The Secret to Happiness
27 Famous People Share Their Thoughts
“My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I’m happy. I can’t figure it out. What am I doing right?”
– Charles Schulz
The general consensus is that babies are born happy.
Why shouldn’t they be?
When they’re not, they cry. When they cry, they either get held, changed or fed. Their needs are simple.
So, by definition, can we say that happiness is merely needs fulfilled?
Ah, but it’s more complicated than that.
Because needs get more complicated with age.
OK. Babies grow. They toddle around and maybe they fall. They get picked up, hugged, kissed, and cleaned up.
“Poor baby. What can I do to make you happy?’
Now we’re adding the element of expectation to the game. The expectation of a reward.
Somewhere between childhood and now, happiness translates into something to be achieved. When I do A, B and C, then I’ll be happy.
When I get this, that or the other thing, I’ll be happy.
We set goals. Sometimes we accomplish them, but we’re still not happy – at least not happy enough. Sometimes we don’t and we’re disappointed. We’re still looking for happiness. Elusive little thing. It’s lurking somewhere out there in the future.
I have a question for you?
What are you happy about today?
When we make happiness a goal – something to aspire to, off in the distance, we forget to appreciate today. We shouldn’t. It’s where we live. We have an opportunity to be happy every day and if we don’t, it’s lost and we can’t get it back.
As we go through time and space we learn that happiness lies not in objects, possessions and accomplishments, but in the qualities we value most in ourselves and those close to us.
There’s no secret sauce to being happy. It’s all around us. When we’re mindful of each day, it’s ours for the taking.
Let me share 27 quotes about what it takes to be happy. from some names you’ll likely recognize. Some of very insightful. Others are there, just for a chuckle. Tell me which one you like best.
- “The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase, if you pursue happiness you’ll never find it.” – C. P. Snow
- “It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about.” -Dale Carnegie
- “Happy people plan actions, they don’t plan results.” -Dennis Waitley
- “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” – Mahatma Gandhi
- “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go” – Oscar Wilde
- “Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.” – Herman Cain
- “The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.” – Marcel Pagnol
- “Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.” – George Burns
- “Most people would rather be certain they’re miserable, than risk being happy.” – Dr. Robert Anthony
- “A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?” – Albert Einstein
- “Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” – Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
- “Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.”- Andy Rooney
- “Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.” – Albert Schweitzer
- “Happiness is a how; not a what. A talent, not an object.” – Herman Hesse
- “I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn’t arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I’m going to be happy in it.” – Groucho Marx
- Happiness consists of living each day as if it were the first day of your honeymoon and the last day of your vacation.” – Leo Tolstoy
- “Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” – Abraham Lincoln
- “Being happy doesn’t mean everything is perfect. It means you’ve decided to look beyond the imperfections.” – Unknown
- “Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn’t know you left open.” – John Barrymore
- “Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
- “I am a kind of paranoid in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.” – J. D. Salinger
- “In times of joy, all of us wished we possessed a tail we could wag.” – W. H. Auden
- “Money can’t buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you’re being miserable.” – Clare Boothe Luce
- “The U. S. Constitution doesn’t guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.” – Benjamin Franklin
- “Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it.” -William Feather
- “Research has shown that the best way to be happy is to make each day happy.” – Deepak Chopra
- “Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is right at their heels.” – Bertolt Brecht