Great Happiness Quotes

Luckier than one's neighbor, but still not happy. ~ Euripides

The future is mysterious and frightening to you now, but in the end all will be well. There will be great happiness and great sorrow, you will have a family, you will find yourself capable of things you cannot now imagine. But you will persevere, and one day you will look around yourself and know that your life is good and that you are, in spite of all your early fears, happy. ~ Sara Donati

I had to experience despair, I had to sink to the greatest mental depths, to thoughts of suicide, in order to experience grace, to hear Om again, to sleep deeply again and to awaken refreshed again. I had to become a fool again in order to find Atman in myself. I had to sin in order to live again. Whither will my path yet lead me? This path is stupid, it goes in spirals, perhaps in circles, but whichever way it goes, I will follow it. He was aware of a great happiness mounting within him. ~ Hermann Hesse

It almost seemed as if there must be some random and of course unfair thrift in the emotional housekeeping of the world, if the great happiness
however temporary, however flimsy
of one person could come out of the great unhappiness of another. ~ Alice Munro

During the course of a day, some dark feeling comes, maybe some sadness comes, some thrill, some great happiness, some strange humor. Cinema can embrace all that in one story, just as the story of life. ~ David Lynch

I think if you have lost a great happiness and try to recall it, you are only asking for sorrow, but if you do not try to dwell on the happiness, sometimes you find it dwelling in your heart and body, silent but sustaining. ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

Who doubts that there may be great goodness, and great happiness, and great affection under the absolute government of a good man? Meanwhile, laws and institutions require to be adapted, not to good men, but to bad. ~ John Stuart Mill

I think one of the sweetest proofs we have of the Father's loving care for us is that we often find in this life the things which gave us great happiness below. ~ Rebecca Ruter Springer

Where there is chance of gain, there is also chance of loss. Whenever one courts great happiness, one also risks malaise. ~ Walker Percy

But when something like Angelina's murder happens," the doctor told him (Decker), "it's human nature to assume a bunker mentality. Let's shore up our defenses and put up our guard so that when something like this happens again -- when, not if -- we won't be blindsided. Problem is, we become so risk averse, we cut ourselves off from the potentially dangerous things that could bring great happiness and joy. We stop taking chances, and without those sometimes risky chances, there's no way we can win big. Our best case scenario become losing not /too/ badly. /At least no one died/ becomes our mantra. Yes, we're trapped here in this prison that we've made, where we can't possibly be happy, but at least we're not devastated by our loss and our grief. ~ Suzanne Brockmann

The finite mind of man can never grasp the mysteries of the infinite. It is the highest wisdom, as it is our great happiness, to accept our limitations, to use what we have, and leave the rest to God. ~ George Washington

Happiness is a continuation of happenings which are not resisted. ~ Deepak Chopra

It's this feeling that you want to love strangers, that you want to kiss the man at the post office, or the woman at the dry cleaners - you want to wrap you arms around life, life itself, but you can't and this feeling wells up in you, and there is nowhere to put this great happiness - and you're floating - and then you fall down and become unbearably sad. And you have to go lie down on the couch. ~ Sarah Ruhl

She believed a great happiness awaited her somewhere, and for this reason she remained calm as the days flew by. ~ Gyula Krudy

Lord Chiltern recognizes the great happiness of having a grievance. It would be a pity that so great a blessing should be thrown away upon him. ~ Anthony Trollope

It is a great happiness to be under the influence of the Holy Ghost. ~ Matthew Henry

Your dreams can be realities. They are the stuff that leads us through life toward great happiness. ~ Deborah Norville

Beauty means the scent of roses and then the death of roses ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

Real elation is when you feel you could touch a star without standing on tiptoe. ~ Doug Larson

Happiness is a mystery like religion, and should never be rationalized. ~ G.K. Chesterton

Be a hard worker. Work and happiness are like mother and daughter. Work brings forth happiness. Hard work brings great happiness. Enjoy life. ~ Israelmore Ayivor

Happiness mainly comes from our own attitude, rather than from external factors. ~ Dalai Lama

So there was splendour and wealth, but no great happiness perchance, behind the tall caned portals of Gaunt House with its smoky coronets and ciphers. The feasts there were of the grandest in London, but there was not overmuch content therewith, except among the guests who sat at my lord's table. Had he not been so great a Prince very few possibly would have visited him; but in Vanity Fair the sins of very great personages are looked at indulgently. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

The true way to render ourselves happy is to love our work and find in it our pleasure. ~ Francoise Bertaut De Motteville

That's how happiness comes. It comes in bits and pieces, at different times. When we're children we hope for great happiness, some enormous, total happiness. And as we wait for this phenomenon to take place we let the little happinesses, the only real ones, pass us by, or fail to appreciate them.

