Great Throughts Treasury

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

"Show love to all creatures, and thou wilt be happy; for when thou lovest all things, thou lovest the Lord, for he is all in all." - Tulsidas NULL

"Imagine that you are creating a fabric of human destiny with the object of making men happy in the end, giving them peace and rest at last. Imagine that you are doing this but that it is essential and inevitable to torture to death only one tiny creature…. in order to found that edifice on its unavenged tears. Would you consent to be the architect on those conditions?" -

"It is the great mystery of human life that old grief passes gradually into quiet, tender joy. The mild serenity of age takes the place of the riotous blood of youth. I bless the rising sun each day, and, as before, my heart sings to meet it, but now I love even more its setting, its long slanting rays and the soft, tender, gentle memories that come with them, the dear images from the whole of my long, happy life - and over all the Divine Truth, softening, reconciling, forgiving! My life is ending, I know that very well, but every day that is left me I feel how my earthly life is in touch with a new infinite, unknown, but approaching life, the nearness of which sets my soul quivering with rapture, my mind glowing and my heart weeping with joy." -

"Every time you give a bit of yourself and you plant a little seed of Future Happiness. All the rest of your life these seeds will keep springing up unexpectedly along your path. When you need a friend to give you a lift in some situation, likely as not along will come a person for whom you did something thoughtful when you were a youngster. Taking up giving-away as a hobby while you are young, and you will live a happy life. What is more, because you do so many wonderful thoughtful things on impulse, you will develop a lively and interesting personality - gracious, friendly, likable." - David Dunn

"A child is a man in a small letter, yet the best copy of Adam before he tasted of Eve, or the Apple... He is Nature’s fresh picture newly drawn in oil, which time and much handling dims and defaces. His soul is yet a white paper unscribbled with observations of the world, wherewith at length it becomes a blurred notebook. He is purely happy because he knows no evil." - John Earle, Bishop of Salisbury

"Compare what you want with what you have, and you’ll be unhappy; compare what you have with what you deserve and you’ll be happy." - Evan Esar

"If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us at least live so as to deserve it." -

"If we cannot live so as to be happy, let us at least live so as to deserve it." - Johann Gottlieb Fichte

"You can only live in the present… only act in the present… only experience in the present. What you call the future, things that you may be planning, or things that you may be dreading – all this is still but a present state of mind. This is the real meaning of the traditional phrase, The Eternal Now. The only joy you can experience is the joy you experience now. A happy memory is a present joy. The only pain you can experience is the pain of the present moment. Sad memories are present pain." - Emmet Fox

"The common element of most fears is that they are based on the illusion that happiness is dependent on externals and therefore vulnerable… Cessation of fear is the result of learning that the source of happiness and joy is from within. It stems from recognizing that its source is the joy of one’s own existence, which is continuous and not dependent on externals. This results from surrendering expectations and demands on one’s self, the world, and others. The thought “I can only be happy if I win or get what I want” is a guarantee of worry, anxiety, and unhappiness." - David R. Hawkins, fully David Ramon Hawkins

"To marvel at nothing is just about the one and only thing, Numicius, that can make a man happy and keep him that way." -

"He will through life be master of himself and a happy man who from day to day can have said, “I have lived”: tomorrow the Father may fill the sky with black clouds or with cloudless sunshine." -

"Bereavement is the deepest initiation into the mysteries of human life, an initiation more searching and profound than even happy love… Bereavement is the sharpest challenge to our trust in God; if faith can overcome this, there is no mountain which it cannot remove." - William Ralph Inge

"We don’t laugh because we are happy. We are happy because we laugh." - William James

"Let us not be uneasy that the different roads we may pursue, as believing them the shortest, to that of our last abode; but, following the guidance of the good conscience, let us be happy in the hope that by these different paths we shall all meet in the end." - Thomas Jefferson

"That kind of life is most happy which affords us most opportunities of gaining our own self-esteem… To strive with difficulties, and to conquer them, is the highest human felicity." - Samuel Johnson, aka Doctor Johnson

"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion." - Dalai Lama, born Tenzin Gyatso NULL

"I believe the purpose of life is happiness. In today’s world being happy is inseparable from being responsible. We need to temper the extremes of our personal nature so that we can realize oneness with the universe. We must keep our destructive qualities from outweighing our constructive qualities." - Dalai Lama, born Tenzin Gyatso NULL

