Famous quotes
Quotes by famous people, credited to who said them. Your own quotes must not match any of these. More are added all the time. 1,159,190 quotes Who coined it · How we decide
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Happiness
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“Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know, Are a substantial world, both pure and good: Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood, Our pastime and our happiness will grow.”
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) first seen 1806 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Personal Talk. Sonnets, no. 3 (wr. 1806; pub. 1807)
“Whom neither shape of danger can dismay, Nor thought of tender happiness betray.”
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Sad fancies do we then affect, In luxury of disrespect To our own prodigal excess Of too familiar happiness.”
William Wordsworth (1770–1850) said by 1850 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Awl human happiness is conservatiff; 2 thirds ov the pleasure in sliding down hill consists in drawing the sled back. I don't serpoze thare would be enny fun in sliding down a hill 34 miles long.”
Josh Billings (1818–1885) said by 1885 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“True happiness is of a retired nature, and an enemy to pomp and noise; it arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one's self, and in the next, from the friendship and conversation of a few select companions.”
Joseph Addison (1672–1719) first seen 1711 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: No. 15 (March 17, 1711)
Also quoted by: ジョゼフ・アディソン (ja)
“Historians desiring to write the actions of men, ought to set down the simple truth, and not say anything for love or hatred; also to choose such an opportunity for writing as it may be lawful to think what they will, and write what they think, which is a rare happiness of the time.”
Walter Raleigh (1552–1618) said by 1618 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“To each his suff'rings: all are men, Condemn'd alike to groan, The tender for another's pain; Th' unfeeling for his own. Yet ah! why should they know their fate? Since sorrow never comes too late, And happiness too swiftly flies. Thought would destroy their paradise. No more; where ignorance is bliss, 'Tis folly to be wise.”
Thomas Gray (1716–1771) said by 1771 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Justice, sir, is the great interest of man on Earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together. Wherever her temple stands, and so long as it is duly honored, there is a foundation for social security, general happiness and the improvement and progress of our race.”
Daniel Webster (1782–1852) first seen 1845 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: On Mr. Justice Story (September 12, 1845); reported in Edward Everett, ed., The Works of Daniel Webster (1851), page 300
“A sense of duty pursues us ever. It is omnipresent, like the Deity. If we take to ourselves the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, duty performed or duty violated is still with us, for our happiness or our misery. If we say the darkness shall cover us, in the darkness as in the light our obligations are yet with us.”
Daniel Webster (1782–1852) said by 1852 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The happiness and unhappiness of the rational, social animal depends not on what he feels but on what he does; just as his virtue and vice consist not in feeling but in doing.”
Marcus Aurelius (121–180) said by 180 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
“Next week I shall begin my operations on my hat, on which you know my principal hopes of happiness depend.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) first seen 1798 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter (1798-10-27) [Letters of Jane Austen -- Brabourne Edition]
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“A large income is the best recipe for happiness I ever heard of.”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...why did we wait for any thing? — why not seize the pleasure at once? — How often is happiness destroyed by preparation, foolish preparation!”
Jane Austen (1775–1817) said by 1817 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Every one of these hundreds of millions of human beings is in some form seeking happiness...Not one is altogether noble nor altogether trustworthy nor altogether consistent; and not one is altogether vile...Not a single one but has at some time wept.”
H. G. Wells (1866–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Raymond Passworthy: Oh, God, is there ever to be any age of happiness? Is there never to be any rest?”
H. G. Wells (1866–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oswald Cabal: Little animals. And if we're no more than animals, we must snatch each little scrap of happiness, and live, and suffer, and pass, mattering no more than all the other animals do or have done. It is this, or that. All the universe or nothing. Which shall it be, Passworthy? Which shall it be?”
H. G. Wells (1866–1946) said by 1946 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Happiness in the ordinary sense is not what one needs in life, though one is right to aim at it. The true satisfaction is to come through and see those whom one loves come through.”
E. M. Forster (1879–1970) first seen 1922 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter 216, to Florence Barger, 11 February 1922
“Friendship is the greatest of worldly goods. Certainly to me it is the chief happiness of life. If I had to give a piece of advice to a young man about a place to live, I think I shd. say, 'sacrifice almost everything to live where you can be near your friends.'”
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) first seen 1935 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to Arthur Greeves (29 December 1935); in They Stand Together (1979), p. 477
“I wish I had never been born," she said. "What are we born for?" "For infinite happiness," said the Spirit. "You can step out into it at any moment. . . .”
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“God cannot give us a happiness and peace apart from Himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing.”
C. S. Lewis (1898–1963) said by 1963 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All you can be sure about in a political-minded writer is that if his work should last you will have to skip the politics when you read it. Many of the so-called politically enlisted writers change their politics frequently... Perhaps it can be respected as a form of the pursuit of happiness.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The only thing that could spoil a day was people.... People were always the limiters of happiness except for the very few that were as good as spring itself.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.”
Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Fun I love, but too much Fun is of all things the most loathsom. Mirth is better than Fun & Happiness is better than Mirth.”