They seem to be mere trifles. A quiet conversation with a friend. Those seagulls wheeling about perhaps. This sky. The beer we drank a while ago.

Sometimes I think that these little happinesses exist precisely because they're little ones. Like those mere nobodies passing by that no one ever notices. ~ Ernesto Sabato

Van sealed the letter, found his Thunderbolt pistol in the place he had visualized, introduced one cartridge into the magazine, and translated it into its chamber. Then, standing before a closet mirror, he put the automatic to his head, at the point of the pterion, and pressed the comfortably concaved trigger. Nothing happened - or perhaps everything happened, and his destiny simply forked at that instant, as it probably does sometimes at night, especially in a strange bed, at stages of great happiness or great desolation, when we happen to die in our sleep, but continue our normal existence, with no perceptible break in the fakes serialization, on the following, neatly prepared morning, with a spurious past discreetly but firmly attached behind. ~ Vladimir Nabokov

Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness. ~ George Bernard Shaw

We can never lose anything that is good, never lose love or the memories of great happiness because they are true. ~ Joyce Grenfell

One reason why birds and horses are not unhappy is because they are not trying to impress other birds and horses. ~ Dale Carnegie

There are people who can do all fine and heroic things but one - keep from telling their happiness to the unhappy. ~ Mark Twain

Different men seek after happiness in different ways and by different means, and so make for themselves different modes of life and forms of government. ~ Aristotle.

Happiness is different from pleasure. Happiness has something to do with struggling and enduring and accomplishing. ~ George A. Sheehan

In Denver, I was a homebody, and that's a life I'd chosen with great happiness. I wanted that break from the arc lights and focus on building a lovely home, have some fun, look after my kids and do things that I had missed out on while pursuing my dream. ~ Madhuri Dixit

Households, cities, countries, and nations have enjoyed great happiness when a single individual has taken heed of the Good and Beautiful. Such people not only liberate themselves; they fill those they meet with a free mind. ~ Philo

I suppose all great happiness is a little sad. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition. ~ Arthur Rubinstein

Love is the source of great power and great strength. ~ Debasish Mridha

They are a bit small for me, Mma," she confessed. "I think you were right. But I felt great happiness when I wore them, and I shall always remember that. They are such beautiful shoes." Mma Ramotswe laughed. "Well, that's the important thing, isn't it, Mma? To feel happiness, and then to remember it." "I think that you're right," said Mma Makutsi. Happiness was an elusive thing. It had something to do with having beautiful shoes, sometimes; but it was about so much else. About a country. About a people. About having friends like this. ~ Alexander McCall Smith

Life's great happiness is to be convinced we are loved. ~ Victor Hugo

There is no great happiness which is long lasting,
There is no deep sorrow which is never ending,
Everything in life is just momentary. ~ Luffina Lourduraj

Without the dark there isn't light. Without the pain there is no relief. And I remind myself that I'm lucky to be able to feel such great sorrow, and also such great happiness. I can grab on to each moment of joy and live in those moments because I have seen the bright contrast from dark to light and back again. I am privileged to be able to recognize that the sound of laughter is a blessing and a song, and to realize that the bright hours spent with my family and friends are extraordinary treasures to be saved, because those same moments are a medicine, a balm. Those moments are a promise that life is worth fighting for, and that promise is what pulls me through when depression distorts reality and tries to convince me otherwise. ~ Jenny Lawson

He threw up the conkers into the air in his great happiness. In the tree above him they disturbed a roosting crow, which erupted from the branches with an explosive bang of its wings, then rose up above him towards the sky, its harsh, ambiguous call coming back in long, grating waves towards the earth, to be heard by those still living. ~ Sebastian Faulks

