Quotes by American Authors - Page 3234

These examples suggest what one needs to learn to control attention. In principle any skill or discipline one can master on one’s own will serve: meditation and prayer if one is so inclined; exercise, aerobics, martial arts for those who prefer concentrating on physical skills. Any specialization or expertise that one finds enjoyable and where one can improve one’s knowledge over time. The important thing, however, is the attitude toward these disciplines. If one prays in order to be holy, or exercises to develop strong pectoral muscles, or learns to be knowledgeable, then a great deal of the benefit is lost. The important thing is to enjoy the activity for its own sake, and to know that what matters is not the result, but the control one is acquiring over one’s attention.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi
He tapped my chest. 'Happy is here.' He tapped his own chest. 'Here.'I looked down past my chin. 'Inside?''Inside.'It was getting crowded in there. First angel. Now happy. It seemed there was more to me than cabbage and turnips.
Jerry Spinelli
Happiness is spiritual, born of truth and love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it.
Mary Baker Eddy
In the whole history of the world there is but one thing that money cannot buy...to wit--the wag of a dog's tail.
Josh Billings
There are hours for rest, and hours for wakefulness; nights for sobriety and nights for drunkenness—(if only so that possession of the former allows us to discern the latter when we have it; for sad as it is, no human body can be happily drunk all the time).
Roman Payne
I hate going through this when we just found...," his voice trailed off."Found what?""Each other," he finished, half-smiling.
Markelle Grabo
I am in an altogether new world now. I can think of nothing more wonderful. It is a real touch of all that heaven means.
Laura Hillenbrand
And although it might be best of all to be Socrates satisfied, having both happiness and depth, we would give up some happiness in order to gain the depth.
Robert Nozick
Happiness is simple. Everything we do to find it is complicated.
Karen Maezen Miller
Sex could be a blissful communion,. But it could also be a weapon, and its absence, sometimes, was required for the establishment of peace.
Ann Brashares
Unhappiness is caused when we cannot let go of our memories.
Jed Rubenfeld
Everyone has a right to be a little happy, asshole.
John Irving
It makes no difference where you go, there you are. And it makes no difference what you have, there’s always more to want. Until you are happy with who you are, you will never be happy because of what you have.
Zig Ziglar
Everyone knew that if you divided reality by expectation, you got a happiness quotient. But when you invert the equation - expectation divided by reality - you didn't get the opposite of happiness. What you got, Lewis realized, was hope.
Jodi Picoult
We are often insane with happiness. We are also very unhappy for reasons neither of us can do anything about. Like being separated.
Audrey Niffenegger
We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.
Jack Gilbert
The more I understand the mind and the human experience, the more I begin to suspect there is no such thing as unhappiness; there is only ungratefulness.
Steve Maraboli
Those who are happiest are those who do the most for others.
Booker T. Washington
Happiness when sustained too long in print can rightly be construed as sappiness...
Millard Kaufman
The problem with people is they forget that most of the time it's the small things that count. Everyone's so busy waiting in the Waiting Place. If we stopped to remember that there's such a thing as a Purina Tower and a view like this, we'd all be happier.
Jennifer Niven
The average human being is actually quite bad at predicting what he or she should do in order to be happier, and this inability to predict keeps people from, well, being happier. In fact, psychologist Daniel Gilbert has made a career out of demonstrating that human beings are downright awful at predicting their own likes and dislikes. For example, most research subjects strongly believe that another $30,000 a year in income would make them much happier. And they feel equally strongly that adding a 30-minute walk to their daily routine would be of trivial import. And yet Dr. Gilbert’s research suggests that the added income is far less likely to produce an increase in happiness than the addition of a regular walk.
Kerry Patterson
Try to be happy within the context of the life we are actually living. Happiness is not a situation to be longed for or a convergence of lucky happenstance. Through the power of our own minds, we can help ourselves.
Wayne Coyne
You must never forget that greatness does not guarantee happiness but goodness always does
Sri Chinmoy
Happiness is like a cat. If you try to coax it or call it, it will avoid you. It will never come. But if you pay no attention to it and go about your business, you'll find it rubbing up against your legs and jumping into your lap.
William J. Bennett
It's not strength, it's PERCEPTION that makes you stronger. If you change how you SEE it, you'll change how you FEEL about it.
Yvonne Pierre
When true happiness shows up, the ego is bored with it: It's too plain, too ordinary, and it doesn't leave us feeling special or above the fray. It doesn't take away our problems, which is the ego's idea of happiness. The ego wants no more difficulties: no ore sickness, no more need for money, no more work, no more bad feelings, only unending pleasure and bliss. Such perfection is the ego's idea of a successful life. However, the happiness the ego dreams of will never be attained by anyone. The ego denies the reality of this dimension, where challenges are necessary to evolution and blissful states and pleasure come and go.
