Famous Quotes & Sayings

Wilhelm von Humboldt

When we are not too anxious about happiness and unhappiness, but devote ourselves to the strict and unsparing performance of duty, then happiness comes of itself--nay, even springs from the midst of a life of troubles and anxieties and privations.

Walter Savage Landor

Happiness, like air and water, the other two great requisites of life, is composite. One kind of it suits one man, another kind another. The elevated mind takes in and breathes out again that which would be uncongenial to the baser; and the baser draws life and enjoyment from that which would be putridity to the loftier.

Walter Savage Landor

Goodness does not more certainly make men happy than happiness makes them good.

Walter Savage Landor

We cannot be contented because we are happy, and we cannot be happy because we are contented.

Walter Savage Landor

We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.

Walter Scott

The happy combination of fortuitous circumstances.

Winifred Holtby

You are quite, quite wrong if you think that ... I find your happiness painful. What matters is that happiness - the golden day - should exist in the world, not much to whom it comes. For all of us it is so transitory a thing, how could one not draw joy from its arrival?

Winifred Holtby

Sorrow and frustration have their power. The world is moved by people with great discontents. Happiness is a drug. It can make men blind and deaf and insensible to reality. There are times when only sorrow can give to sorrow.

Winston Churchill

All wisdom is not new wisdom.

Winston Churchill

One does not leave a convivial party before closing time.

Winston Churchill

To be really happy and really safe, one ought to have at least two or three hobbies, and they must all be real.

William S. Burroughs

Virtue is simply happiness, and happiness is a by-product of function. You are happy when you are functioning.

William Lyon Phelps

Real happiness is not dependent on external things.

William Lyon Phelps

If happiness truly consisted in physical ease and freedom from care the happiest, individual would not be either a man or a woman it; it would be, I think a cow.

William Lyon Phelps

The principle of happiness should be like the principle of virtue: it should not be dependent of things, but be a part of personality [and character].

William Lyon Phelps

The kind of happiness that stays with you is the happiness that springs from inward thoughts and emotions.

William Lyon Phelps

Why is it that so many people are afraid to admit they are happy?

William Lyon Phelps

I divide all readers into two classes: those who read to remember and those who read to forget.

Virginia Woolf

Safe! safe! safe!' the pulse of the house beats wildly. Waking, I cry 'Oh, is this your buried treasure? The light in the heart.

Woodrow Wilson

I am not sure that it is of the first importance that you should be happy. Many an unhappy man has been of deep service to himself and to the world.

Woody Allen

The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don't have.

William Wordsworth

Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good: Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, Our pastime and our happiness will grow.

William Wordsworth

Who is the happy Warrior? Who is he That every man in arms should wish to be? It is the generous spirit, who, when brought Among the tasks of real life, hath wrought Upon the plan that pleased his boyish thought: Whose high endeavors are an inward light That makes the path before him always bright: Who, with a natural instinct to discern What knowledge can perform, is diligent to learn; And in himself posses his own desire

William Wordsworth

A happy youth, and their old age Is beautiful and free.

William Wordsworth

But who, if he be called upon to face Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined Great issues, good or bad for humankind, Is happy as a lover.

William Wordsworth

Sad fancies do we then affect, In luxury of disrespect To our own prodigal excess Of too familiar happiness.

William Wordsworth

Pleasure is spread through the earth In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find.

William Saroyan

The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.

William J. Clinton

You should strive to find happiness every day and not believe that it comes at the end of the journey.

William J. Clinton

That everybody can do something, without regard to how old or young they are, rich or poor or middle class they are, how busy or not busy they are and what level skills they have. Everyone can do something. And everybody should do something. ... And if you do it, you'll be happier.

William J. Clinton

Sometimes when people are under stress, they hate to think, and it's the time when they most need to think.

William James

The greatest discovery of the 19th century was not in the realm of the physical sciences, but the power of the subconscious mind touched by faith. Any individual can tap into an eternal reservoir of power that will enable them to overcome any problem that may arise. All weaknesses can be overcome, bodily healing, financial independence, spiritual awakening, and prosperity beyond your wildest dreams. This is the superstructure of happiness.

William James

The attitude of unhappiness is not only painful, it is mean and ugly. What can be more base and unworthy than the pining, puling, mumping mood, no matter by what outward ills it may have been engendered? What is more injurious to others? What less helpful as a way out of the difficulty? It but fastens and perpetuates the trouble which occasioned it, and increases the total evil of the situation. At all costs, then, we ought to reduce the sway of that mood; we ought to scout it in ourselves and others, and never show it tolerance.