Genuine Happiness Quotes

All I'm saying is that I want you to be happy. I don't care how it happens, or what it takes to facilitate it. I don't care if it happens with me or without me. I don't care if you use me to get there, or if I'm entirely irrelevant to your process. None of me is attached to how your happiness happens; I care only that it does. ~ Agnostic Zetetic

This wasn't a place for illusions; the reality here was the genuine happiness that came about from the natural magic of standing next to someone and being consumed by the fortitude in his or her humanity. ~ Ishmael Beah

Even more important than the warmth and affection we receive, is the warmth and affection we give. It is by giving warmth and affection, by having a genuine sense of concern for others, in other words through compassion, that we gain the conditions for genuine happiness. More important than being loved, therefore, is to love. ~ Dalai Lama

Genuine happiness is not nearly as common as a fake smile. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

One of the causes of unhappiness among intellectuals in the present day is that so many of them, especially those whose skill is literary, find no opportunity for the independent exercise of their talents, but have to hire themselves out to rich corporations directed by Philistines, who insist upon their producing what they themselves regard as pernicious nonsense. If you were to inquire among journalists in either England or America whether they believed in the policy of the newspaper for which they worked, you would find, I believe, that only a small minority do so; the rest, for the sake of a livelihood, prostitute their skill to purposes which they believe to be harmful. Such work cannot bring any real satisfaction, and in the course of reconciling himself to the doing of it, a man has to make himself so cynical that he can no longer derive whole-hearted satisfaction from anything whatever. I cannot condemn men who undertake work of this sort, since starvation is too serious an alternative, but I think that where it is possible to do work that is satisfactory to man's constructive impulses without entirely starving, he will be well advised from the point of view of his own happiness if he chooses it in preference to work much more highly paid but not seeming to him worth doing on its own account. Without self-respect genuine happiness is scarcely possible. And the man who is ashamed of his work can hardly achieve self-respect. ~ Bertrand Russell

Seeking happiness is not the problem. The problem is that we often do not know where and how to find genuine happiness and so make the mistakes that cause suffering for ourselves & others. ~ Sharon Salzberg

Why try to be like others if you're condemned to being yourself? Why laugh if, when you laugh, even your genuine happiness is false, since it is born of forgetting who you are? Why cry if you feel it's of no use, and if you cry not because tears console you but because it grieves you that they don't? ~ Fernando Pessoa

The tremendous danger is that this belief - that genuine happiness comes only from pleasant feelings - becomes a strong motivation to stay closed to anything unpleasant. But by staying closed to all unpleasantness, we also stay closed to our own wellspring of compassion. ~ Joseph Goldstein

Millennials: We lost the genetic lottery. We graduated high school into terrorist attacks and wars. We graduated college into a recession and mounds of debt. We will never acquire the financial cushion, employment stability, and material possessions of our parents. We are often more educated, experienced, informed, and digitally fluent than prior generations, yet are constantly haunted by the trauma of coming of age during the detonation of the societal structure we were born into. But perhaps we are overlooking the silver lining. We will have less money to buy the material possessions that entrap us. We will have more compassion and empathy because our struggles have taught us that even the most privileged can fall from grace. We will have the courage to pursue our dreams because we have absolutely nothing to lose. We will experience the world through backpacking, couch surfing, and carrying on interesting conversations with adventurers in hostels because our bank accounts can't supply the Americanized resorts. Our hardships will obligate us to develop spiritual and intellectual substance. Maybe having roommates and buying our clothes at thrift stores isn't so horrible as long as we are making a point to pursue genuine happiness. ~ Maggie Georgiana Young

If you are filled with hatred, you can hardly enjoy genuine happiness. Hatred makes your personality extremely fragile and you lose your temper on the slightest pretext, which further creates enmity. ~ Awdhesh Singh

Some people are happy only because they have managed to deceive others into believing that they are happy. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana

What everyone wants from life is continuous and genuine happiness. ~ Baruch Spinoza

Genuine happiness consists in those spiritual qualities of love, compassion, patience, tolerance and forgiveness and so on. For it is these which provide both for our happiness and others happiness. ~ Dalai Lama

According to my experience, the principal characteristic of genuine happiness is peace: inner peace. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

There can be no genuine happiness separate and apart from the home. ~ Ezra Taft Benson

Good food is the foundation of genuine happiness. ~ Auguste Escoffier

Our every action has a universal dimension, a potential impact on others' happiness. ~ Dalai Lama

Virtue and integrity are necessary for genuine happiness. Guard your integrity with care. ~ Jack Kornfield

Genuine happiness and compassion go hand in hand. ~ Dalai Lama

Thank God for the joys of family life. I have often said there can be no genuine happiness separate and apart from a good home. The sweetest influences and associations of life are there ~ Ezra Taft Benson

I know now that the most genuine happiness is kept afloat by an underlying sorrow. ~ Sere Prince Halverson

Genuine happiness comes from within, and often it comes in spontaneous feelings of joy. ~ Andrew Weil

