happiness  -  happiness 3 - happiness 4

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

William Lyon Phelps

   

The happiness which we receive from ourselves is greater than that which we
obtain from our surroundings. . . . The world in which a person lives shapes itself chiefly by the way in which he or she looks at it.

Arthur Schopenhauer

      
Pleasure and happiness are too often equated with being the same; in reality they are very different.  Pleasure comes.  It also goes.  It is the flavor and content of many of the impressions we encounter in our lives.  Happiness has not so much to do with the content or impressions of our experiences; but with our capacity to find balance and peace amid the myriad impressions of our lives.  Treasuring happiness and freedom, we learn to live our lives with openness and serenity.

Christina Feldman
  
Your success and happiness lie in you.  External conditions are the accidents of life.  The great enduring realities are love and service.  Joy is the holy fire that keeps our purpose warm and our intelligence aglow.  Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulty.

Helen Keller
   

May we never let the things we can’t have or don’t have or shouldn’t have spoil our enjoyment of the things we do have and can have.  As we value our happiness, let us not forget it.  One of the greatest lessons in life is learning to be happy without the things we cannot or should not have.

Richard L. Evans

  

My creed is this:
Happiness is the only good.
The place to be happy is here.
The time to be happy is now.
The way to be happy is to make others so.

Robert G. Ingersoll

  

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Happiness is a wine of the rarest vintage and seems insipid to a vulgar taste.

Logan Pearsall Smith
   

But what is happiness except the simple harmony
between a person and the life he or she leads?

Albert Camus

  

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

Albert Schweitzer

  
It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy,
that makes happiness.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon
   

Where your pleasure is, there is your treasure; where your treasure,
there your heart; where your heart, there your happiness.

St. Augustine

  

To find out what one is fitted to do and to secure
an opportunity to do it is the key to happiness.

John Dewey

  

  

Unquestionably, it is possible to do without happiness;
it is done voluntarily by nineteen-twentieths of humankind.

John Stuart Mill

  

The art of living does not consist in preserving and clinging
to a particular mode of happiness, but in allowing happiness
to change its form without being disappointed by the change;
happiness, like a child, must be allowed to grow up.

Charles L. Morgan

  

The first recipe for happiness is:  Avoid too lengthy meditations on the past.

Andre Maurois

  

  

If this world affords true happiness, it is to be found
in a home where love and confidence increase with the years, where the
necessities of life come without severe strain, where luxuries enter
only after their cost has been carefully considered.

A. Edward Newton

  

For most of life, nothing wonderful happens.  If you don't enjoy getting up
and working and finishing your work and sitting down to a meal
with family or friends, then the chances are you're not going
to be very happy.  If someone bases his or her happiness or unhappiness
on major events like a great new job, huge amounts of money,
a flawlessly happy marriage or a trip to Paris, that person isn't going
to be happy much of the time.  If, on the other hand, happiness depends
on a good breakfast, flowers in the yard, a drink or a nap,
then we are more likely to live with quite a bit of happiness.


Andy Rooney

  
I try very hard to learn from people who are unhappy, for I believe that they are the people who can best teach me how to be happy.  Ironically enough, these are often the people who put up the greatest facade of happiness--always bright and cheerful among company, but when you talk to them alone, you find a great deal of discontent or frustration or anger or discouragement.

I've found that happiness isn't all that difficult.  It's been very important for me to do several things on my path to happiness, and here they are, in no particular order:

Be true to myself, my principles, and my faith.  This faithfulness to myself keeps me from beating myself up over actions that I'm not proud of.  If i base my actions on principle and truly follow that principle, I won't engage in the self-denigration that Ive seen so many others (especially alcoholics) engage in.

Give up the thoughts of being HAPPY.  Somehow our culture has turned happiness into this unobtainable permanently ecstatic state--a result of too many people in entertainment and advertising who have no idea of what happiness truly is trying to tell us how to be happy. They're not the problem--the problem is, we listen.

Not worry about things or events.  As andy rooney says above, happiness has less to do with major events or the versions of success fed to us by unhappy people from Hollywood or Madison Avenue than with acceptance and awareness and appreciation of the little things in our lives, like this wonderful computer that allows me to build this website and share these great people's words with so many others.  And it's one of the cheaper computers, certainly not a top-of-the-line model.  But it does a great job, and I love it, and I don't spend time wishing for anything more. 

Focus on others and their needs, without getting obsessive about it and robbing myself of quiet time and recreational time.  I'm useless to others if I'm not rested and in full command of my senses.  I work at balancing what I give of time and effort with what I need to keep going and to stay happy.  I often say yes when people ask me to help, but I often say no, too.  It depends on where I am and how it will affect other aspects of my life.  Some of the least happy people I know give so much of themselves that they're always tired and cranky, and they often start resenting the very people they're supposed to help.

