Cheerfulness keeps up a kind of daylight in the mind, filling it with a steady and perpetual serenity.
-- Joseph Addison (1672-1719)

Exactly what brings happiness is a mystery for most people. Some try to find it by pursuing wealth, love, adventure and climbing the corporate ladder. Many who reach the goals that they've convinced themselves they need to reach to be happy, however, find themselves still searching for happiness. The conclusion that many heroes for a better world have discovered, is that helping others to be happy is the surest way to find happiness. -- Robert Alan Silverstein

The happiness of any society begins with the well being of the families that live in it. – Kofi Annan

"What's the use of worrying?
It never was worth while,
So pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag,
And smile, smile, smile.
-- George Asaf

"The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it."
-- Richard Bach.

"Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response."
-- Mildred Barthel.

"Good nature is worth more than knowledge, more than money, more than honor..." -- Henry Ward Beecher

* How to be happy all the time: Be grateful for what you have and do nice things for other people. Remember you are not doing nice things for other people for them; you are doing nice to other people because it makes you happy. -- Arlan Berglas

If you really want to be happy, always try to do what’s right.
-- Bill Blackman

The way to happiness -- keep your heart free from hate, your mind free from worry, live simply, expect little, give much.
-- Carol Borges

True peacefulness comes from abandoning the illustion that satisfying desires brings pleasure.
-- Joan Borysenko

There may be peace without joy, and joy without peace, but the two combined make happiness
-- John Buchan

"What is the worth of anything,
But for the happiness 'twill bring?"
-- Richard Owen Cambridge.

“You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world's happiness now. How?
By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged.
Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime.”
-- Dale Carnegie

* Service to a just cause rewards the worker with more real happiness and satisfaction than any other venture of life. -- Carrie Chapman Catt

"He who sings frightens away his ills."
-- Cervantes

The happiest heart that ever beat Was in some quiet breast That found the common daylight sweet, And left to Heaven the rest.
-- John V. Cheney

True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous and rare.
-- G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936)

"If you want happiness for an hour -- take a nap.
If you want happiness for a day -- go fishing.
If you want happiness for a month -- get married.
If you want happiness for a year -- inherit a fortune.
If you want happiness for a lifetime -- help someone else.
-- Chinese proverb

The happiness of life is made up of minute fractions -- the little soon forgotten charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment, and the countless infinitesimals of pleasurable and genial feeling.
-- Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)

I think happiness comes from self-acceptance. We all try different things, and we find some comfortable sense of who we are. We look at our parents and learn and grow and move on. We change. -- Jamie Lee Curtis

* Human Beings, indeed all sentient beings, have the right to pursue happiness and live in peace and freedom.-- 14th Dalai Lama

 

"The joyfulness of a man prolongeth his days."
-- The Bible: Ecclesiasticus. XXX. 22

Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.
-- Benjamin Disraeli

"Of cheerfulness, or a good temper -- the more it is spent, the more of it remains." -- Ralph Waldo Emerson

* Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. -- Mohandas K. Gandhi Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plan living and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man's happiness really lies in contentment. -- Mohandas Gandhi

* Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. -- Mohandas K. Gandhi

There are those who give with joy, and that joy is their reward.
-- Kahlil Gibran

One of the things I keep learning is that the secret of being happy is doing things for other people.
- - Dick Gregory

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy -- Thich Nhat Hanh

Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life.
-- Burton Hills

"The supreme happiness of live is the conviction that we are loved."
-- Victor Hugo

Happiness comes of the capacity to feel deeply, to enjoy simply, to think freely, to risk life, to be needed.
-- Storm Jameson

It is neither wealth nor splendor; but tranquillity and occupation which give happiness. -- Thomas Jefferson "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." -- Thomas Jefferson

"The freedom and happiness of man... [are] the sole objects of all legitimate government."
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1810.

Industry, commerce and security are the surest roads to the happiness and prosperity of people."
-- Thomas Jefferson, 1789

"Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not to be picked in strangers' gardens."
-- Douglas Jerrold.

 

I've realized that being happy is a choice. You never want to rub anybody the wrong way or not be fun to be around, but you have to be happy. When I get logical and I don't trust my instincts - Thats when I get in trouble. ~ Angelina Jolie

"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 * The unselfish effort to bring cheer to others will be the beginning of a happier life for ourselves. -- Helen Keller

 

"Be happy. Talk happiness. Happiness calls out responsive gladness in others. There is enough sadness in the world without yours.... never doubt the excellence and permanence of what is yet to be. Join the great company of those who make the barren places of life fruitful with kindness.... Your success and happiness lie in you.... The great enduring realities are love and service.... Resolve to keep happy and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties. -- Helen Keller

 

None of those material possessions do anything to make your life any better.... I know a lot of people who have a lot of everything, and they're absolutely the most miserable people in the world. So it won't do anything for you unless you're a happy person and can have peace with yourself. -- Lenny Kravitz

"We are never so happy, nor so unhappy, as we suppose ourselves to be."
-- La Rochefoucauld.

