Pursuing Happiness Quotes

You don't become happy by pursuing happiness. You become happy by living a life that means something. ~ Harold S. Kushner

In America, we are entitled to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

There is no such expression in France. In fact, in France, the equivalent expression is la recherche du bonheur (looking for happiness). On the surface, this might seem as if I am splitting hairs, but if you really examine the idea of "looking" for happiness as opposed to "pursuing" happiness, you'll see there's actually a big difference.

If we're looking for something, it feels as if it's there hiding in plain sight. And all we have to do is be patient and when the room is quiet, quickly lift up the tablecloth and voilà! There it is! Happiness!

On the other hand, pursuing implies a kind of chasing after something.

"Looking for happiness" seems gentler. There is happiness and we just need to look. ~ Jamie Cat Callan

I wanted to show I had balls at age 60. Just because society says I'm old, doesn't mean that I am. I'm pursuing happiness, even if it makes the people around me unhappy. ~ Sylvester Stallone

Among the strange things of this world, nothing seems more strange than that men pursuing happiness should knowingly quit the right and take a wrong road, and frequently do what their judgments neither approve nor prefer. ~ John Jay

How can you tell somebody who is pursuing happiness that they're somehow not American when that was the very first promise that America made? ~ Dan Savage

I don't think that sin and pursuing happiness are not necessarily the same thing. ~ Dan Savage

People are pursuing happiness, but they're pursuing things that will never, ever make them happy, and they don't know that. They've got a distorted view of what will make them happy, what happiness is, and it's based on what they see on television. ~ Rush Limbaugh

the pursuit of our soul's satisfaction--our joy and delight and happiness--is not sin. Sin is the exact opposite: pursuing happiness where no lasting happiness can be found. "My people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns, that can hold no water" (Jer. 2:13, RSV). Sin is trying to quench our unquenchable soul-thirst anywhere but in God. Or, more subtly, sin is pursuing satisfaction in the right direction, but with lukewarm, halfhearted affections (Rev. 3:16). ~ John Piper

Smart people often talk trash about happiness and worse than trash about books on happiness, and they have been doing so for centuries - just as long as other people have been pursuing happiness and writing books about it. ~ Amy Bloom

The value of taking risks through all stages of life is constant ... it's the excuses that change. ~ Rik Leaf

The saying goes that history repeats itself; personal histories do the same. We can gather the lessons of others' lives through observation, conversation, and by seeking advice. We can use the automatic system to find out who the happy people are, and the reflective system to evaluate how they got to be that way. Pursuing happiness need not be a lonely endeavor. In fact, throwing in our lot with others may be a very good way of coping with the disappointments of choice. ~ Sheena Iyengar

I can say that I never knew what joy was like until I gave up pursuing happiness, or cared to live until I chose to die. For these two discoveries I am beholden to Jesus. ~ Malcolm Muggeridge

Pursue Meaning, Not Happiness

Feeling happy is like feeling warm. It's a state of being that feels good. It might sound counterintuitive but focusing directly on pursuing happiness isn't always the best approach to increasing it. This parallels the idea that focusing on reducing anxiety isn't always the best way to decrease it.
What's an alternative to focusing on increasing your happiness? A better idea is focusing on pursuing things that feel meaningful. I'm not necessarily suggesting Mother Teresa-type activities. What gives you a sense of meaning could be anything from cooking for your friends to puttering away on projects in your garage.
Pursuing meaning rather than happiness helps you feel calmer when you're not feeling happy in a particular moment. It smooths out the emotional bumps that come with mistakes, failures, and disappointments. There's research showing that stress tends to be harmful only if you believe that it's harmful and that you can't cope with it. It's easier to believe in your capacity to cope with stress if the stress is part of the bigger picture of building a meaningful life.
Experiment: What makes for a meaningful life from your perspective? Skip over what you think you should answer and identify what's actually true for you. ~ Alice Boyes

Pursuing happiness, and I did, and I still do, is not at all the same as being happy
which I think is fleeting, dependent on circumstances ... If the sun is shining, stand in it
yes, yes, yes. Happy times are great, but happy times pass
they have to because time passes. The pursuit of happiness is more elusive; it is life-long, and it is not goal-centered. What you are pursuing is meaning
a meaningful life. There's the hap
the fate, the draw that is yours, and it isn't fixed, but changing the course of the stream, or dealing new cards, whatever metaphor you want to use
that's going to take a lot of energy. There are times when it will go so wrong that you will barely be alive, and times when you realise that being barely alive, on your own terms, is better than living a bloated half-life on someone else's terms. The pursuit isn't all or nothing
it's all AND nothing. ~ Jeanette Winterson