Find my niches.  I would love to play the guitar and piano, but I'm not that good at either.  I am good at other things, so instead of spending tons of time trying to learn a little bit of everything, I try to focus on my strengths.  I can play chords on the guitar and enjoy it, but to spend hours and hours trying to get really good--well, there are plenty of great guitar players out there who can make up for my absence in the world of music.

All in all, I know that happiness is obtainable, and the first quotation of this page is a very telling one.  Ask yourself if you don't have everything in your life that can make you happy, and then ask yourself if you're happy.  Look at yourself through the eyes of someone who doesn't have what you have--material goods, health, intelligence, ability, creativity--and hear that person telling you, "I would be so happy if I had only a part of what you have." 

And don't answer, "Yes, but. . ."  answer, "You're right--I do have many gifts.  I'll try to be happy with them."

tom walsh

   
happiness
  -  happiness 3 - happiness 4
   

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Happy the person who has learned the cause of
things and has put under his or her feet all fear,
inexorable fate, and the noisy strife of the hell of greed.

Virgil
   

Happiness is not in our circumstances, 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

  

Just as a cautious businessperson avoids investing all his or her
capital in one concern, so wisdom would probably admonish us also
not to anticipate all our happiness from one quarter.

Sigmund Freud

  

People who postpone happiness are like children who try chasing rainbows
in an effort to find the pot of gold at the rainbow's end. . . .
Your life will never be fulfilled until you are happy here and now.

Ken Keyes, Jr.

  

Happiness sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open.

John Barrymore

  
If we are ever happy, it will be because we create happiness out of our environment with all its vexations, cares, and disheartening conditions.  Those who do not learn to create their happiness as they go along, out of the day's work with all its trials, its antagonisms, its obstacles, with all its little annoyances, disappointments, have missed the great life secret.  It is out of this daily round of duties, out of the stress and strain and strife of life, the attrition of mind with mind, disposition with disposition—out of this huckstering, buying and selling world—that we must get the honey of life, just as the bee sucks the sweetness from all sorts of flowers and weeds.  The whole world is full of unworked joymines. Everywhere we go we find all sorts of happiness- producing material, if we only know how to extract it.

Orison Swett Marden
The Joys of Living
 

 

Happiness is at once the best, the noblest, and the pleasantest of things.

Aristotle

   

To live happily is an inward power of the soul.

Marcus Aurelius

 

People of the noblest dispositions think themselves happiest
when others share their happiness with them.

Jeremy Taylor

 

It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility
and occupation, which give happiness.

Thomas Jefferson

 

Happiness is intrinsic, it's an internal thing.  When you build
it into yourself, no external circumstances can take it away.

Leo Buscaglia

   

The purpose of our existence is to seek happiness.  It seems like
common sense, and Western thinkers from Aristotle to William James
have agreed with this idea.  But isn’t a life based on seeking personal
happiness by nature self-centered, even self-indulgent?  Not necessarily.
In fact, survey after survey has shown that it is unhappy people who tend
to be most self-focused and are often socially withdrawn, brooding, and
even antagonistic.  Happy people, in contrast, are generally found to be
more sociable, flexible, and creative and are able to tolerate life’s daily
frustrations more easily than unhappy people.  And, most important, they
are found to be more loving and forgiving than unhappy people.

the Dalai Lama and Howard C. Cutler
The Art of Happiness

   
   

 

It would be a great thing if people could be brought to realize
that they can never add to the sum of their happiness by doing wrong.

John Lubbock

 

We cannot be happy until we can love ourselves
without egotism and our friends without tyranny.

Cyril Connolly

 

How simple and frugal a thing is happiness:  a glass of wine,
a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound
of the sea. . . . All that is required to feel that here
and now is happiness, is a simple, frugal heart.

Nikos Kazantzakis

 

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The fountain of contentment must spring up in the mind.
They who have so little knowledge of human nature as to seek happiness
by changing anything  but their own dispositions will waste their lives
in fruitless efforts and multiply the grief which they purpose to remove.

Samuel Johnson
  

We have no more right to consume happiness
without producing it than to consume
wealth without producing it.

George Bernard Shaw

 

Buried deep in the maze of commonplace, the pearl of
true happiness lies.  And those who rejoice in little things,
find the pathway that leads to the prize.

