Famous Quotes & Sayings

Elizabeth Gilbert

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.

David Brin

The three basic material rights -- continuity, mutual obligation, and the pursuit of happiness.

Aristotle

When...we, as individuals, obey laws that direct us to behave for the welfare of the community as a whole, we are indirectly helping to promote the pursuit of happiness by our fellow human beings.

Douglas Kennedy

If there is an abiding theme in 'The Pursuit of Happiness,' it is the idea that you come into the world already shaped by other people's past histories.

Andrew Bacevich

For the majority of contemporary Americans, the essence of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness centers on a relentless personal quest to acquire, consume, to indulge, and to shed whatever constraints might interfere with those endeavors.

Thomas Jefferson

All men are created equal and have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Thomas Jefferson

Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government...

Robert Henri

The pursuit of happiness is a great activity. One must be open and alive. It is the greatest feat man has to accomplish, and spirits must flow. There must be courage. There are no easy ruts to get into which lead to happiness. A man must become interesting to himself and must become actually expressive before he can be happy.

Thomas Jefferson

If [God] has made it a law in the nature of man to pursue his own happiness, He has left him free in the choice of place as well as mode, and we may safely call on the whole body of English jurists to produce the map on which nature has traced for each individual the geographical line which she forbids him to cross in pursuit of happiness.

William Feather

Getting along with others is the essence of getting ahead, success being linked with cooperation.

Russell Baker

The old notion that brevity is the essence of wit has succumbed to the modern idea that tedium is the essence of quality.

Rebecca Miller

I'm fascinated by what makes up a self, how one becomes a self, how much is it an answer to others and how much is it an essence of self.

Sandra Bernhard

I'm studying Kabbalah, which is really the essence of Jewish spirituality.

Samuel Johnson

The essence of poetry is invention; such invention as, by producing something unexpected, surprises and delights.

Will Smith

Gettin' jiggy wit it is, like, the next level of cool. It's cool to the eighth power. Some people are fly, some people are kind of hot. But when you are the jiggiest, when you exude jiggy-essence, it's the acme of cool.

Walter Bagehot

The essence of Toryism is enjoyment?but as far as communicating and establishing your creed are concernedtrya little pleasure. The way to keep up old customs is, to enjoy old customs; the way to be satisfied with the present state of things is, to enjoy that state of things.

Rodney Carrington

If I do the same act that I did in 1995, in essence you're saying (in a robotic voice), 'My mind has never changed'

Rod Serling

I would guess that the price of the script really is secondary. The credit is much more the essence.

Lord Shaftesbury

Wit is its own remedy. Liberty and commerce bring it to its true standard. The only danger is the laying an embargo. The same thing happens here as in the case of trade: impositions and restrictions reduce it to a low ebb; nothing is so advantageous to it as a free port.

William J. Brennan

The framers knew that liberty is a fragile thing, and so should we.

Woodrow Wilson

The history of liberty is a history of resistance.

William J. Clinton

I can spend your money better than you can.

William J. Clinton

The road to tyranny, we must never forget, begins with the destruction of the truth.

Will Durant

When liberty exceeds intelligence, it begets chaos, which begets dictatorship.

Will Durant

As soon as liberty is complete it dies in anarchy.

Will Durant

When liberty becomes license, dictatorship is near.

Robert Nozick

Taxation of earnings from labor is on a par with forced labor.