This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase: If you pursue happiness you'll never find it." - C. P. Snow, fully Charles Percy "C.P." Snow
"The pyramidal effect is essential to all the arts - the effect of starting from the level, rising to the supreme height, and sinking back to the original level again. This in truth is the meaning of key in music; in art, as in life, the secret of happiness is first of all to get as far away from home as you can, and then get back to your home: every work of art is a sort of Prodigal Son, that learns to appreciate the fixed point in space as in ethics, by straying from it." - Nahum Sokolow
"The happiness of life may be greatly increased by small courtesies in which there is no parade, whose voice is too still to tease, and which manifest themselves by tender and affectionate looks, and little acts of attention." - Lawrence Sterne, alternatively Laurence Sterne
"How easy it is to be amiable in the midst of happiness and success." - Madame Swetchine, fully Anne Sophie Swetchine née Sophia Petrovna Soïmonov or Soymanof
"Every year that I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not given, the power we have not used, the selfish prudence which will risk nothing, and which, shirking pain, misses happiness as well." - John B. Tabb, fully John Banister Tabb
"Man counts happiness in a thousand shapes; and the faster he follows it the swifter it flies from him. Almost every thing promiseth happiness to us at a distance, but when we come nearer, either we fall short of it, or it falls short of our expectation; and it is hard to say which of there is the greatest disappointment. Our hopes are usually bigger than the enjoyment can satisfy; and an evil long feared, besides that it may never come, is many times more painful and troublesome than the evil itself when it comes." -
"Intellect and industry are never incompatible. There is more wisdom, and will be more benefit, in combining them than scholars like to believe, or than the common world imagine; life has time enough for both, and its happiness will be increased by the union." - Sharon Turner
"I am still determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may be, for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions and not on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us in our minds wherever we go." - Martha Washington, fully Martha Dandridge Curtis Washington
"What is happiness other than the grace of being permitted to unfold to their fullest bloom all the spiritual powers planted within us." - Franz Werfel, fully Franz Viktor Werfel
"By exposing them continually to an adult world, which is basically materialistic, we have robbed children of the privilege of childhood. They have been told over and over again that things bring happiness and that happiness is the chief goal in life. We have sold our youth a big lie... Expose hedonism for what it is - a big lie, a mirage that always fades." -
"The Constitution of America only guarantees pursuit of happiness - you have to catch up with it yourself. Fortunately, happiness is something that depends not on position but on disposition, and life is what you make it." - Gill Robb Wilson
"No life can be barren which hears the whisper of the wind in the branches, or the voice of the sea as it breaks upon the shore; and no soul can lack happiness looking up to the midnight stars." - William Winter
"No one truly knows happiness who has no suffered, and the redeemed are happier than the elect." - Henri Frédéric Amiel
"Let human prudence say what it likes and reason as it pleases, it is impossible to produce true temporal peace and tranquillity by things repugnant or opposed to the peace and happiness of eternity." - Silvio Antoniano
"If the meaning of life is not a mystery, if leading meaningful lives is within the power of all of us, then we do not need to ask the question `What’s it all about?’ in despair. We can look around us and see the many ways in which life can be meaningful. We can see the value of happiness while accepting that it is not everything, which will make it easier for us at those times when it eludes us. We can learn to appreciate the pleasure of life without becoming slaves to appetites which can never be satisfied. We can see the value of success, while not interpreting that too narrowly, so that we can appreciate the project of striving to become what we want to be as well as the more visible, public signs of success. We can see the value of seizing the day, without leading us into a desperate scramble to grasp the ungraspable moment. We can appreciate the value in helping others lead meaningful lives, too, without thinking that altruism demands everything we have. And finally, we can recognize the value of love, as perhaps the most powerful motivator to do anything at all." - Julian Baggini
"Love also sheds light on our desire for happiness. The desire for love is connected with the desire for happiness. But no one who truly loves can in good faith reduce love to the pursuit of happiness. Love is more bittersweet than that. True love, be it romantic, familial or platonic, persists through happiness and has as its subject the welfare of the persons loved, not the lover. Love, then, reflects the important role of happiness in the meaningful life, but also the shallowness of seeing happiness as all." - Julian Baggini
"Happiness sneaks in through a door you didn't know you left open." - John Barrymore
"It seems that a big factor that contributes to our state of happiness is the attitude we have about life. We alone are responsible for the attitude we have about things. We can decide to look for the good in life, or we can agonize over that which did not go the way we wanted and stress about what the future might bring." - Phil Batchelor
