Famous Quotes & Sayings

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Would all, who cherish such wild wishes, but look around them, they would oftenest find their sphere of duty, of prosperity, and happiness, within those precincts, and in that station where Providence itself has cast their lot. Happy they who read the riddle without a weary world-search, or a lifetime spent in vain!

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Who can tell where happiness may come, or where, though an expected guest, it may never show its face?

Nathaniel Hawthorne

There is something more awful in happiness than in sorrow--the latter being earthly and finite, the former composed of the substance and texture of eternity, so that spirits still embodied may well tremble at it.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

That pit of blackness that lies beneath us, everywhere ... the firmest substance of human happiness is but a thin crust spread over it, with just reality enough to bear up the illusive stage-scenery amid which we tread. It needs no earthquake to open the chasm.

Nathaniel Hawthorne

The world owes all its onward impulses to men ill at ease. The happy man inevitably confines himself within ancient limits.

Thomas Aquinas

There can be no joy in living without joy in work.

Therese of Lisieux

It isn't enough to love; we must prove it.

Terry Pratchett

It's tough at the top. It's tough at the bottom. But in between you could use them for horse-shoes.

Randall Jarrell

Read at whim! Read at whim!

Ralph Waldo Emerson

To fill the hour──that is happiness.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

There is always a best way of doing everything, if it be to boil an egg. Manners are the happy ways of doing things.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

To fill the hour; that is happiness to fill the hour, and leave no crevice for a repentance or an approval.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

I look on that man as happy, who, when there is question of success, looks into his work for a reply.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Say thank you! I want to hear you say it now. Out loud. 'Thank you.' You're saying thank you because your faith is so strong that you don't doubt that whatever the problem, you'll get through it. You're saying thank you because you know that even in the eye of the storm, God has put a rainbow in the clouds. You're saying thank you because you know there's no problem created that can compare to the Creator of all things. Say thank you!

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Don't be a cynic, and bewail and bemoan. Omit the negative propositions. Don't waste yourself in rejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good. Set down nothing that will help somebody.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Man's life is a progress, not a station.

Sean Hannity

One of my producers said this business is like a hamster on that little wheel thing that goes around and around. You may have a great day and get great ratings, but then you've got another show to do - whatever moment of success or happiness you have you've got to keep grinding it out for the next day.

Shelby Foote

A combination of all that was best in the gladdest days of the departing year...

Pearl S. Buck

To serve is beautiful, but only if it is done with joy and a whole heart and a free mind.

Pearl S. Buck

Growth itself contains the germ of happiness.

Peter Ustinov

I was irrevocably betrothed to laughter, the sound of which has always seemed to me the most civilised music in the world.

Peter Ustinov

Laughter would be bereaved if snobbery died.

Pema Chodron

The happiness we seek cannot be found through grasping, trying to hold on to things. It cannot be found through getting serious and uptight about wanting things to go in the direction we think will bring happiness. We are always taking hold of the wrong end of the stick. The point is that the happiness we seek is already here and it will be found through relaxation and letting go rather than through struggle.

Peter Cook

Life is a matter of passing the time enjoyably. There may be other things in life, but I've been too busy passing my time enjoyably to think very deeply about them.

Pearl Bailey

A crown, if it hurts us, is not worth wearing.

Phyllis Diller

A smile is a curve that sets everything straight.

Rachel Field

Too much good fortune can make you smug and unaware. Happiness should be like an oasis, the greener for the desert that surrounds it.

Rabindranath Tagore

Beauty is truth's smile when she beholds her own face in a perfect mirror.

Queen Victoria

I think people really marry far too much; it is such a lottery after all, and for a poor woman a very doubtful happiness.

Thomas Merton

True happiness is found in unselfish Love, A love which increases in proportion as it is shared.

Thomas Merton

Thinking about monastic ideals is not the same as living up to them, but at any rate such thinking has an important place in a monk's life, because you cannot begin to do anything unless you have some idea what you are trying to do.

Thomas Merton

A happiness that is sought for ourselves alone can never be found: for a happiness that is diminished by being shared is not big enough to make us happy.

Thomas Carlyle

Man's unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite.