Happiness

“ If ever happiness hath lodged with man,
That day consummate happiness was mine,
Wide-spreading, steady, calm, contemplative.
The sun was set, or setting, when I left
Our cottage door, and evening soon brought on
A sober hour, not winning or serene,
For cold and raw the air was, and untuned;
But as a face we love is sweetest then
When sorrow damps it, or, whatever look
It chance to wear, is sweetest if the heart
Have fulness in herself ”

“ If your reply is favorable I change my
life, I bid adieu to all the irksome pleasures which we have the
folly to call happiness. Happiness, my dear and beautiful unknown,
is what you dream it to be,—a fusion of feelings, a perfect
accordance of souls, the imprint of a noble ideal (such as God
does permit us to form in this low world) upon the trivial round
of daily life whose habits we must needs obey, a constancy of
heart more precious far than what we call fidelity. ”

“ What is Happiness? The immortal union of two Souls in one, creatures of God's eternal light, partaking each other's thoughts, bestowing upon each other the renewal of joy, and creating loveliness in form and action by their mutual sympathy and tenderness. ”

“ The Happiness of life, on the contrary, is made up of minute fractions—the little, soon-forgotten charities of a kiss, a smile, a kind look, a heartfelt compliment in the disguise of playful raillery, and the countless other infinitesimals of pleasurable thought and genial feeling. ”

“ Happiness was heaped upon happiness. Every wish brought its own accomplishment. Wealth, honour, beauty, peace, love—it was an abundance of felicity so great that the soul of Hermas could hardly contain it. ”

“ For whatever there is of beauty or of pleasure in wealth, in descendants, or in sovereign command, the highest summit of human enjoyment, or in those objects of desire which we endeavour to chase into the toils of love; whatever delight, or whatever solace is granted by the celestials, to soften our fatigues, in thy presence, thou parent of happiness, all those joys spread out and flourish; in thy presence blooms the spring of pleasure, and without thee no man is happy. ”

“ "I have never searched for happiness. Who wants happiness? I have searched for pleasure." ”

“ This is, perhaps, the foundation, on which, without the aid of reflection, the contented and the cheerful have rested the gaiety of their tempers. It is, perhaps, the most solid basis of fortitude which any reflection can lay; and happiness itself is secured by making a certain species of conduct our amusements; and, by considering life in the general estimate of its value, as well on every particular occasion, as a mere scene for the exercise of the mind, and the engagements of the heart. ”

“ Is it nothing to know that every happiness I have I owe to you—that all the enjoyment of a life more bright than a fairy tale, comes from you? That from your generous indulgence I have learned to think mere existence something like ecstasy, and awake each day as to a fête? ”

“ Some touch of happiness appears.
'Tis not a joy that's born of wealth:
The poor man may possess it.
'Tis not alone the prize of health:
No sickness can repress it.
'Tis not the end of mortal strife,
The sunset of the day of life,
Or but the old should find it;
It is the bond twixt God and man,
The touch divine in all we plan,
And has the soul behind it.
And so this toast to happiness,
The seed of which we all possess. ”

“ Mine didn't consist in a daily continuously happy state, such as one reads about and such as is the experience of some sheltered souls. Most of us have to be satisfied with those single brilliant flashes of happiness that leave a reflected glow on the way ahead after they've passed by. ”

“ The mere mention of this word makes our heart beat more quickly, and stirs our being to its inmost depths This craving for happiness, this intense longing, must be destined to be satisfied at some future period. But where? Where is this endless and complete happiness for which we long so ardently — where is it to be found? ”

“ How far is the happiness of one consistent with the happiness of another? What difficulties and miscarriages attend the business of transmuting the recognized materials for happiness into living human joy? ”

“ We thought happiness and gold and honor the three Graces, instead of Faith, Hope, and Charity," smiling into the girls' excited faces.
"And isn't happiness?"—began Hope, but she shook her head.
"Not worldly happiness—no. It is too brief, too treacherous. If one learns to depend upon that, one is doomed to perpetual disappointment. I have long understood that contentment is better than what we call happiness—much better. ”