Too much of the world's happiness depends on taking from one to satisfy another. To increase my standard of living, someone in another part of the world must lower his. The worldwide crisis of hunger that we face today is a result of that method of pursuing happiness. Industrialized nations acquire appetites for more and more luxuries and higher and higher standards of living, and increasing numbers of people are made poor and hungry. It doesn't have to be that way ... ~ Eugene H. Peterson

Therefore, for me, living true to my self may be defined as: Making the daily choices in all areas of my life that are in the best interests of my survival, evolution and prosperity, that aid the ongoing achievement of the highest physical, mental and spiritual objectives of which I am capable, that are based on the most correct assessment of reality I have available, and that honor the evolving truth of who I am and who I choose to be, all in the personal pursuit of freedom, function, fun, as well as the highest good of all. ~ Walt F.J. Goodridge

Hurry home, darling," she said. "Hurry home." And how's that for a man to have! When I hung up, I stood by the phone all weak and leaky and happy if there is such a condition. I tried to think how it had been before Mary, and I couldn't remember, or how it would be without her, and I could not imagine it except that it would be a condition bordered in black. ~ John Steinbeck

It is my duty to give back with interest as much as I borrowed from this world. ~ Debasish Mridha

In a storm of struggles, I have tried to control the elements, clasp the fist tight so as to protect self and happiness. But stress can be an addiction, and worry can be our lunge for control, and we forget the answer to this moment is always yes because of Christ. ~ Ann Voskamp

Where there are no changes there is no life. A plant has to change to bloom. ~ Debasish Mridha

Law students are famous for busting their buns to make high grades, sometimes at the expense of health and relationships, thinking, 'Later I'll be happy, because the American dream will be mine,' " said Lawrence S. Krieger, a law professor at Florida State University and an author of the study. "Nice, except it doesn't work." The problem with the more prestigious jobs, said Mr. Krieger, is that they do not provide feelings of competence, autonomy or connection to others - three pillars of self-determination theory, the psychological model of human happiness on which the study was based. Public-service jobs do. ~ Anonymous

Her eyes are beautiful, eloquent, and frightened, and seem to be telling the man: "You're a clumsy lover . . . You don't begin to understand me . . . I don't really know you, and you scare me . . . You sneer at everything I like . . . You lie so well! . . . You possess me completely, yet I can't trust you . . . If you knew what limpid springs you wall up within me because I fear you! 'What am I doing here at your side? Would that this music could free me of you forever! Or else that this violin would stop before I find out any more about you! You yearn for my undoing, not my happiness, and what is worst in me assures you of your victory. ~ Colette

It doesn't make sense to call ourselves ugly, because we don't really see ourselves. We don't watch ourselves sleeping in bed, curled up and silent with chests rising and falling with our own rhythm. We don't see ourselves reading a book, eyes fluttering and glowing. You don't see yourself looking at someone with love and care inside your heart. There's no mirror in your way when you're laughing and smiling and happiness is leaking out of you. You would know exactly how bright and beautiful you are if you saw yourself in the moments where you are truly yourself. ~ Anonymous

Happiness is the relief after extreme tension ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

I saw the figure of 178 Billion wasted/stolen from the people of a country by its corrupt and inept government. Such a figure could truly transform the entire country; education, health, roads, schooling, entrepreneurial environment ... of millions of people, rather than be secreted away as a few more 0000's in global bank accounts for the greeders.
We need to Rethink Public Service, Values, Ethics and Leadership. ~ Tony Dovale

Mass culture is Peter Pan culture. It tells us that if we close our eyes, if we visualize what we want, if we have faith in ourselves, if we tell God that we believe in miracles, if we tap into our inner strength, if we grasp that we are truly exceptional, if we focus on happiness, our lives will be harmonious and complete. This cultural retreat into illusion, whether peddled by positive psychologists, Hollywood, or Christian preachers, is a form of magical thinking. It turns worthless mortgages and debt into wealth. It turns the destruction of our manufacturing base into an opportunity for growth. It turns alienation and anxiety into a cheerful conformity. It turns a nation that wages illegal wars and administers off-shore penal colonies where it openly practices torture into the greatest democracy on earth. ~ Chris Hedges

Let us be the joy to find the joy
Let us be the love to find the love
Let us be kind to find kindness
Let us be happy to find happiness.
Let us be simple to find simplicity
Let us be modest to find modesty
Let us feel to comprehend
Let us listen to understand
Let us live our life to be
Let us close our eyes to see. ~ Debasish Mridha

None of us are perfect, so a true friend will never look for defects in you as a person, it won't even cross their mind. Your happiness will be their main concern. ~ Ron Baratono

If you were happy every day of your life you wouldn't be a human being, you'd be a game show host. ~ Gabriel Heatter

And yet, in Raissa, at every moment there is a child in a window who laughs seeing a dog that has jumped on a shed to bite into a piece of polenta dropped by a stonemason who has shouted from the top of the scaffolding, "Darling, let me dip into it," to a young servant-maid who holds up a dish of ragout under the pergola, happy to serve it to the umbrella-maker who is celebrating a successful transaction, a white lace parasol bought to display at the races by a great lady in love with an officer who has smiled at her taking the last jump, happy man, and still happier his horse, flying over the obstacles, seeing a francolin flying in the sky, happy bird freed from its cage by a painter happy at having painted it feather by feather, speckled with red and yellow in the illumination of that page in the volume where the philosopher says: "Also in Raissa, city of sadness, there runs an invisible thread that binds one living being to another for a moment, then unravels, then is stretched again between moving points as it draws new and rapid patterns so that at every second the unhappy city contains a happy city unaware of its own existence. ~ Italo Calvino

You are claiming what is yours, and that is a prosperous life. A prosperous life of peace, joy, love, happiness, inspiration, creativity, hope and guidance. Although it was taken from you because you were brainwashed to put others first, you have found your birthright. Having a prosperous life has always been your birthright! ~ Charlena E. Jackson

I shall therefore discourse equally of both, convinced that human happiness never continues long in one stay. ~ Herodotus

Because it isn't a loss; just a little piece of their haven had broken off. People can patch things; it still may hurt, but that's life. ~ Mandi Lynn

What you think of about a nation or a situation is your self-expression and mind's reflection. ~ Debasish Mridha

A place in the sun. It's all I ask. I don't need to see the world, stomping my unworthy feet on every inch of it. I just need a spot, a tiny sliver of this planet, where happiness shouldn't be so much of a struggle. ~ Brigitte Bautista

Perfection is pure-fiction. ~ Janelle Jalbert

It is true that money cannot buy happiness but it does make it possible for you to enjoy the best that the world has to offer. ~ George S. Clason

About my father.....
My father was a very simple person. When I was small I never understood why he is so simple actually I disliked it. He use to go to office and return late and have dinner with us. I use to think he never stood for me on anything. But he was the person who uses to take me to the market for Diwali shopping. He uses to give me 20 Rs to eat at school when he had only 30. He tried to fulfill all my wishes in his range. He uses to take me on his bicycle after school tuition and walk while making me sit on bicycle. He uses to scare away lizards for me. He uses to play with me. He was the one who told me to work hard when I failed. He never scolded me for studies but only when I killed an insect intentionally. He was the one who taught me physics and mathematics.
Once he found a wounded parrot on the road and he bought him home. He brought medicine for him and applied it on his wounds. Later on a cat took that parrot and he ran after her but the parrot died. He did not had proper food for three four days.
He spent each and every penny of his earning for our happiness and never forgot to return any pending amount. He use to talk to us but very less and joke sometimes. His style was very different, we use to tell him to use dye or color on his hairs but he always refused. And when he smiled and laughed he doesn't stop. For every question he had one answer:-"TRUST GOD HE WILL DO EVERYTHING,HE IS THE ONE WHO DOES EVERYTHING". He uses to discuss with us ~ Amit Dixit

If Heaven had looked upon riches to be a valuable thing, it would not have given them to such a scoundrel. ~ Jonathan Swift

Happiness is hard because it's very subjective. I know the people that seem happiest to me, but whether they are actually - what they're really like inside is really hard to say. ~ Gretchen Rubin

