happiness or not. All I know is that when I consider the way they go about attaining it, I see them carried away headlong, grim and obsessed, in the general onrush of the human herd, unable to stop themselves or to change their direction. All the while they claim to be just on the point of attaining happiness.
— Zhuangzi
I learned you pay for your happiness. That's why I don't expect to be happy all the time. I'd rather be surprised by one moment every so often to remind me that joy is possible, even if I have to pay for it later.
— Esmeralda Santiago, Conquistadora
I like living, breathing better than working...my art is that of living. Each second, each breath is a work which is inscribed nowhere, which is neither visual nor cerebral, it's a sort of constant euphoria.
— Marcel Duchamp
Those who wish to sing always find a song.
— Swedish Proverb
when happiness makes a guest appearance in one's life,it's important to make the most of it.It may not stay around for long and when it has gone wouldn't it be terrible to think that all the time one could have been happy was wasted worrying when the happiness would be taken away.
— Marian Keyes, Watermelon
I learned from a very young age that if I persued the things that truly excited me, that they would reward in more important ways, like happiness.
— Brandon Boyd
if it makes you happy, then why the hell are you so sad?
— Sheryl Crow
I want that. I want that awful intense and serious unhappiness, cos then I might feel better, and then I might be happy.
— David Thewlis, The Late Hector Kipling
Then the world will be for the common people, and the sounds of happiness will reach the deepest springs. Ah! Come! People of every land, how can you not be roused.
— Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto
I silently smiled at my incessant good fortune.
— Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Freddie often fold me that you've got to be happy when you can, because life won't wait for you to take the time. And she was right.
— April Genevieve Tucholke, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
All things, even the deepest sorrow or the most profound happiness are all temporary. Hope is fuel for the soul, without hope, forward motion ceases.
— Landon Parham, First Night of Summer
... too much brooding, not enough doing.
— Timothy Findley
تعرفون اني لم أكن ملاكا طيلة الوقت , و أن الخلافات كانت تحدث من حيت لآخر , لكن لو نظرت للصورة الإجمالية من بعيد -حين تختفي البقع السوداء الصغيرةلأدركت اننا سعيدين حقا ..
— أحمد خالد توفيق
Acceptance means no complaining, and happiness means no complaining about the things over which you can do nothing.
— Wayne W. Dyer, Your Erroneous Zones
Happy is the soul that has a friend. Happier is the soul that trusts in the truth of the heart of a friend. Happiest is the soul that knows the solemnity of friendship and honours its laws.
— Ogwo David Emenike
Sometimes happiness consists of finding the right balance of misery.
— Orson Scott Card, Sarah
I want to feel what I feel. What's mine. Even if it's not happiness, whatever that means. Because you're all you've got.
— Toni Morrison
How can you tell somebody who is pursuing happiness that they're somehow not American when that was the very first promise that America made?
— Dan Savage
Men spend their lives in anticipations,—in determining to be vastly happy at some period when they have time. But the present time has one advantage over every other—it is our own. Past opportunities are gone, future have not come. We may lay in a stock of pleasures, as we would lay in a stock of wine; but if we defer the tasting of them too long, we shall find that both are soured by age.
— Charles Caleb Colton
The secret to happiness is the journey, not the destination.
— Claire Chilton
Three o'clock in the morning. The soft April night is looking at my windows and caressingly winking at me with its stars. I can't sleep, I am so happy.
— Anton Chekhov, About Love and Other Stories
Almost all of our sorrows spring out of our relations with other people. There is no more mistaken path to happiness than worldliness.
— Arthur Schopenhauer
If you pursue happiness, you are an ordinary person. If happiness pursues you, you are an extraordinary person. Do not chase happiness; let it chase you.
— Petar Dunov
Stop waiting for the right person to come into your life. Be the right person to come to someone’s life
— Leo Babauta
LEONATOWell, then, go you into hell?BEATRICENo, but to the gate; and there will the devil meet me, like an old cuckold, with horns on his head, and say 'Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven; here's no place for you maids:' so deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter for the heavens; he shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.
— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
When you let go of control and commit yourself to happiness, it is so easy to offer compassion and forgiveness. This propels you from the past, into the present. People that are negative, spend so much time trying to control situations and blame others for their problems. Committing yourself to staying positive is a daily mantra that states, “I have control over how I plan to react, feel, think and believe in the present. No one guides the tone of my life, except me!
— Shannon L. Alder
Do not think that one has to be sad in order to be militant, even though the thing one is fighting is abominable.
— Michel Foucault, Anti-Oedipus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia
Why did you look at the sunset?'Philip answered with his mouth full:Because I was happy.
— W. Somerset Maugham, Of Human Bondage
And from the midst of cheerless gloomI passed to bright unclouded day.
— Emily Brontë
Don't be afraid to be who you are because you are the only person who knows you best.
— Saredo Ali
I wanted to hold happiness in reserve, like a bottle of champagne. I postponed it because I was afraid, because I overvalued it, and then I didn't want to use it up, because what do you wish for then?
— Curtis Sittenfeld, The Man of My Dreams
The exaltation and happiness of any community, goes hand in hand with the knowledge possessed by the people, when applied to laudable ends; whereupon we can exclaim like the wise man; righteousness exalteth a nation; for righteousness embraces knowledge and knowledge is power.
— Joseph Smith Jr.
All the external adoration, respect and adulation in the word, can't drown out the internal voices that tell us, we are not good enough and unworthy of; happiness, love and an abundant life. When we need others to tell us were amazing, worthy and lovable, in order to feel good about ourselves, it is never enough. It goes into the bottomless pit where our inherent self-worth should be. It may feel like we are reaching out to receive love, but in actuality, we are seeking external noise to help drown out our negative core beliefs.Love blossoms from the inside out. That is why it is so important to do the work necessary to heal our emotional wounds, to love ourselves and stand strong in who we are. Only then, are we truly free to give and receive love, unconditionally and in abundance.
— Jaeda DeWalt
And so it turned out that only a life similar to the life of those around us, merging with it without a ripple, is genuine life, and that an unshared happiness is not happiness.
— Boris Pasternak
Zakath stared at the floor. 'I suddenly feel very helpless,' he admitted, 'and I don't like the feeling. I've been rather effectively dethroned, you know. This morning I was the Emperor of the largest nation on earth; this afternoon, I'm going to be a vagabond.'You might find it refreshing,' Silk told him lightly.Shut up, Kheldar,' Zakath said almost absently. He looked back at Polgara. 'You know something rather peculiar?'What's that?'Even if I hadn't given my word, I'd still have to go to Kell. It's almost like a compulsion. I feel as if I'm being driven, and my driver is a blindfolded girl who's hardly more than a child.'There are rewards,' she told him.Such as what?'Who knows? Happiness, perhaps.'He laughed ironically. 'Happiness has never been a driving ambition of mine, Lady Polgara, not for a long time now.'You may have to accept it anyway,' She smiled. 'We aren't allowed to choose our rewards any more than we are our tasks. Those decisions are made for us.
— David Eddings, Sorceress of Darshiva
Happiness had never been like this before. Now it came like sun showers, the sun and the rain together. Happiness was happier than it had been - sharp, piercing, and snatched, like a breath while swimming in surf.
— Elizabeth Knox, Dreamhunter
I've never been afraid of them. Not once. Because I had you.
— Nicholas Sparks, The Best of Me
he is both the source of my happiness and the one i want to share it with. i have to believe that’s a sign.
— John Green, Will Grayson, Will Grayson
There's the risk of being loved...and that would keep me from being happy.
— Albert Camus, A Happy Death
Being wealthy isn't just a question of having lots of money. It's a question of what we want. Wealth isn't an absolute, it's relative to desire. Every time we seek something that we can't afford, we can be counted as poor, how much money we may actually have.
