Striving For Happiness Quotes

To give the short version, I've learnt that every human being, with or without disabilities, needs to strive to do their best, and by striving for happiness you will arrive at happiness. For us, you see, having autism is normal
so we can't know for sure what your 'normal' is even like. But so long as we can learn to love ourselves, I'm not sure how much it matters whether we're normal or austitic. ~ Naoki Higashida

Striving for happiness is a long, hard journey with many challenges. It requires eternal vigilance to win the victory. You cannot succeed with sporadic little flashes of effort. Constant and valiant living is necessary. ~ Jack H. Goaslind

Perfect happiness is the absence of striving for happiness. ~ Zhuangzi

I'm constantly in doubt about what I'm doing, I'm constantly tortured, and that's why I say happiness is irrelevant. Happiness is for children and yuppies. I'm not striving for happiness, I'm trying to get some work done. And sometimes the best work is done under doubt. Constant rethinking, and reevaluating what you're doing, working and working until you feel it's finished. And that's an interesting point too, that you've got to know when to stop. Sometimes there's a magical moment when everything comes together. ~ John Zorn

Well, you get my point: You've go one life with zero guarantees, so you do your best, adapt if possible, and keep on breathing. I recommend striving for happiness, but many opt for duty and responsibility. Mileage varies. ~ Beth Harbison

Hinduism - indeed, most eastern religions - tells us that striving, even striving for happiness, is self-defeating. The moment you try to improve yourself, you've failed. Game over. Yet just lie there like a zombie and you lose, too. What to do? ~ Eric Weiner

Happiness is the abscence of the striving for happiness. ~ Zhuangzi

All that lives is striving for happiness; yet a thousand and one pains and fears attend upon every pleasure which man seeks through the ignorance of exclusiveness. ~ Meher Baba

I've learned that every human being, with or without disabilities, needs to strive to do their best, and by striving for happiness you will arrive at happiness. For us, you see, having autism is normal - so we can't know for sure what your "normal" is even like. ~ Naoki Higashida

The destiny of mankind is arranged for happy moments every life has such but not for happy times. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

We, Equality 7-2521, were not happy in those year in the Home of the Students. It was not that the learning was too hard for us. It was that the learning was too easy. This is a great sin, to be born with a head which is too quick. It is not good to be different from our brothers, but it is evil to be superior to them. The Teachers told us so, and they frowned when they looked at us. ~ Ayn Rand

Where do we find happiness? Unfortunately, the common belief with most people is that happiness is something that happens to them when conditions are just right rather than something that happens through them when they choose to make space for it. While outer conditions may stimulate the feeling of happiness, it can never come from anywhere other than within us. Authentic happiness isn't something we can go out and get, buy, borrow, or steal. Nor can any form of artificial sensory stimulus generate true happiness; it's only something we can be, and it's a choice we make with every breath we take. ~ Dennis Merritt Jones

only as idiocy! I hope that you will write to tell me along what curves your mind is moving. For my own part I feel that we are on the verge of amazing things. Long ago I fell back on books as the only permanent consolers. They are the one stainless and unimpeachable achievement of the human race. It saddens me to think that I shall have to die with thousands of books unread that would have given me noble and unblemished happiness. I will tell you a secret. I have never read King Lear, and have purposely refrained from doing so. If I were ever very ill I would only need to say to myself "You can't die yet, you haven't read Lear." That would bring me round, I know it would. You ~ Christopher Morley

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

My Ona Elena once told me something important," Adam said, hesitant now that the force of Levec's anger had deserted him. "Happiness is like a seed." Before Levec could speak, Adam lifted a hand. "She said that anger and hatred and love are like seeds as well. All the things we feel that endure, are."
"And we are?"
"Dirt," Adam replied.
"I might agree with that statement, but I'm certain you intend to go elsewhere with it."
"We are earth. But we are like different types of earth, in different climates. Not all seeds that fall from a tree take root. Not all things that take root survive. We cannot be given happiness. Only the seed of it. We might not recognize the seed," he added. "Because we can't see the tree it might become. We are surrounded by trees, and the seeds in our hands looks nothing like them.
"For some, the earth is damp and fertile, and all seeds take root. But for others, the earth is hard, and water scarce. Elena believed that no man--or woman--starts life as a desert. But without trees, any many or woman can become one." - Adam ~ Michelle West