William Blake (1757–1827) said by 1827 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“...some say that Happiness is not Good for Mortals & they ought to be answerd that Sorrow is not fit for Immortals & is utterly useless to any one a blight never does good to a tree & if a blight kill not a tree but it still bear fruit let none say that the fruit was in consequence of the blight.”
William Blake (1757–1827) first seen 1803 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Letter to William Hayley (1803-10-07)
“For his [the artist's] life is, of necessity, full of conflicts, since two forces fight in him: the ordinary man with his justified claim for happiness, contentment, and guarantees for living on the one hand, and the ruthless creative passion on the other, which under certain conditions crushes all personal desires into the dust.”
Carl Jung (1875–1961) said by 1961 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I hold to faith in the divine love — which, so many years ago for a brief moment in a little corner of the earth, walked about as a man bearing the name of Jesus Christ — as the foundation on which alone my happiness rests.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1773 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: (1773), translated by Albert Schweizer in Goethe: Five Studies (1961), Beacon Press, p. 53
“A thinking man's greatest happiness is to have fathomed what can be fathomed and to revere in silence what cannot be fathomed.”
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) first seen 1207 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Maxim 1207, trans. Stopp (p153)
“Music, states of happiness, mythology, faces belabored by time, certain twilights and certain places try to tell us something, or have said something we should not have missed, or are about to say something; this imminence of a revelation which does not occur is, perhaps, the aesthetic phenomenon.”
Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) first seen 1950 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: The Wall and the Books" ["La muralla y los libros"] (1950)
“Skepticism is the chastity of the intellect, and it is shameful to surrender it too soon or to the first comer: there is nobility in preserving it coolly and proudly through long youth, until at last, in the ripeness of instinct and discretion, it can be safely exchanged for fidelity and happiness.”
George Santayana (1863–1952) said by 1952 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Also quoted by: Carl Sagan
“And thus the soul pities God and feels itself pitied by him; loves Him and feels loved by Him, sheltering its misery in the bosom of the eternal and infinite misery, which, in eternalizing itself and infinitizing itself, is the supreme happiness itself.”
Miguel de Unamuno (1864–1936) said by 1936 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“All unprejudiced persons objectively surveying the grim events in Bangladesh since March 25 have recognized the revolt of 75 million people, a people who were forced to the conclusion that neither their life, nor their liberty, to say nothing of the possibility of the pursuit of happiness, was available to them.”
Indira Gandhi (1917–1984) first seen 1971 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: Referring to the fundamental rights of "Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" in the United States Declaration of Independence in a letter to Richard Nixon (December 15, 1971)..
“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 (1795–1821) first seen 1817 wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
Recorded in: To Benjamin Bailey (November 22, 1817)
“Wherein lies happiness? In that which becks Our ready minds to fellowship divine, A fellowship with essence; till we shine, Full alchemiz'd, and free of space. Behold The clear religion of heaven!”
John Keats (1795–1821) said by 1821 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“It is not true that suffering ennobles the character; happiness does that sometimes, but suffering, for the most part, makes men petty and vindictive.”
W. Somerset Maugham (1874–1965) said by 1965 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The refractory pupil of Socrates, Aristippus the Cyrene, who believed happiness to be the sum of particular pleasures and golden moments and not, as Epicurus, a prolonged intermediary state between ecstasy and pain.”
Cyril Connolly (1903–1974) said by 1974 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“I'm upset by the happiness of all these men who don't know they're unhappy. [...] Because of that, though, I love them all. Dear vegetables!”
Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) said by 1935 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The thirst after happiness is never extinguished in the heart of man.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Visions are a feeble resource, you will say, against great adversity! Oh Sir, these visions may possibly have more reality than all those apparent goods about which men make so much ado, for they never bring a true feeling of happiness to the soul, and those who possess them are equally forced to project themselves into the future for want of finding enjoyments that satisfy them, in the present.”
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) said by 1778 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The only interesting philosophers are the ones who have stopped thinking and have begun to search for happiness.”
Emil Cioran (1911–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Neither this world, nor the next, nor happiness are for the being abandoned to doubt." — This point in the Gita is my death sentence.”
Emil Cioran (1911–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Love's great (and sole) originality is to make happiness indistinct from misery.”
Emil Cioran (1911–1995) said by 1995 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Love a woman? You're an ass! 'Tis a most insipid passion To choose out for your happiness The silliest part of God's creation.”
John Wilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester (1647–1680) said by 1680 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“The great end of all human industry, is the attainment of happiness. For this were arts invented, sciences cultivated, laws ordained, and societies modelled, by the most profound wisdom of patriots and legislators.”
David Hume (1711–1776) said by 1776 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Oh, all Know love is woman's happiness.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“Hope is love's happiness, but not its life;— How many hearts have nourished a vain flame In silence and in secret, though they knew They fed the scorching fire that would consume them!”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source
“And this is Love! Oh! why should woman love; Wasting her dearest feelings, till health, hope, Happiness, are but things of which henceforth She'll only know the name?”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) said by 1838 at the latest wikiquote, CC BY-SA 4.0 source