Famous Quotes & Sayings

Miguel de Cervantes

He who sings frightens away his ills.

John Muir

I never saw a discontented tree. They grip the ground as though they liked it, and though fast rooted they travel about as far as we do.

John W. Gardner

Storybook happiness involves every form of pleasant thumb-twiddling; true happiness involves the full use of one's powers and talents.

John Tillotson

Men expect that religion should cost them no pains, that happiness should drop into their laps without any design and endeavor on their part, and that, after they have done what they please while they live, God should snatch them up to heaven when they die. But though the commandments of God be not grievous, yet it is fit to let men know that they are not thus easy.

John Tillotson

To be happy is not only to be freed from the pains and diseases of the body, but from anxiety and vexation of spirit; not only to enjoy the pleasures of sense, but peace of conscience and tranquillity of mind.

John Templeton

Happiness comes from spiritual wealth, not material wealth... Happiness comes from giving, not getting. If we try hard to bring happiness to others, we cannot stop it from coming to us also. To get joy, we must give it, and to keep joy, we must scatter it. .

John Stossel

Happiness comes when we test our skills towards some meaningful purpose.

Nigella Lawson

I do think awful things may happen at any moment, so while they are not happening, you may as well be pleased.

Happy who in his verse can gently steer From grave to light, from pleasant to severe.

Nicolas Chamfort

It is with happiness as with watches: the less complicated, the less easily deranged.

Nicolas Chamfort

I only study the things I like; I apply my mind only to matters that interest me. They'll be useful-or useless-to me or to others in due course, I'll be given-or not given-the opportunity of benefiting from what I've learned. In any case, I'll have enjoyed the inestimable advantage of doing things I like doing and following my own inclinations.

Nicolas Chamfort

Pleasure can be supported by an illusion; but happiness rests upon truth.

Nicki Minaj

Don't stay watching happiness, make it.

Nikos Kazantzakis

I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.

Neil Gaiman

Whatever it takes to finish things, finish. You will learn more from a glorious failure than you ever will from something you never finished.

Nassau William Senior

With respect to the first of these obstacles, it has often been made a matter of grave complaint against Political Economists, that they confine their attention to Wealth, and disregard all consideration of Happiness or Virtue.

Myrtle Reed

The only way to win happiness is to give it. The more we give, the more we have.

Morris West

If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you'll never enjoy the sunshine.

Mort Walker

Laughter is the brush that sweeps away the cobwebs of your heart.

Mignon McLaughlin

Many things can make you miserable for weeks; few can bring you a whole day of happiness.

John Ruskin

All real and wholesome enjoyments possible to people have been just as possible to them since first they were made of the earth as they are now; and they are possible to them chiefly in peace. To watch the corn grow, and the blossoms set; to draw hard breath over plowshare or spade; to read, to think, to love, to hope: these are the things that make people happy.

John Ruskin

God intends no man to live in this world without working, but it seems to me no less evident that He intends every man to be happy in his work.

John Ruskin

No human face is exactly the same in its lines on each side, no leaf perfect in its lobes, no branch in its symmetry. All admit irregularity as they imply change; and to banish imperfection is to destroy expression, to check exertion, to paralyze vitality. All things are literally better, lovelier, and more beloved for the imperfections which have been divinely appointed, that the law of human life may be Effort, and the law of human judgment, Mercy.

Matthew Arnold

The world hath failed to impart the joy our youth forebodes; failed to fill up the void which in our breasts we bear.

Matthew Arnold

All knowledge is interesting to a wise man, and the knowledge of nature is interesting to all men.

Matthew Arnold

Ah love, let us be true to one another, which seems to lie before us like a land of dreams; so various, so beautiful, so new, hath really neither joy nor love nor life.

Maxwell Maltz

If you wait until circumstances justify your thinking pleasant thoughts, you are likely to wait forever.

Maxwell Maltz

Happiness is simply a state of mind in which our thinking is pleasant a good share of the time.

Maya Angelou

When you wish someone joy, you wish them peace, love, prosperity, happiness... all the good things.

Maya Angelou

We need Joy as we need air. We need Love as we need water. We need each other as we need the earth we share.

Max Beerbohm

Nobody ever died of laughter.

Maurice Chevalier

If you wait for the perfect moment when all is safe and assured, it may never arrive. Mountains will not be climbed, races won, or lasting happiness achieved.

Matthew Quick

Life is not a PG feel-good movie. Real life often ends badly. Literature tries to document this reality, while showing us it is still possible for us to endure nobly.