It's great to feel happy. Go, do what makes you feel happy. Do it shabbily and get shallow happiness; Do it hard and feel the hardest happiness! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

I've known great happiness in my life along with great darkness, and a question that has repeatedly entered my poetry has been, how do we use the direct experience of happiness that may be given us, whether of love and sexuality or creativity or the sense of connectedness with other beings, human and otherwise? ~ Adrienne Rich

Happiness radiates like the fragrance from a flower and draws all good things towards you. ~ Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

I figure, sometimes, bad things happen to us so we can achieve a higher purpose and attain greater happiness and fulfillment in life. ~ Omoakhuana Anthonia

I hope death will be a great happiness, a happiness as great as that of love, fulfilled love ~ Hermann Hesse

No one, not even a 'friend,' can make us better. But it is a great happiness in life to meet a person of quite different construction, different bent, completely dissimilar views who, while always remaining himself and in no wise echoing us nor currying favor with us (as sometimes happens) and not trying to insinuate his soul (and an insincere soul at that!) into our psyche, into our muddle, into our tangle, would stand as a firm wall, as a check to our follies and our irrationalities, which every human being has. Friendship lies in contradiction and not in agreement! Verily, God granted me Strakhov as a teacher and my friendship with him, my feelings for him were ever a kind of firm wall on which I felt I could always lean, or rather rest. And it won't let you fall, and it gives warmth ~ Vasily Rozanov

Forget that you are anybody and just perform the activities around you. Look at them. Watch what you are doing, my God! Life is right in front of you, and it's great. ~ Frederick Lenz

A simple act of kindness could be the source of great happiness. ~ Debasish Mridha

Central to knowing the Father is understanding the revealed pattern of family. The family is the most important unit in time and in eternity and is ordained of God. Living in loving family relationships not only brings us great happiness, but it also helps us learn correct principles and prepares us for eternal life. In addition, family relationships help us know, love, and understand the Father. This is one reason Latter-day Saints have always emphasized the importance of marriage and family both in the Church and in society. God's plan provides a way for family relationships to extend beyond the grave. We can return to the presence of God, eternally united with our families. ~ Quentin L. Cook

If all the world were green, there would be no such thing as the color green. Similarly, men cannot know what it is to be together without otherwise knowing what it is to be apart. If all the world were love, then, how could love exist? This is why we turn away from each other on moments of great happiness and closeness. How can we know happiness and closeness without contrasting them, like lights? ~ Jack Kerouac

My personal life is as monotonous as ever; but they have given me permission to walk in the garden, where there are almost seventeen trees ! This is a great happiness for me. Moreover, I am given a candle in the evenings - that's my second piece of luck. The third will be mine if you answer as soon as possible, and send me the next number of the 0. Z. I am in the same position as a country subscriber, and await each number as a great event, like some landed proprietor dying of boredom in the provinces. Will you send me some historical works ? That would be splendid. But best of all would be the Bible (both Testaments). I need one. Should it prove possible, send it in a French translation. But if you could add as well a Slav edition, it would be the height of bliss. Of ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Pleasure is spread through the earth In stray gifts to be claimed by whoever shall find. ~ William Wordsworth

Spiritual practice, by uprooting our personal mythologies of isolation, uncovers the radiant, joyful heart within each of us and manifests this radiance to the world. We find, beneath the wounding concepts of separation, a connection both to ourselves and to all beings. We find a source of great happiness that is beyond concepts and beyond convention. Freeing ourselves from the illusion of separation allows us to live in a natural freedom rather than be driven by preconceptions about our own boundaries and limitations. ~ Sharon Salzberg

So, after awhile, you can only get so much happiness from a guy who's drunk come up and tell you you're great. ~ Rick Derringer

It is great happiness to be praised of them who are most praiseworthy. ~ Philip Sidney

Everyone wishes their life were happier."
Lily shook her head. "No. Not like beautiful people. They walk this earth, their chin up to the rest of us, and think that great happiness, great love, great joy is their right and their prerogative. Passion as the entitlement of the beautiful, the way power is the entitlement of the rich." Lily paused. "Especially when it comes to love. Beauty and love become somehow synonymous. How can plain people have great love? They can't, that's how. They can have average love, mediocre love, but their hearts can't soar. Only beautiful hearts can soar."
"I think you've hit on the nail right there," said Spencer. "Beautiful people don't necessarily have beautiful hearts."
"But it doesn't matter, don't you see? You don't fall in love with a heart. You fall in love with a woman's face, with her body, with her hair, with her smell. That's first, everything else is secondary. My mother's beauty when she was young was so extreme that she didn't understand how every man who met her didn't love her in extremis. ~ Paullina Simons

Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment. ~ George Santayana

Happiness is a simple game of lost and found: Lose the things you take for granted, and you will feel great happiness once they are found. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

If your own mental attitude is correct, even if you remain in a hostile atmosphere, you feel happy. ~ Dalai Lama

Childhood may have periods of great happiness, but it also has times that must simply be endured. Childhood at its best is a form of slavery tempered by affection. ~ Robertson Davies

We are never so happy, nor so unhappy, as we suppose ourselves to be. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, in the enjoyment of one's self, and, in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions. ~ Joseph Addison

Maybe life is just a quiet affair, interspersed with moments of great happiness and grief. Maybe it is the quiet that needs to emerge again, to balance the current run of craziness. ~ Jennifer Olds

My vicinity affords many good walks; and though for so many years I have walked almost every day, and sometimes for several days together, I have not yet exhausted them. An absolutely new prospect is a great happiness, and I can still get this any afternoon. Two or three hours' walking will carry me to as strange a country as I ever expect to see. ~ Henry David Thoreau

Happiness comes when your work and words are of benefit to others. ~ Gautama Buddha

We have the opportunity to get an education and make something of ourselves. We have many reasons to hope for great happiness, but we have to earn it. And that is something you can't achieve by taking the easy ways out. Earning happiness means doing good and working, not speculating and being lazy. ~ Anne Frank

People don't realize the great happiness there is in living to be very old and together all the time. ~ Gunnar Myrdal

The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase; if you pursue happiness you'll never find it. ~ C.P. Snow

Behind all this, some great happiness is hiding. ~ Yehuda Amichai

He is different, and there will be many people you love who will be unhappy with you. You don't want them to feel you've dishonored them. Yes, I know how it is. But life is short. A chance for great happiness doesn't come along all that often. ~ Dean Koontz

He who has found a good wife has found great happiness, but a quarrelsome woman is like a roof that lets in the rain. ~ Andre Maurois

To have the sense of creative activity is the great happiness and the great proof of being alive. ~ Matthew Arnold

The end will be what it will be. The object is intense living, fulfillment; the great happiness in creation. ~ Robert Henri

Those who decide to use leisure as a means of mental development, who love good music, good books, good pictures, good company, good conversation, are the happiest people in the world. ~ William Lyon Phelps

When great happiness unexpectedly swoops down on people, they suddenly turn into cowards. ~ Novala Takemoto

In order to have great happiness, you have to have great pain and unhappiness-otherwise how would you know when you're happy? ~ Leslie Caron

What a waste for such a handsome man to be..."
Minna chuckled. "So you find him attractive."
"Who would not, My Queen?"
"Indeed, you are right. Who would not? But alas, no woman will ever find comfort in his arms, or passion in his eyes, though it is not impossible that he should love. A woman willing to sacrifice the hope of children might find great happiness with him if she was prepared to be his friend."
"But would he wish it? ~ T.C. Southwell

The greatest happiness is to transform one's feelings into action. ~ Madame De Stael

Your success is not measured in terms of what all you obtained but in term of what you become, how you live and what actions you do. Upon this point reflect well and attain great happiness ~ Swami Vivekananda

Wonderful souls make life wonderful. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

My friend, it is not an arduous task that I bequeath, for our order knows only silken bonds. To be gentle and patient, to care for the riches of the mind, to preside in wisdom and secrecy while the storm rages without - it will all be very pleasantly simple for you, and you will doubtless find great happiness. ~ James Hilton

Triumphing over great difficulties can lead to great happiness. ~ Stephen Richards

Happiness lies neither in vice nor in virtue; but in the manner we appreciate the one and the other, and the choice we make pursuant to our individual organization. ~ Marquis De Sade

We should laugh before being happy, for fear of dying without having laughed. ~ Jean De La Bruyere