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau
One recipe for happiness is to have to sense of entitlement.' To this she added a star and noted at the bottom of the page: 'This is not a lesson I have ever been in a position to learn.
— Alan Bennett, The Uncommon Reader
The greatest love stories are not those in which love is only spoken, but those in which it is acted upon.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
...so i will greet youin a wayall loved thingsare meant to be greetedwith a tear in my heartand a poem in my eye.
— Sanober  Khan, Turquoise Silence
too much happiness always overflowed into tears of sorrow.
— Amy Tan, The Hundred Secret Senses
Don't put off happiness you can have today. Tomorrow is a hope, not a promise
— Debra Anastasia
Champagne arrived in flûtes on trays, and we emptied them with gladness in our hearts... for when feasts are laid and classical music is played, where champagne is drunk once the sun has sunk and the season of summer is alive in spicy bloom, and beautiful women fill the room, and are generous with laughter and smiles... these things fill men's hearts with joy and remind one that life’s bounty is not always fleeting but can be captured, and enjoyed. It is in writing about this scene that I relive this night in my soul.
— Roman Payne
Ah, happiness courts the light so we deem the world is gay. But misery hides aloof so we deem that misery there is none.
— Herman Melville, Bartleby the Scrivener
There is a fine line between compassion and a victim mentality. Compassion though is a healing force and comes from a place of kindness towards yourself. Playing the victim is a toxic waste of time that not only repels other people, but also robs the victim of ever knowing true happiness.
— Bronnie Ware, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing
There were times when I lifted my face to the sky, stretched my arms wide to the winter night, and laughed out loud, so happy was I.The memory of it makes me laugh now, but not from happiness.Be careful what you show the world.You never know when the wolf is watching.
— Jennifer Donnelly, Revolution
And I don't believe in such a thing as "happily ever after". There's only happily every now and then. I find the hardest trick is to recognize the now-and-thens, and to bask in them when they come. Happiness is a choice we make, like how to wear our hair, or having coffee with breakfast and tea at night.
— Cindy Bonner, The Passion of Dellie O'Barr
This moment is yours and yours alone! Take charge, seize this moment and allow it to propel you to the high levels of an empowered life. Allow upon this fertile moment to be planted the seeds of your happiness and success.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
He saw in happiness the seeds of independence, and in independence the seeds of revolt.
— Mervyn Peake, Titus Groan
Everyone who is not happy must be shot.
— John le Carré, The Little Drummer Girl
How was life before Pop-Tarts, Prozac and padded playgrounds? They ate strudel, took opium and played on the grass.
— Jennifer Michael Hecht, The Happiness Myth: The Historical Antidote to What Isn't Working Today
Honest, open communication is the only street that leads us into the real world... We then begin to grow as never before. And once we are on this road, happiness cannot be far away.
— John Powell, Will the Real Me Please Stand Up?: 25 Guidelines for Good Communication
My happiness has to come from within myself or it is too fragile a thing to be of any use to me and too much of a burden to benefit any of my loved ones.
— Mary Balogh, First Comes Marriage
In Kilanga, people knew nothing of things they might have had - a Frigidaire? a washer-dryer combination? Really, they'd sooner imagine a tree that could pull up its feet and go bake bread. It didn't occur to them to feel sorry for themselves.
— Barbara Kingsolver
Some people would rather live in a hell they've got used to than in a paradise they've never experienced before. 
— Urania Sarri, Gate Deadlock
Action and personal happiness have no truck with each other
—  they are eternally at war.
She was wearing her fuzzy pink hat and she was happy, which was so obnoxious. She'd become one of those people who waltzed through life without so much as a split end, and I was still one of those people who changed diapers for free but still got treated like a rented mule.
— Lorraine Zago Rosenthal, Other Words for Love
She'd spoken of their happiness as though it were an undeniable fact, no matter what happened--apart from everything else and not subject to it. It was a new idea for him, that happiness wasn't a mystical place to be reached or won--some bright terrain beyond the boundary of misery, a paradise waiting for them to find it--but something to carry doggedly with you through everything, as humble and ordinary as your gear and supplies. Food, weapons, happiness.With hope that the weapons could in time vanish from the picture.