“ In my estimation, more permanent and genuine happiness is to be found in the sequestered walks of connubial life than in the giddy rounds of promiscuous pleasure, or the more tumultuous and imposing scenes of successful ambition. ”

“ Instead of simply being happy in the condition where we are, getting the sweets of life in human intercourse, hour by hour, as the bees take honey from every flower that opens in the summer air, finding happiness in the well-filled and orderly mind, in the sane and enlightened spirit, in the self that has become what the self should be, we say that tomorrow, next year, in ten or twenty or thirty years, when we have arrived at certain coveted possessions or situation, we will be happy. ”

“ And with our reasons convinced, how can we so unweariedly pursue that phantom happiness which has here no fixed abode? We acknowledge that nothing here can satisfy us, and yet vainly delude ourselves with the hope of soon attaining some ideal joy which, like the philosopher's stone, will convert all into solid happiness. ”

“ So it is with the philosophers. All alike are in search of Happiness—what kind of thing it is. One says one thing, one another: it is pleasure; it is virtue;—what not? And Happiness may indeed be one of those things. ”

“ To what state of happiness should we be instantly transported, and upon how sure a foundation it would stand! We should smile at the worst efforts of the world, and we should weep with delight, as well as grief, at the translation of those dear to us, to a region of everlasting happiness. ”

“ I know now what is written on the eternal tablets—to live one’s own life as it is given, in honor, charity, without malice; to seek happiness where it is offered; to share it when possible; to uplift. But, most of all, to be happy and accept happiness as a heavenly gift that is to be shared with as many as possible. ”

“ To weary and restless spirits He taught the great truth, that happiness consists in making others happy. No cloister for idle genuflections and bead counting, no hair-cloth for the loins nor scourge for the limbs, but works of love and usefulness under the cheerful sunshine, making the waste places of humanity glad and causing the heart's desert to blossom. ”

“ This will be triumph! this will be happiness! yea, that very thing, happiness, which I have been pursuing all my life, and have never yet overtaken. ”

“ What has my whole life been but a searching and striving after some great and glorious happiness, something different from the common happiness of earth, some one delight which was to be mine here, and still more mine in the world to come? ”

“ By happiness is meant not simply the joy of eating and drinking—the gratification of the appetite—but good, wellbeing, in the highest and noblest forms. The joy that springs from obligation discharged, from duty done, from generous acts, from being true to the ideal, from a perception of the beautiful in nature, art and conduct. The happiness that is born of and gives birth to poetry and music, that follows the gratification of the highest wants. ”

“ To the thinking man or woman, life is a great arena wherein good and bad, joy and sorrow, faith and disillusion, happiness and unhappiness, success and failure are inextricably intermingled. The joy and happiness, accept gratefully; the sorrow and disillusion, bear with fortitude. And remember, although it is not possible to enjoy an absolute and continued state of happiness, it always lies within your power to have serenity, poise, peace and contentment. ”

“ All those to whom I looked up, were of opinion that the pleasure of sympathy with human beings, and the feelings which made the good of others, and especially of mankind on a large scale, the object of existence, were the greatest and surest sources of happiness. ”

“ For where are the destinies of persons thus exquisitely organized—thus full of love and loveliness—thus readily swayed to joy or sorrow, by the trivial incidents of life—characterised by what the world calls happiness—such happiness, I mean, as is enjoyed by the serene and the prudent, the unexcitable, the unaspiring! ”

“ Whoever has taken the pains to investigate the nature of the human mind, and examine attentively those circumstances upon which human happiness depends, must know how necessary it is to happiness, that the mind should have some object upon which to place its more tender affections—something to love,—to cherish, —to esteem,—to respect,—and to venerate ”