 

"When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down 'happy'. They told me I didn't understand the assignment and I told them they didn't understand life." -- John Lennon

“Most folks are about as happy as they make their minds up to be.” -- Abraham Lincoln

A sound mind in a sound body, is a short, but full description of a happy state in this World: he that has these two, has little more to wish for; and he that wants either of them, will be little the better for anything else. -- John Locke

 

"Experience praises the most happy the one who made the most people happy."
-- Karl Marx

"To accept what you are is to be content, and contentment is the greatest wealth. To work with patience is to gather power."
-- Vimalia McClure

"Happiness is like a kiss. You must share it to enjoy it."
-- Bernard Meltzer.

Success is getting and achieving what you want. Happiness is wanting and being content with what you get."
-- Bernard Meltzer

When ambition ends, happiness begins. -- Thomas Merton

"Act happy, feel happy, be happy, without a reason in the world. Then you can love, and do what you will."
-- Dan Millman

 

"I have learned to seek my happiness by limiting my desires, rather than in attempting to satisfy them." -- John Stuart Mill

"Until you make peace with who you are, you'll never be content with what you have."
-- Doris Mortman

"The thing that goes the farthest
towards making life worth while,
That costs the least, and does the most,
is just a pleasant smile.
-- Wilbur D. Nesbit

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

"A good disposition is a virtue in itself, and it is lasting; the burden of the years cannot depress it, and love that is founded on it endures to the end."
-- OVID (circa AD 8)

"Happiness is a by-product of an effort to make someone else happy."
-- Gretta Brooker Palmer.

"It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere."
-- Agnes Repplier

Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give. -- Eleanor Roosevelt

Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling.
-- Margaret Lee Runbeck (1905-1956)

"The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy; I mean that if you are happy you will be good." -- Bertrand Russell Anything you're good at contributes to happiness. -- Bertrand Russell

The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.
-- Bertrand Russell

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

"No joy can equal the joy of serving others."
-- Sai Baba

Let a joy keep you. Reach out your hands and take it when it runs by.
-- Carl Sandburg

"I don't know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve." -- Albert Schweitzer

"I wish you all the joy that you can wish."
-- William Shakespeare (Merchant of Venice)

I think service to others is the real key to winning our own personal freedom and the road to our own happiness, our own personal contentment and fulfillment. -- Martin Sheen

 

"Noble deeds and hot baths are the best cures for depression."
-- Dodie Smith

"Contentment is natural wealth."
-- Socrates (c 470- 399 BC)

Joy is a net of love by which you can catch souls. -- Mother Teresa

"A good laugh is sunshine in a house."
-- Thackeray

“Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace? Yes. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive; inner peace does not.” — Eckhart Tolle

 

Joy can be real only if people look on their life as a service, and have a definite object in life outside themselves and their personal happiness -- Leo Tolstoy

"Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of joy you must have somebody to divide it with." -- Mark Twain Whoever is happy will make others happy, too. -- Mark Twain

* The task of organizing human happiness needs the active cooperation of man and woman. It cannot be relegated to one half of the world. -- Lillian Wald

"I've learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances."
-- Martha Washington

"It isn't the great big pleasures that count the most; it's making a great deal out of the little ones."
-- Jean Webster (1876-1916)

Unless we think of others and do something for them, we miss one of the greatest sources of happiness.
-- Ray Lyman Wilbur

"'Tis easy enough to be pleasant,
When life flows along like a song;
But the man worth while is the one who will smile
When everything goes dead wrong.
-- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

The only truly happy man is always a fighting optimist. Optimism includes not only altruism but also social responsibility, social courage and objectivity.
-- W. Beran Wolfe

To feel that one has a place in life solves half the problem of contentment.
-- George E. Woodberry (1855-1930)

Well-being is attained little by little, and nevertheless is no little thing itself.
-- Zeno of Elea (150-70 BC)

MISCELLANEOUS HAPPY THOUGHTS

• The most important thing that you wear is the expression on your face.
• It takes 26 muscles to smile, and 62 muscles to frown...
• Smiling is contagious...