"There is no happiness without security- I mean the prospect of being able to rely on the permanence of a state into which one has settled oneself. This assurance is to be found either in the mastering of things, or in the mastering of self which makes one independent of things." - Henri Bergson, aka Henri-Louis Bergson
"The object of government in peace and in war is not the glory of rulers or of races, but the happiness of the common man." - William Henry Beveridge
"It may be that true happiness lies in the conviction that one has irremediably lost happiness. Then we can begin to move through life without hope or fear, capable of finally enlying all the small pleasures, which are the most lasting." - María-Luisa Bombal
"To be human is to long for something more, something beyond us. Fulfillment, peace, and lasting happiness, for no apparent reason, seem to have evaded us. We believe that we are meant for happiness and made for joy. Pain and suffering are somehow a mistake that should not be part of life." - Joe Boot
"The only true happiness comes from squandering yourself for a purpose." - John Mason Brown
"What happiness is, no person can say for another. But no one, I am convinced, can be yappy who lives only for himself. The joy of living comes from immersion in something that we know to be bigger, better, more enduring and worthier than we are." - John Mason Brown
"By happiness we are to understand the internal satisfaction of the soul, arising from the possession of good; and by good, whatever is suitable or agreeable to man for his preservation, perfection, convenience, or pleasure." - Jean-Jacques Burlamaqui
"If you were to go around asking people what would make them happier, you’d get answers like “a new car,” a bigger house,” “a raise in pay,” or “winning the lottery.” Probably not one in a hundred would say “a chance to help people,” and yet that is what brings about the most happiness of all." - George Burns, born Nathan Birnbaum
"Remember happiness doesn’t depend upon who you are or what you have; it depends solely upon what you think." - Andrew Carnegie
"We are capable of finding unending meaning in a world of constant, shimmering, sometimes threatening change. The task is to keep the question of life in question, and to find in it an unending source of joy and possibility, even in the darkest of times. It is within the constant overcoming of our own limitations and habits, and of the established views of our age, that passive happiness and unreflective contentment are lost, then to be replaced by joyful activity and a glimpse of a broader, more enriching, and more responsible awareness than we have been capable of before." - Robert E. Carter, fully Robert Edgar Carter
"Every day I live I am more convinced that the waste of life lies in the love we have not given, the powers we have not used, the selfish prudence that will risk nothing and which, shirking pain, misses happiness as well." - Mary Cholmondeley
"When great causes are on the move in the world, stirring all men’s souls, drawing them from their firesides, casting aside comfort, wealth and the pursuit of happiness in response to impulses at once awe-striking and irresistible, we learn that we are spirits, not animals." - Winston Churchill, fully Sir Winston Leonard Spencer-Churchill
"The moral goodness of man, the necessary consequence of his constitution, is capable of indefinite perfection like all his other faculties, and nature has linked together in an unbreakable chain truth, happiness and virtue." - Marquis de Condorcet, Marie Jean Antoine Nicolas de Caritat
"Existence is a strange bargain. Life owes us little; we owe it everything. The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose." - William Cowper
"Happiness is not a station you arrive at, but a manner of traveling." - Anthony J. D'Angelo
"For a long time it had seemed to me that life was about to begin - real life. But here was always some obstacle in the way, something to be gotten through first, some unfinished business, time still to be served, or a debt to be paid. Then life would begin. At last it dawned on me that this was my life. This perspective has helped me to see that there is no way to happiness. Happiness is the way. " - Alfred D'Souza
"If by renouncing a lesser happiness one attains to a happiness that is greater, then let the wise pursue that happiness which is greater." - Dhammapada NULL
"No benefit is more constant than simplicity; no happiness more constant than peace." - Han Fei, also Han Fei Zi, Han Feitzu and Han Fei Tzu
"The key to achieving everlasting happiness involves an enlightened four-prong approach: (1) understanding and loving others; (2) being virtuous and serving others; (3) living life fully and in the present; and (4) adopting an indomitable spirit of thankfulness." - Gary W. Fanchuk
"One’s true happiness depends more upon one’s own judgment of one’s self, or a consciousness of rectitude in action and intention, and the approbation of those few, who judge impartially, than upon the applause of the unthinking, undiscerning multitude, who are apt to cry Hosanna today, and tomorrow, Crucify him." - Benjamin Franklin
"All genuine ideals have one thing in common: they express the desire for something which is not yet accomplished but which is desirable for the purposes of the growth and happiness of the individual." - Erich Fromm, fully Erich Seligmann Fromm
"Remember that happiness is a way of travel--not a destination." - Roy M. Goodman
"Happiness cannot be overtaken by those who pursue her. Happiness is a by-product of cheerful, honest labor dedicated to a worthwhile task… We cannot have happiness unless we give of ourselves… If it is true that we cannot get happiness unless we give it, it is also true that we cannot give it without getting it. Happiness has correctly been compared to a perfume. You cannot pour it on others without getting a few drops on yourself." - Sidney Greenberg
"Happiness is a by-product of cheerful, honest labor dedicated to a worthwhile task… We cannot have happiness unless we give of ourselves…" - Sidney Greenberg