Perfection may be an island out of reach, but setting your sails toward it makes for a magnificent voyage. ~ Richelle E. Goodrich

But there is an unbounded pleasure to be had in the possession of a young, newly blossoming soul! It is like a flower, from which the best aroma evaporates when meeting the first ray of the sun; you must pluck it at that minute, breathing it in until you're satisfied, and then throw it onto the road: perhaps someone will pick it up! I feel this insatiable greed, which swallows everything it meets on its way. I look at the suffering and joy of others only in their relation to me, as though it is food that supports the strength of my soul. I myself am not capable of going mad under the influence of passion. My ambition is stifled by circumstances, but it has manifested itself in another way, for ambition is nothing other than a thirst for power, and my best pleasure is to subject everyone around me to my will, to arouse feelings of love, devotion and fear of me - is this not the first sign and the greatest triumph of power? Being someone's reason for suffering while not being in any position to claim the right - isn't this the sweetest nourishment for our pride? And what is happiness? Sated pride. If I considered myself to be better, more powerful than everyone in the world, I would be happy. If everyone loved me, I would find endless sources of love within myself. Evil spawns evil. The first experience of torture gives an understanding of the pleasure in tormenting others. An evil idea cannot enter a person's head without his wanting to bring it into reality: ideas are organic ~ Mikhail Lermontov

Love the broken.
Lift the fallen.
Care for the barren. ~ Debasish Mridha

I think now happiness is a thing you practice like music until you have skill in striking the right notes on time. We have no vocation for it. And I had no practice, not a day when I was free from care and one great anxiety - and one must be free to be happy. I know that much about it by having missed it. ~ Corra May Harris

Happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found. ~ Thomas Merton

Metz's Perfection chronicles with lapidary precision one woman's climb back to happiness after not just a spouse's death, but also the shocking recognition that her life before that death was not what she had thought it was. The journey is a painful one, but Ms. Metz is much the stronger for having survived to recount it. ~ Julie Powell

When happiness becomes our standard for judging truth, things that make us happy give us permission to do some things that otherwise would be considered wrong. ~ Craig Groeschel

Purring would seem to be, in her case, an automatic safety valve device for dealing with happiness overflow. ~ Monica Edwards

Gratitude is a powerful catalyst for happiness.
It's the spark that lights a fire of joy in your soul. ~ Amy Collette

I scarcely remember counting upon happiness - I look not for it if it be not in the present hour - nothing startles me beyond the moment. The setting sun will always set me to rights, or if a sparrow come before my Window I take part in its existence and pick about the gravel. ~ John Keats

In the school of mortality, we experience tenderness, love, kindness, happiness, sorrow, disappointment, pain, and even the challenges of physical limitations in ways that prepare us for eternity. ~ David A. Bednar

To me, one of the saddest things in all the life of Jesus Christ was the fact that just before His crucifixion, His disciples should have been striving to see who should be the greatest, that night He instituted the Supper, and they ate the Passover together. It was His last night on earth, and they never saw Him so sorrowful before. He knew Judas was going to sell Him for thirty pieces of silver. He knew that Peter would deny Him. And yet, in addition to this, when going into the very shadow of the cross, there arose this strife as to who should be the greatest. He ~ D.L. Moody

Tooled cowboy boots, engraved hip flask and, in recognition of his new passion for geology, a nineteenth-century explorer's specimen hammer in a leather case. To bless his second adolescence on turning fifty, a trumpet that had once belonged to Guy Barker. These offerings represented only a fraction of the happiness she urged on him, and sex was only one part of that fraction, and only latterly a failure, elevated by him into a mighty injustice. ~ Ian McEwan

