Quotes about Happiness

The best means of forming a manly, virtuous, and happy people will be found in the right education of youth. Without this foundation, every other means, in my opinion, must fail.

The free society does not guarantee virtue any more than it guarantees happiness. But it allows for the pursuit of both, a pursuit rendered all the more meaningful and profound because success is not guaranteed: it has to be won through personal striving.

Sometimes when I watch my dog, I think about how good life can be, if we only lose ourselves in our stories. Lucy doesn't read self-help books about how to be a dog; she just IS a dog. All she wants to do is chase ducks and sticks and do other things that make both her and me happy. It makes me wonder if that was the intention for man, to chase sticks and ducks, to name animals, to create families, and to keep looking back at God to feed off his pleasure at our pleasure.

I think the things we want most in life, the things we think will set us free, are not the thing we need.

We live in a world where bad stories are told, stories that teach us life doesn't mean anything and that humanity has no great purpose. It's a good calling, then, to speak a better story. How brightly a better story shines. How easily the world looks to it in wonder. How grateful we are to hear these stories, and how happy it makes us to repeat them.

We were meant to enjoy life, not be drowned by it.

If you are a dentist, you might say: Could your smile be better? You could be happy with your smile. Schedule an appointment today.

If I was going to make Betsy happy, I'd have to trust that my flaws were the ways through which I would receive grace. We don't think of our flaws as the glue that binds us to the people we love, but they are. Grace only sticks to our imperfections. Those who can't accept their imperfections can't accept grace either.

The world cannot satisfy the heart, because the heart is too large for the object.

As a general rule, in the long run of life, it will be found true that sanctified people are the happiest people on earth. They have solid comforts that the world can neither give nor take away.

Depend on it; there is no surer road to unhappiness than always having our own way. To have our wills checked and denied is a blessed thing for us; it makes us value enjoyments when they come. To be indulged perpetually is the way to be made selfish, and selfish people and spoiled children are seldom happy.

A sanctified person will try to do good in the world. He will try to lessen the sorrow and increase the happiness of all around him. He will strive to be like his Master, full of kindness and love to everyone — not in word only, by calling people "dear," but by deeds and actions and self-denying work, according as he has opportunity.