“ Then comes hope with a smile and whispers, "There is joy in self-forgetfulness." So I try to make the light in others' eyes my sun, the music in others' ears my symphony, the smile on others' lips my happiness. ”

“ From natural all-absorbing, inward concentration upon the basic principle of the Universe—Love—and drawing absolute never-failing happiness therefrom, most people now begin to look outwards for happiness, trying to draw it from the enjoyment of material objects. ”

“ He who has not left something sad behind him, and reawoke in the sunshine to feel the golden elixir of health and happiness moving in his veins anew, may take it that he has at least one pleasure yet unspent. ”

“ They reckon up several sorts of pleasures, which they call true ones; some belong to the body, and others to the mind. The pleasures of the mind lie in knowledge, and in that delight which the contemplation of truth carries with it; to which they add the joyful reflections on a well- spent life, and the assured hopes of a future happiness. ”

“ Look back upon your life, and you will find that the moments of supremest happiness were those in which you uttered some word, or performed some act, of compassion or self-denying love. Spiritually, happiness and harmony are, synonymous. ”

“ The term ‘happiness’ is the familiar cover for confusion between the animal imagination of pleasure and the conception of personal well-being. It is so when—having raised the question. What moves desire?—Locke answers, ‘happiness, and that alone.’ What, then, is happiness? ”

“ I have lived through much, and now I think I have found what is needed for happiness. A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor -- such is my idea of happiness. And then, on the top of all that, you for a mate, and children perhaps -- what more can the heart of man desire?" ”

“ The paths by which people journey toward happiness lie in part through the world about them and in part through the experience of their souls. On the one hand, there is the happiness which comes from wealth, honor, the enjoyment of life, from health, culture, science, or art; and, on the other hand, there is the happiness which is to be found in a good conscience, in virtue, work, philanthropy, religion, devotion to great ideas and great deeds. ”

“ I defy any one to tell from my appearance that I have not every thing to make me happy. I have much, and I am happy. My little trials are essential to my happiness. They teach me to value the only true sources of enjoyment this life can afford,—the affection of the good, the cultivation of the better feelings of the soul in the service of their Creator, and the joyful hope of a better, purer state of existence. ”

“ The natural laws speak within, and draw irresistibly two hearts to be mated. Whoever obeys the impulse find a Heaven on earth. Others, falsely-mated, may not find absolute misery, but, it is equally certain, true happiness is never theirs. ”

“ While pleasure manifests itself by extravagant gayety, exuberant spirits, and overt acts, happiness retreats to its own proper region, the heart. There concentrating its feelings, it contemplates its treasures, meditates on its enjoyments, and still more fondly on its hopes; counts up its mercies, and feels the consummation of them in looking to the fountain from whence they flow ”

“ You and I are beyond conventional concealments, and you know, as I know, that the thing which you are doing is for your own happiness as well as for mine, and I am glad that it is so, because your happiness is the thing which I most desire. ”

“ It is right that people should renew their stock of affection, should see that their hold on the world, on life, is renewed, should feel that fresh claims, for that is a part, and a great part, of happiness, are ready at hand when the old ones disappear. All this is what means happiness, and you know that the one thing I want in the world is that you should be happy. ”

“ 'Tis strange how the heart can create
Or colour from itself its fate;
We make ourselves our own distress,
We are ourselves our happiness. ”

“ Then your sight and your perspective will change, and you will see the good in every one and every thing.
Keep Happy, and give out Happiness. When we give out Happiness, we always receive more blessings than we give to others. ”

“ and that which made our heart ache shall fill us with gladness; and we shall then feel that there, as here, the only true happiness is to learn, to advance, and to improve; which could not happen unless we had commenced with error, ignorance, and imperfection. We must pass through the darkness, to reach the light. ”

“ You judge of your happiness by theirs—of your progress by theirs, and of your prospects by theirs. If one is happy, you seek to trace out the way by which he has wrought his happiness; you consider how it differs from your own ”