What Is Happiness?

Following the format of our quotations about peace and about love, I have chosen 30 quotations about happiness (with five extra), one for each day of the month. You may want to go through them in order, or you might want to choose them randomly.

Though each author has his or her own way of expressing viewpoints about happiness, the thread that joins these quotations is that happiness comes not from circumstances, but from within. It's a decision and a choice.

If you write a daily journal, you might want to write your feelings about the daily quote and any commitments it inspires in you. You might want to think about your plans for the day and see how you can bring happiness to what you'll be doing.

If doinog this for thirty days changes your life for the better, we'd love to hear about it.

Above all happiness is something to be shared. Please feel free to share these quotations with those you care about.

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile,
but sometimes your smile can be the source of your JOY.--Thich Nhat Hanh

For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.--Ralph Waldo Emerson

The secret of genius is to carry the spirit of the child into old age,
which means never losing your enthusiasm--Aldous Huxley

Joy is not in things; it is in us.--Richard Wagner

Very little is needed to make a happy life. It is all with yourself.--Marcus Aurelius

Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold, the feeling of happiness dwells in the soul.
--Democritus

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

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

Supreme happiness consists in self-content; that we may gain this self-content, we are placed upon this earth and endowed with freedom. --Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The secret of Happiness is Freedom, and the secret to Freedom, Courage.--Thucydides

Our greatest happiness... does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us, but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits. --Thomas Jefferson

Joy in looking and comprehending is nature's most beautiful gift --Albert Einstein

"Happiness does not depend on outward things, but on the way we see them."--Leo Tolstoy

Nothing is really work unless you would rather be doing something else.
--James Matthew Barrie, Sr.

Dance as if no one were watching,
sing as if no one were listening
and live each day
as if there were no tomorrow.
--Ancient Irish Proverb

One regret, dear world, that I am determined not to have When I am lying on my death bed
is that I did not kiss you enough!--Persian mystic poet Hafiz

"If you do not love too much, you do not love enough." --Pascal

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.--Buddha

When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.--Helen Keller

The Giver of life gave it for happiness and not for wretchedness.--Thomas Jefferson

The happiness of this life depends less on what befalls you than the way in which you take it.
--Elbert Hubbard

Happiness consists more in the small conveniences of pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom to a man in the course of his life.
--Benjamin Franklin

Remember happiness doesn't depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely on what you think.--Dale Carnegie

Derive happiness in oneself from a good day's work, from illuminating the fog that
surrounds us.--Henri Matisse

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.--Herman Cain

Don't wait around for other people to be happy for you. Any happiness you get you've got to make yourself.--Alice Walker

Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing.--William Butler Yeats

The Constitution only gives people the right to pursue happiness. You have to catch it yourself.--Benjamin Franklin

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.--Albert Einstein

The secret of happiness is the determination to be happy always, rather than wait for outer circumstances to make one happy.--J. Donald Walters

Happiness is itself a kind of gratitude.--Joseph Wood Krutch

Happiness is not a station to arrive at, but a manner of travelling. --Margaret Lee Runbeck

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
--Mahatma Gandhi

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.--Charles H. Spurgeon

Yesterday is but a dream, tomorrow but a vision. But today well lived makes every yesterday a dream of happiness, and every tomorrow a vision of hope. Look well, therefore, to this day.--Proverb