The part when they are together for a while, the two of them, before things go wrong. The way things ended always obliterated the genuine happiness that had come before and that shouldn't be the case. ~ Ann Patchett

The Buddhist approach to this collective suffering is to turn toward it. We understand that genuine happiness and meaning will come through tending to suffering. We overcome out own despair bby helping other to overcome theirs. ~ Jack Kornfield

Doing the next "right thing" will always bring more genuine happiness than simply doing the next fun thing. ~ John Bruna

Genuine happiness can only be achieved when we transform our way of life from the unthinking pursuit of pleasure to one committed to enriching our inner lives, when we focus on 'being more' rather than simply having more. ~ Daisaku Ikeda

She experienced a moment of genuine happiness that rocked her and made her quake at the intensity of the feeling. She had a sense of being on the threshold of an entirely new purpose with a vastly different perspective. She ~ S.K. Epperson

The decision to be positive is not one that disregards or belittles the sadness that exists. It is rather a conscious choice to focus on the good and to cultivate happiness
genuine happiness. Happiness is not a limited resource. And when we devote our energy and time to trivial matters, and choose to stress over things that ultimately are insignificant. From that point, we perpetuate our own sadness, and we lose sight of the things that really make us happy and rationalize our way out of doing amazing things. ~ Christopher Aiff

In our concern for others, we worry less about ourselves. ~ Dalai Lama

I feel like people focus too much on what other people think of their lives and trying to appear like they have it all together rather than focusing on just being happy. You can't control the perception of others no matter how hard you try. Do things that promote personal growth and health. Genuine happiness is hard to miss. ~ Melanie Iglesias

What's up, Tommy?" Newt exclaimed, his face filled with genuine happiness at the pleasant surprise that'd been sprung on them. Thomas couldn't remember exactly how long it'd been since the last time he'd seen Newt. "You look bloody fantastic for three in the morning. ~ James Dashner

Too much green, too much happiness ~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

This planet is a "Hell" and there is no "Heaven" up there. So, learn to be "Happy in Hell". ~ Sandeep Mehra

Good character is the indispensable condition and chief determinant of happiness, itself the goal of all human doing. The end of all action, individual or collective, is the greatest happiness of the greatest number. ~ Aristotle.

Empty yourself by giving with kindness, to fill it with joy again and again. ~ Debasish Mridha

A happy disposition is largely a disposition to make others happy. One life permeates all things, and there is no corner of the cosmos too remote to feel its heart throb. ~ Henry Wood

A love of the republic in a democracy is a love of the democracy, as the latter is that of equality. A love of the democracy is likewise that of frugality. Since every individual ought here to enjoy the same happiness, and the same advantages, they should consequently taste the same pleasures and form the same hopes, which cannot be expected but from a general frugality. ~ Baron De Montesquieu

I have observed, not only in my sister's case, but in the instances of others, that we of the young generation are nothing like so hearty and so impulsive as some of our elders. I constantly see old people flushed and excited by the prospect of some anticipated pleasure which altogether fails to ruffle the tranquillity of their serene grandchildren. Are we, I wonder, quite such genuine boys and girls now as our seniors were in their time? Has the great advance in education taken rather too long a stride; and are we in these modern days, just the least trifle in the world too well brought up? Without ~ Wilkie Collins

#1487: Hug a cow. ~ H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

And now Genevieve had taken over. He'd move the sun if that's what it took to ensure her safety and happiness. Nothing was more important than her security. His focus was and had to be solely on her, for she had no other to champion her cause. If he didn't see to her happiness, who would? ~ Maya Banks

We believe in marbles that disintegrate when we search for them but that are as real as any genuine marble when we're not looking for them. Our very nature is such as to prevent us from fully understanding its very nature. Poised midway between the unvisualizable cosmic vastness of curved spacetime and the dubious, shadowy flickerings of charged quanta, we human beings, more like rainbows and mirages than like raindrops or boulders, are unpredictable self-writing poems - vague, metaphorical, ambiguous, and sometimes exceedingly beautiful. [...] What one gives up on is a childlike sense that things are exactly as they appear, and that our solid-seeming, marble-like "I" is the realest thing in the world; what one acquires is an appreciation of how tenuous we are at our cores, and how wildly different we are from what we seem to be. ~ Douglas R. Hofstadter

Q: Yet, I cannot see how can anything come to be without a cause.

M: When I say a thing is without a cause, I mean it can be with-out a particular cause. Your own mother was needed to give you birth; But you could not have been born without the sun and the earth. Even these could not have caused your birth without your own desire to be born. It is desire that gives birth, that gives name and form. The desirable is imagined and wanted and manifests itself as something tangible or con-ceivable. Thus is created the world in which we live, our personal world. The real world is beyond the mind's ken; we see it through the net of our desires, divided into pleasure and pain, right and wrong, inner and outer. To see the universe as it is, you must step beyond the net. It is not hard to do so, for the net is full of holes.

Q: What do you mean by holes? And how to find them?

