Quotes about happiness and its pursuit

Last Updated on 07/11/2023

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Discover inspirational quotes about the pursuit of happiness, its nature, its meaning, and if there is a way to learn to be happy.

Most wishes are for happiness. Most people say that they are seeking happiness. But I wonder how many of us can define happiness and the nature of this feeling. Reading about happiness, one can find different theories about its nature. There is the idea of happy moments that come and go. On the other hand, there is the perception that happiness is a state of mind and isn’t connected with external conditions. And, of course, there are so many quotes about happiness, its meaning, and its pursuit. In this post, you will find not only my favorite but also the most popular or inspirational of them.

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The Pursuit of Happiness quotes

What does the word happiness mean?

In many European languages, the etymology of the word happy comes from words that mean to be favored by fortune. This convergence of etymologies isn’t accidental. It shows something that the contemporary, rational human brain sometimes forgets. Happiness isn’t only about personal efforts or unique characteristics, like intelligence, virtue, or bravery. It’s also about propitious circumstances!

• The ancient word “hap” meant chance or a person’s luck.
• The Greek word “ευτυχία” is a synthetic word of good (“ευ”) + luck (“τύχη”). But, the ancient Greeks were using the word “eudaimonia” for happiness. This word had the meaning of having a good “demon” (spirit). Thus, a favorable destiny from gods.
• Many other languages have words for happiness with analogous etymology and meaning. All Roman languages have the Latin word “felicitas”. The French language has the word “heureux” or “bonheur”, the German the word “gluecklich”, and the Russian the word “счастливый” .
• Even, the Chinese ideogram Fú 福 means both “good fortune” and “happiness”.

— “The concept of happiness is such an indeterminate that although every human being wishes to achieve it, he can never determinately and self-consinstently say what he really wishes and wills.”

Immanuel Kant

— “He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.”

Herman Esse

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The Nature of Happiness

In his book “The Nature of Happiness”, the anthropologist Desmond Morris suggests that for people happiness is a long-lasting feeling. For example, we will live happily ever after, if we win the lottery or find true love. But Morris argues that we feel the intense emotion of happiness for a while. It happens when something improves our situation radically. So, these are some examples of most people feeling happy:

• the moment our child is born,
• the time of our wedding,
• dating someone we fell in love with,
• an important prize,
• a salary increase,
• a promotion,
• a lottery-winning,
• passing an important test or exam,
• a super-delicious meal,
• a successful mountain climbing or winning in sports, etc.

All of these and a million others can offer us moments of bliss and memorable happy moments. And they can fill us with excitement, satisfaction, and fulfillment. Yet, after a while, we will be again in search of the next happy “x”. So, this realization of the nature of happiness is revealing and it can save us from future bitterness and disappointments. We should look for many happy moments, not a long happy period “from A to Z”. The more frequent they are, the less unhappy we feel.

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Be happy quotes

Happiness may be an internal state but there are external things that support and strengthen this feeling. Barbara Ann Kipfer wrote a book with ‘14000 things to be happy about’. It’s a huge list and some people may find it unnecessary. Who cares about happiness when one has to battle with so many problems? But, in these difficult periods, inner strength and stability play a major role in the result. And, they demand a portion of self-satisfaction and happiness.

“Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”

— Abraham Lincoln

“To be happy means to be free and to be free means to be brave.”

— Perikles

“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”

— Albert Camus

“Very little is needed to make a happy life. It is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.”

— Marcus Aurelius

“If life has any meaning or purpose, you won’t find it in happiness, but in something more rational, in something greater.”

— Anton Chekhov

“Be happy with what you have while working with what you want”.

— Helen Keller

Quotes about the Pursuit of Happiness

We spend a lot of time learning various things to gain new skills for our job. But, do we consider it important to learn how to be happy? Sometimes I feel that everyone waits for the living conditions or others to make him happy. On the contrary, most of the experts and researchers in relevant books and articles about happiness agree on one thing. Happiness is something we can cultivate on our own.

“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”

— Aristotle

“There’s no path to happiness. Happiness is the path.”

— Buddha

“Happiness is not achieved by the conscious pursuit of happiness; it is generally the by-product of other activities.”

— Aldus Haxley

“Now and then it’s good to pause in your pursuit of happiness and just be happy”.

— Guillaume Apollinaire

“It’s not the pursuit of happiness that find fulfilment, it is the pursuit of happiness”.

— Dennis Waitley

“The pursuit of happiness is a toxic value that has long defined our culture. It is self-defeating and misleading. Living well does not mean avoiding suffering; it means suffering for the right reasons. Because if we’re going to be forced to suffer by simply existing, we might as well learn how to suffer well.”

— Mark Manson

“The mistake we make in putting emphasis on happiness is to forget that life is a process, defined by activity and motion, and to search instead for the one perfect state of being. There can be no such state, since change is the essence of life.”

— Sean Carroll

“The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase: If you pursue happiness you’ll never find it.”

— C.P. Snow

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Things that make you happy quotes

Neuroscientist Richard Davidson in How “Happiness Can Be Learned” suggests that we can learn how to be happy. And, it doesn’t differ from other skills practicing. It’s like learning to play a musical instrument or engage in a sports activity. Moreover, according to the article ‘Learning Brings Happiness’ by Manfred Spitzer, happiness and learning are very closely linked anyway.

To have the will to learn every day a new thing is evidence that you don’t quit. It proves that you have an internal concept of evolution and self-growth. Moreover, the process of learning can bring joy and happiness on its own, when it’s about things we like. So, learning meaningful things for us is inevitable to create feelings of contentment and self-fulfillment.

There are many books and articles that explain numerous ways to cultivate happiness in our lives. The easiest and simplest thing is to write a list of things that makes you happy. And, try to do one of them every day. Every day we find it easy to make all kinds of lists. Shopping lists, to-do lists, wish lists, lists of bills, duties, etc. But, we forget to reward ourselves with small doses of happiness. We forget why we do what we do in our lives. Thus, following this process, we may gradually discover the happiness of pursuit which is more realistic and

“Don’t let the expectations and opinions of other people affect your decisions. It’s your life, not theirs. Do what matters most to you; do what makes you feel alive and happy. Don’t let the expectations and ideas of others limit who you are. 

— Roy T. Bennett

“It isn’t what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.”

— Dale Carnegie

“Find something that makes you happy and use it to make others happy”.

— Dallas Clayton

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