Lucy M. Thompson

   

Simply to have all the necessities of life and three meals a day will not bring happiness.
Happiness is hidden in the unnecessary and in those impractical things that bring delight
to the inner person. . . . When we lack proper time for the simple pleasures of life,
for the enjoyment of eating, drinking, playing, creating, visiting friends, and watching
children at play, then we have missed the purpose of life.  Not on bread alone do we live
but on all these human and heart-hungry luxuries.

Ed Hays

  

The Buddha explained that the source of true happiness is living in ease and
freedom, fully experiencing the wonders of life.  Happiness is being aware of
what is going on in the present moment, free from both clinging and aversion.
A happy person cherishes the wonders taking place in the present moment--
a cool breeze, the morning sky, a golden flower, a violet bamboo tree, the
smile of a child.  A happy person can appreciate these things without being
bound by them. . . . because one understands that a flower will wilt, one is not
sad when it does.  A happy person understands the nature of birth and death.
His or her happiness is true happiness, and this person does not
even worry about or fear his or her own death.

Thich Nhat Hanh

  

To be happy is easy enough if we give ourselves, forgive others,
and live with thanksgiving.  No self-centered person, no
ungrateful soul can ever be happy, much less make
anyone else happy.  Life is giving, not getting.

Joseph Fort Newton

  

    

So what is happiness?  I am sure this question will be asked through the ages.
And I doubt there is one answer for all people.  Like heaven and hell, one
person's happiness can be another person's unhappiness, which is why I'm
not attempting to tell you what to do to find your happiness.  I have enough
trouble finding and hanging onto my own true happiness.

Robert Kiyosaki

happiness  -  happiness 3 - happiness 4

Happiness does not come quickly.  It is not conferred by any single
event, however exciting or comforting or satisfying the event may be.
It cannot be purchased, whatever the allure of the next, the newest,
the brightest, the best.  Happiness, like Carl Sandburg’s fog, “comes
on little cat feet,” often silently, often without our knowing it, too
often without our noticing.

Joan Chittister

    

Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development,
who love good music, good books, good plays, good company, good
conversation--what are they?  They are the happiest people in the world.

William Lyon Phelps

   
  
We learn the inner secret of happiness when we learn to direct
our inner drives, our interest, and our attention to
something besides ourselves.

Ethel Percy Andrus
  

Happiness is when you love who you are and
you are able to accept yourself and others.

Bar Refaeli

   

We are more interested in making others believe
we are happy than in trying to be happy ourselves.

François de la Rochefoucauld

   
Our lives are our own.  It is not for someone else to dictate to
us how we should live them.  All that awaits those who allow
themselves to be continually swayed by what other people say
or do is unhappiness.  We simply need to have the self-belief to
be able to say, "This is right.  This is the path I will follow.
I am content."  Happiness is born from such inner fortitude.

Daisaku Ikeda

Buddhism Day by Day
  

One who is not born a musician needs to toil more assiduously to
acquire skill in the art, however strong one's desire or great one's taste,
than the natural genius.  So the person not endowed with joyous
impulses needs to set him- or herself the task of acquiring the
habit of happiness. I believe it can be done.  To the sad or restless or
discontented being I would say:  Begin each morning by resolving
to find something in the day to enjoy.  Look in each experience
which comes to you for some grain of happiness.  You will be
surprised to find how much that has seemed hopelessly disagreeable
possesses either an instructive or an amusing side.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox
The Heart of the New Thought

    

Happiness
Max Ehrmann

To be without desire is to
be content.  But contentment is not
happiness.  And in contentment
there is no progress.  Happiness is
to desire something, to work
for it, and to obtain at least a part
of it.  In the pursuit of
beloved labor the busy days pass
cheerfully employed, and
the still nights in peaceful sleep.
For labor born of desire is
not drudgery, but manly play.
Success brings hope, hope
inspires fresh desire, and desire
gives zest to life and joy
to labor.  This is true whether your
days be spent in the palaces
of the powerful or in some little
green by-way of the world.

Therefore, while yet you have
the strength, cherish a desire to do
some useful work in your
little corner of the world, and
have the steadfastness to labor.
For this is the way to the
happy life; with health and
endearing ties, it is the way to the
glorious life.

   

       
   

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When Walker first steps onto the road, he has no thoughts, no history, no memories, and no clothes. As he travels and meets people and learns from them, he comes to know more about life, living, and becoming the person he's meant to be. Walker is a parable for all of us who wonder what might be the purpose of life, why bad things happen with almost as much regularity as good things, and how we can learn from the bad examples and experiences in our lives as much as we can learn from the good things. Tom Walsh's parable is a story of the ages, a timeless exploration of ideas and thoughts that all of us wonder about, a sincere and heartfelt portrait of a man who has no past and no future, but who learns to make the most of each precious present moment as it comes.