How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do.
—William James, 1902Quotes
A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.
—Jane Austen, 1814That is happiness: to be dissolved into something complete and great.
—Willa Cather, 1918Whatever the apparent cause of any riots may be, the real one is always want of happiness.
—Thomas Paine, 1792There is no greater disaster than not to know contentment.
—Laozi, c. 550 BCWhen one has a famishing thirst for happiness, one is apt to gulp down diversions wherever they are offered.
—Alice Hegan Rice, 1917He who would be happy should stay at home.
—Greek proverbHappiness does not dwell in herds, nor yet in gold.
—Democritus, c. 420 BCThere is only one honest impulse at the bottom of puritanism, and that is the impulse to punish the man with a superior capacity for happiness.
—H.L. Mencken, 1920One is never as unhappy as one thinks, nor as happy as one hopes.
—La Rochefoucauld, 1664Happiness is no laughing matter.
—Richard Whately, 1843There will always be a lost dog somewhere that will prevent me from being happy.
—Jean Anouilh, 1934All those who suffer in the world do so because of their desire for their own happiness.
—Shantideva, c. 750