Secure in whom we are, rooted in one particular tradition or none at all, we have no reason to fear discovering God in the truth and wisdom of many traditions. Love casts out fear inviting us into happiness for all people and Creation. ~ Robert V. Taylor

If you cannot afford yourself any luxuries for the time being, at least offer yourself the one priceless luxury no one can take away from you – your time ~ Lauren Klarfeld

So I tell you, my son, that the secret of true happiness is for him who asks nothing in return. The perfectly unselfish man is the one who finds his glory in God. Give what you have to give, and it will come back to you. All materials to build thy home in this world or the inner cosmic worlds come from within, from the God center in thy heart. ~ Paul Twitchell

Perhaps nuns felt like this, she thought, when they passed within convent walls and left the glitter of the world behind. But their renunciation was of the will, while circumstances beyond her control had stripped her of the people who meant everything to her. And yet was it not possible that they had endured the same impoverishment, so that when the glory that was life had become husks they found it good to exchange those dead things for service and whatever vicarious happiness could be salvaged? Maybe selflessness was only selfishness on another level. ~ Margaret Landon

For the first time she knew and loved the Spirit of good and beauty, an affinity to which affords the greatest bliss that our nature can receive. ~ Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Never let them try out this gratitude, for they would immediately discover that it supplies the first and most important component to happiness: Contentment. ~ Geoffrey Wood

Paris is a sensuous woman every man has loved, even if only in his dreams. Once he has been deep inside her, walked her streets and tasted her delights, he can never forget her. Yet no matter how strong the memory of her remains, it cannot prepare him for the sheer beauty of her nakedness as he gazes upon her for the second time; the intoxicating fragrance of her hair as it brushes against him as it did when she let him love her; the softness of her skin beneath his fingertips as he strokes her breathtakingly graceful form; or the searing fire which courses through every fiber of his soul now that she is within reach.

For every man blessed with a woman's love, she is a shrine to his happiness now that he need search no more. But for those who reside in obscurity within the lonely domicile of an empty heart, she is the hope of finding love. In his tortured heart, love waits for him at a corner cafe in the woman's smile two tables away; it lingers in the melodic laughter of a girl riding past him on a bicycle; and sometimes, when the woman is smiling at someone else, and the girl rides past him without notice, he finds love beneath the skirt of the darkly sensual woman waiting for him under a streetlamp. ~ Bobby Underwood

This heroic story is not just another myth. Myths are fictions, but this one is true-true to the best of our knowledge, which is the only truth we can have. We believe it because we have reasons to believe it. As we learn more, we can show which parts of the story continue to be true, and which ones false-as any of them might be, and any could become.

And the story belongs not to any tribe but to all of humanity-to any sentient creature with the power of reason and the urge to persist in its being. For it requires only the convictions that life is better than death, health is better than sickness, abundance is better than want, freedom is better tha coercion, happiness is better than suffering, and knowledge is better than superstition and ignorance. ~ Steven Pinker

Whether one is rich or poor, educated or illiterate, religious or nonbelieving, man or woman, black, white, or brown, we are all the same. Physically, emotionally, and mentally, we are all equal. We all share basic needs for food, shelter, safety, and love. We all aspire to happiness and we all shun suffering. Each of us has hopes, worries, fears, and dreams. Each of us wants the best for our family and loved ones. We all experience pain when we suffer loss and joy when we achieve what we seek. On this fundamental level, religion, ethnicity, culture, and language make no difference. ~ Dalai Lama XIV

There is no happiness for any individual, man or woman, who does not dwell within the broad zone of average. Pandora ~ Lisa Kleypas

The discrimination between good and evil is in man's soul. Every man can judge that for himself, because in every man is the sense of admiration of beauty. Happiness only lies in thinking or doing that which one considers beautiful. Such an act becomes a virtue or goodness. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

