Are you searching for a little boost of joy or a quick pick-me-up to brighten your day? Happiness can often seem like a fleeting or elusive concept, especially on days that feel more challenging than others. However, finding moments of joy might be closer and more accessible than you think.
This collection of 110 happiness quotes is a simple reminder that happiness can be found in various places, moments, and states of mind. Whether you need a gentle nudge to see the brighter side of life or are seeking inspiration to spread some cheer among those around you, these quotes are here to help.
Each one offers a unique perspective on happiness, from the wisdom of philosophers and writers to the insights of leaders and thinkers from all walks of life. So, if you’re looking for a little light to brighten your day or to share with someone else, you’re in the right place. These happiness quotes are a reminder that joy, laughter, and contentment are never too far away.
- “Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.” – Dalai Lama
- “For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.” – Chuck Palahniuk
- “The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring.” – Carl Sandburg
- “Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn, or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.” – Denis Waitley
- “The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up.” – Mark Twain
- “True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” – Helen Keller
- “The purpose of our lives is to be happy.” – Dalai Lama
- “Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling.” – Margaret Lee Runbeck
- “It’s a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.” – Lucille Ball
- “Happiness is a warm puppy.” – Charles M. Schulz
- “Happiness is not the absence of problems, it’s the ability to deal with them.” – Steve Maraboli
- “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.” – Abraham Lincoln
- “Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” – Marthe Troly-Curtin
- “Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne
- “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” – Marcus Aurelius
- “Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action.” – William James
- “Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance, order, rhythm and harmony.” – Thomas Merton
- “The best way to pay for a lovely moment is to enjoy it.” – Richard Bach
- “Happiness is the art of never holding in your mind the memory of any unpleasant thing that has passed.” – Unknown
- “To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.” – Albert Camus
- “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 year — inherit a fortune. If you want happiness for a lifetime — help someone else.” – Chinese Proverb
- “The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.” – Oprah Winfrey
- “Happiness is a direction, not a place.” – Sydney J. Harris
- “Happiness depends upon ourselves.” – Aristotle
- “It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.” – Seneca
- “The secret of happiness is freedom, the secret of freedom is courage.” – Carrie Jones
- “Happiness is not having what you want. It is appreciating what you have.” – Unknown
- “True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self.” – Joseph Addison
- “Happiness is a state of activity.” – Aristotle
- “The true secret of happiness lies in taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.” – William Morris
- “The happiness of life is made up of the little charities of a kiss or smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment.” – Samuel Taylor Coleridge
- “Happiness is not the absence of problems; it’s the ability to deal with them.” – Steve Maraboli
- “A joyful heart is the inevitable result of a heart burning with love.” – Mother Teresa
- “Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
- “The only joy in the world is to begin.” – Cesare Pavese
- “Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it’s something you design for the present.” – Jim Rohn
- “The measure of success is happiness and peace of mind.” – Bobby Davro
- “Happiness is the only thing that multiplies when you share it.” – Albert Schweitzer
- “True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- Happiness is not a goal; it’s a by-product of a life well lived.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
- “The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.” – William Saroyan
- “Doing what you like is freedom. Liking what you do is happiness.” – Frank Tyger
- “Happiness is a way station between too little and too much.” – Channing Pollock
- “Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.” – Mother Teresa
- “Happiness is the experience of loving life. Being happy is being in love with that momentary experience.” – Leo Tolstoy
- “Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular.” – Robert Frost
- “Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.” – Robert Frost
- “Our capacity to draw happiness from aesthetic objects or material goods in fact seems critically dependent on our first satisfying a more important range of emotional or psychological needs, among them the need for understanding, for love, expression, and respect.” – Alain De Botton
- “The secret to happiness is to love yourself.” – Unknown
- “Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.” – Charles Dickens
- “Happiness can exist only in acceptance.” – George Orwell
- “Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
- “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” – John Milton
- “Happiness is that state of consciousness which proceeds from the achievement of one’s values.” – Ayn Rand
- “The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.” – Mark Twain
- “Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.” – Dalai Lama
- “A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?” – Albert Einstein
- “Happiness is a continuation of happenings which are not resisted.” – Deepak Chopra
- “Happiness is the art of learning how to get joy from your substance.” – Jim Rohn
- “Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, carried, or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.” – Denis Waitley
- “The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.” – James M. Barrie
- “Happiness is found in doing, not merely possessing.” – Napoleon Hill
- “Happiness is having a scratch for every itch.” – Ogden Nash
- “Happiness is not a matter of events; it depends upon the tides of the mind.” – Alice Meynell
- “Happiness is a well-balanced combination of love, labour, and luck.” – Mary Wilson Little
- “Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.” – Alexandre Dumas
- “The constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.” – Benjamin Franklin
- “Happiness is always the serendipitous result of looking for something else.” – Dr. Idel Dreimer
- “Happiness is a function of accepting what is.” – Werner Erhard
- “The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” – Victor Hugo
- “Happiness is when your life fulfills your needs.” – Nathaniel Branden
- “Real happiness is cheap enough, yet how dearly we pay for its counterfeit.” – Hosea Ballou
- “Happiness is the interval between periods of unhappiness.” – Don Marquis
- “The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.” – Epictetus
- “Happiness is a by-product of an effort to make someone else happy.” – Gretta Brooker Palmer
- “We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.” – Frederick Keonig
- “Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.” – Aeschylus
- “Happiness is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with it.” – Unknown
- “One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.” – Rita Mae Brown
- “Happiness is not something you acquire; love is something that acquires you.” – Alan Cohen
- “Happiness is seeing the smile on a child’s face as they look at you.” – Unknown
- “To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.” – Bertrand Russell
- “Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn’t know you left open.” – John Barrymore
- “Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.” – Jim Rohn
- “The greatest secret to happiness and peace is letting every life situation be what it is, instead of what you think it should be, and then making the best of it.” – Unknown
- “Happiness is a choice, not a result. Nothing will make you happy until you choose to be happy.” – Ralph Marston
- “Happiness doesn’t depend on any external conditions, it is governed by our mental attitude.” – Dale Carnegie
- “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” – Mahatma Gandhi
- “The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase: if you pursue happiness you’ll never find it.” – C.P. Snow
- “Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.” – Thomas Jefferson
- “Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings.” – Elizabeth Gilbert
- “A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships.” – Helen Keller
- “Happiness is a state of mind, a choice, a way of living; it is not something to be achieved, it is something to be experienced.” – Steve Maraboli
- “Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling.” – Margaret Lee Runbeck
- “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.” – Aristotle
- “Happiness is not the result of what we have, but of how we feel about what we have. It’s the joyful, uncomplicated appreciation for being alive.” – Unknown
- “Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Happiness is not in our circumstance but in ourselves. It is not something we see, like a rainbow, or feel, like the heat of a fire. Happiness is something we are.” – John B. Sheerin
- “The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.” – Henry Ward Beecher
- “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.” – George Burns
- “Happiness is like a kiss. You must share it to enjoy it.” – Bernard Meltzer
- “The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.” – Socrates
- “Happiness is the experience of loving life. Being happy is being in love with that momentary experience. And love is looking at someone or even something and seeing the absolute best in him/her or it. Love is happiness with what you see. So love and happiness really are the same thing…just expressed differently.” – Robert McPhillips
- “Happiness is always a by-product of other actions.” – Aldous Huxley
- “Happiness is a how; not a what. A talent, not an object.” – Hermann Hesse
- “Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.” – Daphne du Maurier
- “Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.” – Aldous Huxley
- “Happiness is the natural flower of duty.” – Phillips Brooks
