This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"There is no man who is happy in everything." - Euripedes NULL
"He who always waits upon God, is ready whensoever he calls. He is a happy man who so lives that death at all times may find him at leisure to die." - Owen Feltham
"The hoarding of things cannot produce joy. Love is of no value in producing happiness unless it is used or passed on to make others happy." - Lowell Fillmore
"I remember riding a taxi one afternoon between very tall buildings under a mauve and rosy sky; I began to bawl because I had everything I wanted and knew that I would never be so happy again." - F. Scott Fitzgerald, fully Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
"The majority of people are naturally straddlers. They are not in the world to pioneer but to be as happy as possible. If pioneering in a cause brings discomfort, they would rather not be among the pioneers. they would rather stand on the sidelines and, in the combat between truth and error, wait and see which proves the stronger. Though they may have a lazy faith that truth at last will win, they do not wish to lend a premature support." - Henry Ford
"It is the working man who is the happy man. It is the idle man who is the miserable man." - Benjamin Franklin
"Money never made a man happy yet, nor will it. There is nothing in its nature to produce happiness. The more a man has, the more he wants. Instead of its filling a vacuum, it makes one. If it satisfies one want, it doubles and trebles that want another way. That was a true proverb of the wise man, rely upon it; "Better is little with the fear of the Lord, than great treasure, and trouble therewith."" - Benjamin Franklin
"There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means - either may do - the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier." - Benjamin Franklin
"The narrow way, the way of holiness, not only leads to life, but it is life. Walking there, serene are our days, peaceful our nights, happy - high above the disorders and miseries of a wretched world - shall be our hourly communion with God; happy - full of assurance, of calm and sacred triumph, shall be our dying hour." - Richard Fuller
"Nations like men, can be healthy and happy, though comparatively poor... Wealth is a means to an end, not the end itself. As a synonym for health and happiness, it has had a fair trial and failed dismally." - John Galsworthy
"Happy the man who early learns the wise chasm that lies between his wishes and his powers." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"He only is happy as well as great who needs neither to obey nor command in order to be something." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"He who enjoys doing and enjoys what he has done is happy." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"One should only celebrate a happy ending; celebrations at the outset exhaust the joy and energy needed to urge us forward and sustain us in the long struggle. And of all celebrations a wedding is the worst; no day should be kept more quietly and humbly." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"The most happy man is he who knows how to bring into relation the end and the beginning of his life." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
"How happy are we that eat to live and live not to eat." - Robert Greene
"Faith is the backbone of the social and the foundation of the commercial fabric; remove faith between man and man, and society and commerce fall to pieces. There is not a happy home on earth but stands on faith; our heads are pillowed on it, we sleep at night in its arms with greater security for the safety of our lives, peace, and prosperity than bolts and bars can give." - Thomas Guthrie
"Happiness doesn't depend on what we have, but it does depend on how we feel towards what we have. We can be happy with little or miserable with much." - William D. Hoard, fully William Dempster Hoard
"If we are to succeed, we must think success. If we are to be happy, we must think happily. If we are to be well, we must think healthful, constructive thoughts. If we are to get over confusion, we must think peace. The mind can never accept what it rejects." - Ernest Shurtleff Holmes
"They change their sky not their mind who cross the sea. A busy idleness possesses us: we seek a happy life, with ships and carriages: the object of our search is present with us." - Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL
"To be happy, the temperament must be cheerful and gay, not gloomy and melancholy. A propensity to hope and joy, is real riches; one to fear and sorrow is real poverty." - David Hume
"How can man be intelligent, happy, or useful, without the culture and discipline of education? It is this that unlocks the prison-house of his mind, and releases the captive." - George Mogridge, aka "Old Humphrey"
"How short our happy days appear! How long the sorrowful!" - Jean Ingelow
"One solitary philosopher may be great, virtuous, and happy in the depth of poverty, but not a whole people." - Isaak Iselin
"To bear adversity with meek submission to the will of God; to endure chastisement with all long-suffering and joyfulness; to appear cheerful and amid surrounding gloom, hopeful amidst desponding circumstances, happy in God when there is nothing else to make us happy; he who does this has indeed made great advances in the divine life." - John Angell James
"Occupation was one of the pleasures of paradise, and we cannot be happy without it." - Anna Jameson
"If you develop your natural gift, there’s no better satisfaction in life, no better purpose... The basic key to having a happy life is to live until you know you’re satisfied." - Angelo Jaspe
"The medical profession tells us that there are four conditions which must be met if we are to have any chance of leading a happy life: physical security, social recognition, adventure, emotional security. In today's highly technical and scientific life, these four considerations become increasingly important, but we should add one vital ingredient: love. Love of our fellow man, love for our work, and the conviction that this love insures the future for all of us." - Archibald Quincy Jones
"I am happy in having learned to distinguish between ownership and possession. Books, pictures, and all the beauty of the world belong to those who love and understand them - not usually to those who possess them. All of these things that I am entitled to have I have - I own by divine right. So I care not a bit who possesses them." -
"Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others." - Martin Luther King, Jr.
"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." - Charles Kingsley
"I am happy and content because I think I am." - Alain-Rene Lesage
"The days that make us happy make us wise." - John Masefield
"Best trust the happy moments. What they gave makes man less fearful of that certain grave and gives his work compassion and new eyes, the days that make us happy make us wise." - John Masefield
"A happy marriage is a long conversation that always seems to be too short." - André Maurois, born born Emile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog
"Cynics are only happy in making the world as barren for others as they have made it for themselves." - George Meredith
"Extremely happy and extremely unhappy men are alike prone to grow hardhearted." - Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
"If one only wished to be happy, this could be easily accomplished; but we wish to be happier than other people, and this is always difficult, for we believe others to be happier than they are." - Baron de Montesquieu, fully Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu
"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
"It is not merely the multiplicity of tints, the gladness of tone, or the balminess of the air which delight in the spring; it is the still consecrated spirit of hope, the prophecy of happy days yet to come; the endless variety of nature, with presentiments of eternal flowers which never shall fade and sympathy with the blessedness of the ever-developing world." - Novalis, pseudonym of Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg NULL
"It is not the variegated colors, the cheerful sounds, and the warm breezes which enliven us so much in spring; it is the quiet prophetic spirit of endless hope, a presentiment of many happy days, the anticipation of higher everlasting blossoms and fruits, and the secret sympathy with the world that is developing itself." - Martin Opitz, fully Martin Opitz von Boberfeld
"We learn more from studying happy, healthy people than we can learn from the exclusive study of the sick and stressed." - Paul Pearsall
"Frugality is good, if liberality be joined with it. The first is leaving off superfluous expenses; the last bestowing them to the benefit of others that need. The first without the last begets covetousness; the last without the first begets prodigality. Both together make an excellent temper. Happy the place where that is found." - William Penn