"Fame or integrity: which is more important? Money or happiness: which is more valuable? Success or failure: which is more destructive? If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never be truly fulfilled. If you happiness depends on money you will never be happy with yourself. Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze

"Learning to live deliberately and with confidence as well as knowing how to love one’s self and to be consistently happy – although not always easy – are fundamental to happiness and fulfillment." - Jason A. Merchey

"A happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found: for a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough to make us happy… True happiness is found in unselfish love, a love which increases in proportion as it is shared." - Thomas Merton

"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." - Charles De Montesquieu, formally Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu

"The holy man is the true lover by whom the Truly Beloved is found. Man is then happy night and day, and naturally absorbed in God. The holy man may laugh; the holy man may weep. Whatever he does, is in God’s service." - Guru Nanak

"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

"Undisturbed calmness of mind is attained by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and indifference toward the wicked." - Patañjali NULL

"Happy nations have no history. History is the study of mankind's misfortunes." - Raymond Queneau

"It is not enough to be happy: It is also necessary that others not be." - Jules Renard, aka Pierre-Jules Renard

"Few things are needed to make the wise man happy, but nothing satisfies the fool; this is the reason so many of mankind are miserable." -

"I cannot believe that the purpose of life is to be “happy.” I think the purpose of life is to be useful, to be responsible, to be honorable, to be compassionate. It is, above all, to matter, to count, to stand for something, to have made some difference that you lived at all." -

"If something makes you happy in this world, you should think of what will happen to you if that thing were taken away." - Rumi, fully Jalāl ad-Dīn Muḥammad Rumi NULL

"One is happy as a result of one's own efforts, once one knows the necessary ingredients of happiness - simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self-denial top a point, love of work, and above all a clear conscience. Happiness is no vague dream, of that I now feel certain." - George Sand, pen name for Amandine Lucte Aurore Dupin, Baronne Dudevant

"Thoroughly living life requires initiative, risk taking, sustained action against the odds, making sacrifices for ideals and for others, and leaps of faith. People who live such lives report being happy, hopeful, and exhilarated – even when they fail." -

"My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?" - Charles M. Schultz

"Example is not the main thing in influencing others; it is the only thing. 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

"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

"He enjoys much who is thankful for little; a grateful mind is both a great and happy mind." - Thomas Secker

"Children are happy because they live life abundantly. They put no limitations upon life whatever. The moment we put limitation upon life we cease to life abundantly. There is not a limiting condition in life. Life could not limit itself. It could not be kept away except through your own attitude of thought toward it." - Baird T. Spalding

"No two individuals have the same vision of life. It is said that only children and sages are happy because the child has not developed a material sense of value and the same knows that the material has no value. To them form is not the point of consideration but living life." - Baird T. Spalding

"Covetousness makes a man miserable, because riches are not means to make a man happy." - Jeremy Taylor

"All happy families resemble one another; every unhappy family is unhappily in its own way." -

"If you want to be happy, be." -

"Happy is he who has been able to learn the causes of things." -

"The longer I live the more I am convinced that the one thing worth living for and dying for is the privilege of making someone more happy and more useful. No person who ever does anything to lift their fellows ever makes a sacrifice." -

"Why are you unhappy? Because 99.9 per cent of everything you think, and of everything you do, is for yourself - and there isn't one." - Wei Wu Wei, pen name for Terence James Stannus Gray

"Happiness doesn't depend on what we have, but it does depend on how we feel toward what we have. We can be happy with little and miserable with much." - William Dempster Hoard

"Recommend to your children virtue; that alone can make them happy, not gold." -

"Only the soul that loves is happy." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Quite often, as life goes on, when we feel completely secure as we go on our way, we suddenly notice that we are trapped in error, that we have allowed ourselves to be taken in by individuals, by objects, have dreamt up an affinity with them which immediately vanishes before our waking eye; and yet we cannot tear ourselves away, held fast by some power that seems incomprehensible to us. Sometimes, however, we become fully aware and realize that error as well as truth can move and spur us on to action. Now because action is always a decisive factor, something really good can result from an active error, because the effect of all that has been done reaches out into infinity. So although creative action is certainly always best, destroying what has been done is also not without happy consequence." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"If you must work for money, find a way to work and be happy. That is financial intelligence." -