Living the dream.
Don't blame me. That's evolution. Evolution's always hard. Hard and bleak. No such thing as happy evolution.
That sense of happiness just out beyond my reach - I'm not sure I'd grasped that exactly, but I'd got something close to it, contentment maybe, or at least a functioning routine with regular rewards.
The greatest gift you can ever give another person is your own happiness
Money can't buy love, but it improves your bargaining position.
Sometimes happiness is not knowing the whole story.
Happiness is a quality of the soul...not a function of one's material circumstances.
Every day, you get the opportunity to change your life. Change what you do not want. Change what makes you unhappy.
There are some delightful places in this world which have a sensual charm for the eyes. One loves them with a physical love. We people who are attracted by the countryside cherish fond memories of certain springs, certain woods, certain ponds, certain hills, which have become familiar sights and can touch our hearts like happy events. Sometimes indeed the memory goes back towards a forest glade, or a spot on a river bank or an orchard in blossom, glimpsed only once on a happy day, but preserved in our heart.
I'm not in pursuit of happiness, I'm happiness in pursuit; ready to happen everywhere I go.
There were happy days, with watermelon, and sad days of whiskey.
Then he thought himself unhappy, but happiness was all in the future; now he felt that the best happiness was already in the past.
Many people think that happiness comes from having more power or more money.
…I realized my happiness was artificial. I felt happy because I saw the others were happy and because I knew I should feel happy, but I wasn't really happy.
The ultimate meaning of the active life is to make possible the happiness of contemplation.
Intent not followed by action is an insult to your design. Decide what you want, create a plan, and get your ass out there!
He had learned that, as there is no situation in the world in which a man can be happy and perfectly free, so there is no situation in which he can be perfectly unhappy and unfree.
No one can obtain felicity by pursuit. This explains why one of the elements of being happy is the feeling that a debt of gratitude is owed, a debt impossible to pay. Now, we do not owe gratitude to ourselves. To be conscious of gratitude is to acknowledge a gift.
I feel as though I should say something profound, or enact some rite, or trade something to make it official. I want to transfer some trinket which would allow me to say that she's my girl, some kind of currency that proves to people that she likes me back. Something that would permit me to think about her all the time without feeling guilty or helpless or hopelessly far away. I guess I'm just so excited, I want to cage this thing like a tiny red bird so if can't fly away, so it stays the same, so it's still there the next time. For keeps, like a coin in your pocket. Like a peach pit from Mad Jack Lionel's tree. Like scribbled words in a locked suitcase. A bright balloon to tie to your bedpost. And you want to hug it close, hold it, but not so tight it bursts.
I could hear the knock and whistle of the water pipes, the purr of the calico cat. And at that moment a happiness filled me that was pure and perfect and yet it was bled with despair - as if I had been handed a cup of ambrosial nectar to drink from and knew that once I finished drinking, the cup would be withdrawn forever, and nothing to come would ever taste as good.