Laughter is a sunbeam of the soul. ~ Thomas Mann

Everyone makes me happy some people when they come into my life, others when they go. ~ Kambiz Shabankareh

The real enemy of happiness is the mind's fixations and delusions ... If you have the right mind, you can overcome anything - you can be happy, no matter what. ~ Dalai Lama

The truth is that life is hard and dangerous; that he who seeks his own happiness does not find it; that he who is weak must suffer; that he who demands love will be disappointed; that he who is greedy will not be fed; that he who seeks peace will find strife; that truth is only for the brave; that joy is only for him who does not fear to be alone; that life is only for the one who is not afraid to die. ~ Joyce Cary

Don't lose your happiness on the pursuit for more ~ Mike Stud

Stop comparing yourself to others and you'll be happy. ~ Marty Rubin

Happiness is.. looking at the closing door, then bolting them from outside and fleeing. ~ Vikrmn

I come to my solitary woodland walk as the homesick go home. I thus dispose of the superfluous and see things as they are, grand and beautiful. ~ Henry David Thoreau

What you think, is what you are

What goes around, comes around

Happiness begins with you and your thoughts ~ Pattimari Sheets Cacciolfi

The sadness isn't their sadness.
The sadness is the way

they will never unpack the rucksack
of happiness again.

They'll never surface as divers rising
through leagues of joy, through sun
willowing through the bottom half of waves.

They'll never surface again.
Again and again,

they will never surface. ~ Carl Adamshick

Never in my life had I been so happy. Nothing could go wrong, everything was happening my way, all the doors were clicking open one by one, and life couldn't have been more radiant: it was shining right at me, and when I turned my bike left or right, or tried to move away from its light, it followed me as limelight follows an actor onstage. I craved him but I could just as easily live without him, and either way was fine. ~ Andre Aciman

Although we presume that we act because of the way we feel, in fact we often feel because of the way we act. ~ Gretchen Rubin

I am sitting at my kitchen table waiting for my lover to arrive with lettuce and tomatoes and rum and sherry wine and a big floury loaf of bread in the fading sunlight. Coffee is percolating gently, and my mood is mellow. I have been very happy lately, just wallowing in it selfishly, knowing it will not last very long, which is all the more reason to enjoy it now. I suppose life always ends badly for almost everybody. We must have long fingers and catch at whatever we can while it is passing near us. ~ Tennessee Williams

The most common regret that people have on their deathbed is that they lived their life according to the desires of others, not how they wanted to. ~ Prem Jagyasi

We can condition our bodies and minds to happiness with the five practices of letting go, inviting positive seeds, mindfulness, concentration, and insight. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

Happiness was not a word that seemed to apply anymore, when she had lost so many close to her. There was a contentment that felt deeper, that acknowledged and accepted the quieter offerings of small joys-- of love and occasional peace in a life that was full of pain. ~ Peter Heller

What you do for your own happiness should ultimately make everyone happy. ~ Lalithambika Antharjanam

Simply to have all the necessities of life and three meals a day will not bring happiness. Happiness is hidden in the unnecessary and in those impractical things that bring delight to the inner person. ~ Edward M Hays

With every change, I took a step toward my own happiness, and I strengthened the muscles that would lift me out of the place where I thought myself to be stuck. ~ Mari Andrew

If you can honor yourself and be real about your discomfort and pain, then your happiness will be just as real. ~ Bryant McGill

All you want is to be happy. All your desires, whatever they may be, are longing for happiness. Basically, you wish yourself well ... desire by itself is not wrong. It is life itself, the urge to grow in knowledge and experience. It is choices you make that are wrong. To imagine that some little thing-food, sex, power, fame-will make you happy is to decieve oneself. Only something as vast and deep as your real self can make you truly and lastingly happy. ~ Nisargadatta Maharaj

I had no idea that the simple act of running a sharp blade across my wrist would change everything so completely.
I wasn't after happiness anymore. I just wanted to survive. ~ Victoria Leatham

Happiness comes from righteous living and the development of a noble character. You can observe this by noticing that people who are truly happy are honest, unselfish, kind, responsible and have a high moral standards. On the other hand, unhappy people are invariably selfish, lazy, irresponsible and lacking of self discipline. And people who are miserable tend to be immoral, dishonest, greedy, cruel, or in other ways dark in character. ~ Helen B. Andelin

Take pleasure only when it is. ~ Agnel Vishal