You guys know I love you, right?" I glance between them, knowing they'll freak, but it has to be said.
They look at each other, exchanging a look of alarm, both of them wondering what could've possibly happened to the girl they once pegged as the Ice Queen.
"Um, okay ... " Haven says, shaking her head.
But I just smile and grasp them both to me, squeezing them tightly as I whisper to Miles, "Whatever you do don't stop acting or singing, it's going to bring you great happiness."
And before he can respond, I've moved on to Haven, knowing I have to get this over with and quick, so I can get Damen to Ava's, but determined to find a way to urge her to love herself more, and that Josh is worth hanging on to for however long it lasts. "You have so much value," I tell her. "So much to give
I just wish you could see how bright your star truly does shine."
"Um, gag!" she says, laughing as she untangles herself from my grip. "Are you okay? ~ Alyson Noel

Robust health and optimism produce happiness. The power of a sunny soul to transform the most trying situations in life is beyond all power to compute. The world loves the sunny soul, the man who carries his holidays in his eye and his sunshine with him. The determination to be kind and helpful to every one, to be cheerful, no matter what comes to us, is a great happiness producer. When a man does not find repose in himself it is vain for him to seek it elsewhere. ~ Orison Swett Marden

Happiness is an attitude of mind, born of the simple determination to be happy under all outward circumstances. ~ J. Donald Walters

Now that the House of Commons is trying to become useful, it does a great deal of harm. ~ Oscar Wilde

There is a beautiful expression of this in the Chandogya Upanishad: 'There is this City of Brahman, (that is the body), and in this city there is a shrine, and in that shrine there is a small lotus, and in that lotus there is a small space, (akasa). Now what exists within that small space, that is to be sought, that is to be understood.' This is the great discovery of the Upanishads, this inner shrine, this guha, or cave of the heart, where the inner meaning of life, of all human existence, is to be found. ~ Bede Griffiths

Marcus Aurelius appoints personal character and conscience the ultimate refuge of happiness-seekers: the only place where dreams of happiness, doomed to die childless and intestate anywhere else, are not bound to be frustrated. ~ Zygmunt Bauman

I understood the life around me better, not from love, which everybody acknowledges to be a great teacher, but from estrangement, to which nobody has attributed the power of reinforcing insight ~ Nirad C. Chaudhuri

Global warming has melted the polar ice caps, raised the levels of the oceans and flooded the earth's great cities. Despite its evident prosperity, New Jersey is scarcely Utopia. ~ Godfried Danneels

I always wanted a great love affair: something that feels big and full, really honest, and enough. No moment should feel slight, false, or a little off. For me, it had to be everything. ~ Angelina Jolie

That's the great secret of creativity. You treat ideas like cats: you make them follow you. ~ Ray Bradbury

Because He came to earth, we have a perfect example to follow. As we strive to become more like Him, we will have joy and happiness in our lives and peace each day of the year. It is His example which, if followed, stirs within us more kindness and love, more respect and concern for others. ~ Thomas S. Monson

There is a kind of despair involved in creation which I am sure any artist knows all about. In art, as in morality, great things go by the board because at the crucial moment we blink our eyes. When is the crucial moment? Greatness is to recognize it and be able to hold it and to extend it. But for most of us the space between 'dreaming on things to come' and 'it is too late, it is all over' is too tiny to enter. And so we let each thing go, thinking vaguely that it will always be given to us to try again. Thus works of art, and thus whole lives of men, are spoilt by blinking and moving quickly on. I often found that I had ideas for stories, but by the time I had thought them out in detail they seemed to me hardly worth writing, as if I had already 'done' them: not because they were bad, but because they already belonged to the past and I had lost interest. My thoughts were soon stale to me. Some things I ruined by starting them too soon. Others by thinking them so intensely in my head that they were over before they began. Projects would change in a second from hazy uncommitted dreams into unsalvageable ancient history. Whole novels existed only in their titles. ~ Iris Murdoch

For me, and for thousands with similar inclinations, the most important passion of life is the overpowering desire to escape periodically from the clutches of a mechanistic civilization. To us the enjoyment of solitude, complete independence, and the beauty of undefiled panoramas is absolutely essential to happiness. ~ Bob Marshall

My favorite foods are things that aren't great to eat, like pizza. ~ Stephen Pagliuca