Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind.
Happiness is a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
To seek after beauty as an end, is a wild goose chase, a will-o'-the-wisp, because it is to misunderstand the very nature of beauty, which is the normal condition of a thing being as it should be.
Perfect happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.
This will be triumph! This will be happiness! Yea, that very thing, happiness, which I have been pursuing all my life, and have never yet overtaken.
I don't sit around thinking that I'd like to have another husband; only another man would make me think that way.
Pleasure is very seldom found where it is sought. Our brightest blazes are commonly kindled by unexpected sparks.
A sure way to lose happiness, I found, is to want it at the expense of everything else.
Those who seek happiness miss it, and those who discuss it, lack it.
Inspiration never arrived when you were searching for it.
Nothing is more hopeless than a scheme of merriment.
Happiness is never stopping to think if you are.
It is the paradox of life that the way to miss pleasure is to seek it first. The very first condition of lasting happiness is that a life should be full of purpose, aiming at something outside self.
If you pursue happiness you'll never find it.
Some of us might find happiness if we quit struggling so desperately for it.
Seek not happiness too greedily, and be not fearful of unhappiness.
The man of pleasure, by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be, is often more miserable than most men.
The bird of paradise alights only on the hand that does not grasp.
The only way to happiness is never to give happiness a thought.
Everyone chases after happiness, not noticing that happiness is at their heels.