M: Look at the net and its many contradictions. You do and undo at every step. You want peace, love, happiness and work hard to create pain, hatred and war. You want longevity and overeat, you want friendship and exploit. See your net as made of such contradictions and remove them -- *your very seeing them will make them go* ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness. ~ Henry David Thoreau

I grow warm, I begin to feel happy. There is nothing extraordinary in this, it is a small happiness of Nausea: it spreads at the bottom of the viscous puddle, at the bottom of out time - the time of purple suspenders, and broken chair seats; it is made of white, soft instants, spreading at the edge, like an oil stain. No sooner than born, it is already old, it seems as though I have known it for twenty years. ~ Jean-Paul Sartre

We are ourselves the stumbling-blocks in the way of our happiness. Place a common individual - by common, I mean with the common share of stupidity, custom, and discontent - place him in the garden of Eden, and he would not find it out unless he were told, and when told, he would not believe it. ~ Letitia Elizabeth Landon

He now often remembered his conversation with Prince Andrew and quite agreed with him, though he understood Prince Andrew's thoughts somewhat differently. Prince Andrew had thought and said that happiness could only be negative, but had said it with a shade of bitterness and irony ~ Leo Tolstoy

Whom boasts about his happiness, cause doesn't got it! ~ Miguel El Portugues

Industry is not a collection of machines and tools and buildings. It is a social entity that has the responsibility of realizing the happiness of those who work in it. ~ Luis A. Ferre

May everyone be happy and safe, and may their hearts be filled with joy. ~ Gautama Buddha

Understand that this isn't love. I have been in love but this is not the same. This is not my feeling, but some external force taking possession of me. I left because I decided it could not be, you understand, like a happiness that doesn't exist on earth; but I have struggled with myself and I see that without it there is no life. ~ Leo Tolstoy

Happy is the man who can endure the highest and lowest fortune. He who has endured such vicissitudes with equanimity has deprived misfortune of its power. ~ Seneca The Younger

Apart from this ultimate hope, the created world would be a dungeon of despair for God's children. But faith animates our lives with an eschatological anticipation of the presence and glory of Christ. We will not find our full and permanent happiness here. Nor will we find Christian joy automatically, like a daily newspaper at the door. God intends for us to find joy kinetically, in action, as we work out our faith with fear and trembling, as we fight the good fight of faith, as we worship, fellowship, and engage in all the various dynamics of the Christian life together.62 But even in this, our hope of eternal joy sobers our expectations for the joy we can expect to experience in this life. ~ Tony Reinke

Wherever you go, never forget to be the messenger and cause of happiness. ~ Debasish Mridha

If a goal is only success oriented and not happiness oriented, then it will fill your life with stress, anxiety, and frustration. ~ Debasish Mridha

Where or how huge is the place we live or in what religion we believe doesn't matters when there is no happiness in our soul life is as a empty.bottle. ~ Jan Jansen

Create your own source of built-in happiness. Walk around as a whole, happy person, needing nothing. Then come from this place of wholeness, of self-reliance and independence, and love others. Not because you want them to love you back, not because you want to be needed, but because loving them is an amazing thing to do. ~ Leo Babauta

Any education that doesn't allow you to think freely is not an education but a prison. ~ Debasish Mridha

The happiness of others is never bearable for very long ... ~ Francoise Sagan

Some of our Elders, and, in fact, some of the Twelve will tell you, 'yes, yes, the Order is a splendid principle and will bring happiness, etc., but it is not hardly time to enter into it, wait a little while until the people understand it better.' Why, they are fools! They don't know what they talk about. They have ears to hear and will not hearken, and have eyes to see and will not understand... When our conduct hedges up the way of angels how can they bless us?... How can they help us work out our salvation? When Joseph Smith was alive I can say that I never heard him lay one plan out for the people but would have been a success if it had been carried out as he directed. And I have seen the same thing in myself. I don't care how the world goes, what the President [of the U.S.] or his emissaries do. It matters nothing to me. What I am thinking of and interested about is how do the Latter-day Saints do? The devil is in the community and he has not been turned out... Well, I still have hope in Israel. ~ Brigham Young

Personally, I've come to understand that I haven't been on a journey to give my house a coffee enema and make it whistle-clean from top to bottom. I take way too much joy in rediscovering all those things that I've been collecting since I was a kid, always searching for the things that felt "real"--things that felt genuine, had stories.

I shouldn't have to give up my love of going through old boxes and making discoveries of things I forgot existed or imagined must have been given away years ago, as if I've sent a care package to myself from some distant past I only half-remember. Suddenly, surprisingly, a box full of memories will bring it all back into sharp focus. ~ Eve O. Schaub

The principles of all genuine liberty, and of wise laws and administrations are to be drawn from the Bible and sustained by its authority. The man therefore who weakens or destroys the divine authority of that book may be assessory to all the public disorders which society is doomed to suffer. ~ Noah Webster

A feeling that greater possessions, no matter of what kind they may be, will of themselves bring contentment or happiness, is a misunderstanding. No person, place, or thing can give you happiness. They may give you cause for happiness and a feeling of contentment, but the JOY of Living comes from within. ~ Genevieve Behrend