Secrets of Spiritual Happiness
by Sharon Janis
Different Folks, Different Strokes
(Quotes about Happiness)
Before jumping into the refreshing waters of spiritual happiness, let's visit what some great thinkers and philosophers have said about what happiness is, what brings greater happiness, whether happiness is worth seeking, and where happiness exists.
What is happiness?
The full use of your powers along lines of excellence.
-- definition of "happiness" by John F. Kennedy
Happiness is the way of travel--not a destination.
--Roy M. Goodman
Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.
--George Burns
Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued, is always just beyond your grasp, but which, if you will set down quietly, may alight upon you.
--Nathaniel Hawthorne
True happiness is.... to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.
--Seneca
What brings greater happiness?
The ingredients of happiness are so simple that they can be counted on one hand. First of all, happiness must be shared. Selfishness is its enemy; to make another happy is to be happy one's self. It is quiet, seldom found for long in crowds, most easily won in moments of solitude and reflection. It comes from within, and rests most securely on simple goodness and clear conscience.
--William Ogden
Happiness... it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.
-- Vincent Van Gogh
Whoever possesses God is happy.
--Augustine
Men's happiness and misery depends altogether as much upon their own humor as it does upon fortune.
-- François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld
Doing good is the greatest happiness.
-- Chinese proverb
To find out what one is fitted to do and to secure an opportunity to do it is the key to happiness.
--John Dewey
Happy are those who find wisdom... She is more precious than jewels, and nothing you desire can compare with her. Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.
-- Torah
People who recommend happiness
I believe that the very purpose of life is to be happy.
-- Dalai Lama
Be happy while you're living, for you're a long time dead.
-- Scottish Proverb
The superior man is always happy.
-- Confucius
Nobody really cares if you're miserable, so you might as well be happy.
-- Cynthia Nelms
The good of mankind means the attainment, by every man, of all the happiness which he can enjoy without diminishing the happiness of his fellow men.
-- Thomas Henry Huxley
Happiness is the only sanction of life; where happiness fails, existence remains a mad and lamentable experiment.
-- George Santayana
People who don't like happiness:
The "pursuit of happiness" is responsible for a good part of the ills and miseries of the modern world.
-- Malcolm Muggeridge
Only the spirit of rebellion craves for happiness in this life. What right have we human beings to happiness?
--Henrik Ibsen
Happiness serves hardly any other purpose than to make unhappiness possible.
-- Marcel Proust
Extreme happiness begets tragedy.
-- Chinese proverb
Happiness is a monstrosity! Punished are those who seek it.
--Gustave Flaubert
Happiness is easy
If a man is unhappy, remember that his unhappiness is his own fault, for God made all men to be happy.
--Epictetus
If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years.
-- Bertrand Russell
Most happiness is overlooked because it doesn't cost anything.
--William Ogden
Being unconditionally happy is a practice: "Come what may, today I'm going to smile. Anyway, everything is going to die! Everything is going to vanish and disappear---so what! Who cares! Let me at least be happy, smile this moment, enjoy my very breath."
-- Sri Sri Ravi Shankar
Happiness is impossible to capture
The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase; if you pursue happiness you'll never find it.
--C. P. Snow
Perfect happiness is the absence of the striving for happiness.
--Chuang Tsu
A great obstacle to happiness is to expect too much happiness.
--Bernard Fontanelle
The search for happiness ... always ends in the ghastly sense of the bottomless nothingness into which you will inevitably fall if you strain any further.
--D.H. Lawrence
Happiness lies outside
It is in the love of one's family only that heartfelt happiness is known.
--Thomas Jefferson
A comfortable house is a great source of happiness. It ranks immediately after health and a good conscience.
--Sydney Smith
It's not money that brings happiness, it's lots of money.
-- Russian saying
All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast.
--John Gunther
My whole working philosophy is that the only stable happiness for mankind is that it shall live married in blessed union to woman-kind--intimacy, physical and psychical between a man and his wife. I wish to add that my state of bliss is by no means perfect.
--D.H. Lawrence
Happiness dwells within
Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.
--Ramana Maharshi
You must try to generate happiness within yourself. If you aren't happy in one place, chances are you won't be happy anyplace.
-- Ernie Banks
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise man grows it under his feet.
--James Oppenheim
I am happy even before I have a reason.
-- Hafiz
This world is mortal. You have to attain the immortal happiness. If you don't attain the eternal joy in this mortal world, then your life is in vain.
--Baba Muktananda