The first Easter Chris was gone, I stayed up late Saturday night to hide the Easter eggs. We got up early, and I watched as Bubba and Angel went to work finding them. You can't help but smile at kids who are just alive with the fun of it all. For a few moments I was so absolutely into their happiness that I forgot how tired I was, and didn't think of Chris or the fact that we were missing him so badly.
Finally, after all the eggs and candy were gathered, I told the kids I was going to take a shower and get ready for the rest of the day. I was feeling great--until I closed the door behind me.
The sense of loss that I'd been screening out hit me. It drove me to my knees, and I began crying uncontrollably.
There was a knock on the door. Angel opened it and looked in. I did my best to smile. "Hey, what's up?" I asked.
"Are you okay, Momma?"
"Yes."
"You miss Daddy?" she asked.
I nodded.
Angel came in and gave me a hug. "You know he's still here with us, right?"
"Yes. Yes, I do. ~ Taya Kyle

So if loss of what gives happiness causes you distress when it fades, you can now understand that such happiness is worthless. It is said, those who lose themselves in their desire for things also lose their innate nature by being vulgar. ~ Zhuangzi

Don't work for something in Exchange, Work on something for a Change. ~ Kevin Awad

Darling gave him a sad smile. "Maris and I have been to hell and home together. Back to back, we have defended each other with everything we possess. Anytime we needed to turn to someone, we called each other. Until today. When he thought he was dying, it was your voice he wanted to hear last. Not mine. Honestly, a part of me is a little hurt. I've never had to share him before with anyone. But I love him enough to let him go. His happiness means everything to me." "Me, too." Darling hugged him close. "Thank you for calling me." "Thank you for saving him." He pulled back and offered his hand to Ture. "Brothers?" "Brothers." * ~ Sherrilyn Kenyon

What if happiness is a choice? ~ Sunanda J. Chatterjee

William Butler Yeats's "Second Coming" seems perfectly to render our present predicament: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity." This is an excellent description of the current split between anaemic liberals and impassioned fundamentalists. "The best" are no longer able to fully engage, while "the worst" engage in racist, religious, sexist fanaticism.
However, are the terrorist fundamentalists, be they Christian or Muslim, really fundamentalists in the authentic sense of the term? Do they really believe? What they lack is a feature that is easy to discern in all authentic fundamentalists, from Tibetan Buddhists to the Amish in the U.S.: the absence of resentment and envy, the deep indifference towards the non-believers' way of life. If today's so-called fundamentalists really believe they have their way to truth, why should they feel threatened by non-believers, why should they envy them? When a Buddhist encounters a Western hedonist, he hardly condemns him. He just benevolently notes that the hedonist's search for happiness is self-defeating. In contrast to true fundamentalists, the terrorist pseudo-fundamentalists are deeply bothered, intrigued, fascinated by the sinful life of the non-believers. One can feel that, in fighting the sinful Other, they are fighting their own temptation. These so-called Christian or Muslim fundamentalists are a disgrace to true fundamentalists.
It is here that Yeats's diagnosis falls short ~ Slavoj Zizek

Want and need are not the same things either. A want can be foregone. It is voluntary, a nice-to-have.

A need is required, a necessity. If he needed me, I'd be essential for his success, for his happiness. ~ Cynthia Sax

Find out what makes you happy and do it. If you are happy, you bring happiness for the world. ~ Debasish Mridha

I cared about you too much," said Dumbledore simply. "I cared more for your happiness than your knowing the truth, ~ J.K. Rowling

In life, it's between choosing risk and striving for greatness, or risking nothing and being certain of mediocrity ~ Keith Ferrazzi

The wisdom mind is the core of your being. It is happy, simple, at peace and hopeful, filled with dignity, and self-pride, but always showing humility, for it is aware that all are equal and possess the same wisdom mind. It desires happiness for you and for those around you, being compassionate, sincere, and generous. The ordinary mind on the other hand, surrounds the wisdom mind as a swirling vortex of racing thoughts and ideas, along with negative and troubling emotions, clouding your view of your wisdom mind and causing you much pain and suffering. As ~ Michael Tsiaming