— Laini Taylor, Dreams of Gods & Monsters
When, therefore, we maintain that pleasure is the end, we do not mean the pleasures of profligates and those that consist in sensuality, as is supposed by some who are either ignorant or disagree with us or do not understand, but freedom from pain in the body and from trouble in the mind. For it is not continuous drinkings and revelings, nor the satisfaction of lusts, nor the enjoyment of fish and other luxuries of the wealthy table, which produce a pleasant life, but sober reasoning, searching out the motives for all choice and avoidance, and banishing mere opinions, to which are due the greatest disturbance of the spirit.
— Epicurus
And all the best words together couldn't hold the happiness.
— Katherine Hannigan, Emmaline and the Bunny
There is indeed a certain sense of gratification when we do a good deed that gives us inward satisfaction, and a generous pride that accompanies a good conscience…These testimonies of a good conscience are pleasant; and such a natural pleasure is very beneficial to us; it is the only payment that can never fail. “On Repentance
— Michel de Montaigne
Be consistent in your dedication to showing your gratitude to others. Gratitude is a fuel, a medicine, and spiritual and emotional nourishment.
— Steve Maraboli, Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience
The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.
— Epictetus
He had awoken too late for happiness, but not for strength, and could feel an austere joy, as of a warrior who is homeless but stands fully armed.
— E.M. Forster, Maurice
Love me like Saturday night, like three glasses of champagne, like the room is spinning, like you're drunk on my love.
— C.J. Carlyon
Be happy without picking flaws.
— Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
Children are gifts. They are not ours for the breaking. They are ours for the making.
— Dan Pearce, Single Dad Laughing
LEONATOWell, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted with a husband.BEATRICENot till God make men of some other metal than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a pierce of valiant dust? to make an account of her life to a clod of wayward marl? No, uncle, I'll none: Adam's sons are my brethren; and, truly, I hold it a sin to match in my kindred.
— William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing
What is given to you is what is needed; what you want, requires giving up what you don't need.
— George Alexiou
And hard times are good in their own way, too. Because the only way you can achieve true happiness is if you experience true sadness as well. It's all about light and shade. Balance.
— Gabrielle Williams, Beatle Meets Destiny
Happiness doesn't always come from a pursuit. Sometimes it comes when we least expect it.
— Dalai Lama XIV
I'm so alive.As I stand facing the beauty of the never-ending Pacific Ocean, a late afternoon breeze blows down from the hills behind. As always, it is a beautiful day. The sun is making its final descent. The magic is about to begin. The skies are ready to burn with brilliance, as it turns from a soft blue to a bright orange. Looking towards the West, I stare in awe at the hypnotic power of the waves. A giant curl begins to take form, then breaks with a thundering clap as it crashes on the shore.
— Dave Pelzer, A Child Called "It"
What is your idea of earthly happiness? To be vindicated in my own lifetime.
— Christopher Hitchens, Hitch-22: A Memoir
When my mother didn't come back I realized that any moment could be the last. Nothing in life should simply be a passage from one place to another. Each walk should be taken as if it is the only thing you have left. You can demand something like this of yourself as an unattainable ideal. After that, you have to remind yourself about it every time you're sloppy about something. For me that means 250 times a day.
— Peter Høeg, Smilla's Sense of Snow
Happiness is based on a just discrimination of what is necessary, what is neither necessary nor destructive, and what is destructive
— Ursula K. Le Guin, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
But the happiest people are the ones who understand that good things occur when one allows them to.
— Danny Wallace, Yes Man
Happiness is a big joke
—  let us laugh at it loud.
The key to ultimate happiness and fulfillment lies within our own transformation. The more we learn and grow and evolve as individuals, the more we will find happiness and satisfaction in relationships, work and life.
— Kristi Bowman
The secret to happiness is low expectations.
— Barry Schwartz