Gina Lake
To find out what one is fitted to do, and to secure an opportunity to do it, is the key to happiness.
John Dewey
Three weeks ago, he’d seen hail fall from the sky, onlyto be followed minutes later by a spectacular rainbow that seemed to frame the azalea bushes. The colors, so vivid they seemed almost alive, made him think that nature sometimes sends us signs, that it’s important to remember that joy can always follow despair. But a moment later, the rainbow had vanished and the hail returned, and he realized that joy was sometimes only an illusion.
Nicholas Sparks
Take one cup of love, two cups of loyalty, three cups of forgiveness, four quarts of faith and one barrel of laughter. Take love and loyalty and mix them thoroughly with faith; blend with tenderness, kindness and understanding. Add friendship and hope. Sprinkle abundantly with laughter. Bake it with sunshine. Wrap it regularly with lots of hugs. Serve generous helpings daily.
Zig Ziglar
The Christmas presents once opened are Not So Much Fun as they were while we were in the process of examining, lifting, shaking, thinking about, and opening them. Three hundred sixty-five days later, we try again and find that the same thing has happened. Each time the goal is reached, it becomes Not So Much Fun, and we're off to reach the next one, then the next one, then the next.That doesn't mean that the goals we have don't count. They do, mostly because they cause us to go through the process and it's the process that makes us wise, happy, or whatever. If we do things in the wrong sort of way, it makes us miserable, angry, confused, and things like that. The goal has to be right for us, and it has to be beneficial, in order to ensure a beneficial process. But aside from that, it's really the process that's important.
Benjamin Hoff
If you have done something meritorious, you experience pleasure and happiness; if wrong things, suffering. A happy or unhappy life is your own creation. Nobody else is responsible. If you remember this, you won’t find fault with anybody. You are your own best friend as well as your worst enemy. (99)
Swami Satchidananda
(the whole world is at thethroat of the world,everybody feels angry,short-changed, cheated,everybody is despondent,disillusioned.)I welcomed shots of peace, tattered shards ofhappiness.
Charles Bukowski
I think now that maybe true sweetness can only happen in limbo.
Peter Heller
Imagination doesn't always make you long for what you cannot have, but rather thrive in what you do not have.
Criss Jami
But I am king. And the well-being of my kingdom depends on my sound judgment and clear head. And those things depend on my state of happiness. And I have known for a long time that my state of happiness depends on you.
Sharon Shinn
Unhappiness can be like a virus spreading from one person, to the next person, to the next one and so on. When someone is mean or rude to you, do not let their unhappiness infect your own life. If you are the unhappy one, please quarantine yourself so you do not infect others!
Jennifer O'Neill
It is more important to be free than to be happy.
Tom Robbins
Money can't buy happiness but it can buy a huge yacht that sails right next to it.
David Lee Roth
(about William Blake)As for Blake's happiness--a man who knew him said: "If asked whether I ever knew among the intellectual, a happy man, Blake would be the only one who would immediately occur to me."And yet this creative power in Blake did not come from ambition. ...He burned most of his own work. Because he said, "I should be sorry if I had any earthly fame, for whatever natural glory a man has is so much detracted from his spiritual glory. I wish to do nothing for profit. I wish to live for art. I want nothing whatever. I am quite happy."...He did not mind death in the least. He said that to him it was just like going into another room. On the day of his death he composed songs to his Maker and sang them for his wife to hear. Just before he died his countenance became fair, his eyes brightened and he burst into singing of the things he saw in heaven.
Brenda Ueland
HappinessThere's just no accounting for happiness,or the way it turns up like a prodigalwho comes back to the dust at your feethaving squandered a fortune far away.And how can you not forgive?You make a feast in honor of whatwas lost, and take from its place the finestgarment, which you saved for an occasionyou could not imagine, and you weep night and dayto know that you were not abandoned,that happiness saved its most extreme formfor you alone.No, happiness is the uncle you neverknew about, who flies a single-engine planeonto the grassy landing strip, hitchhikesinto town, and inquires at every dooruntil he finds you asleep midafternoonas you so often are during the unmercifulhours of your despair.It comes to the monk in his cell.It comes to the woman sweeping the streetwith a birch broom, to the childwhose mother has passed out from drink.It comes to the lover, to the dog chewinga sock, to the pusher, to the basket maker,and to the clerk stacking cans of carrotsin the night.It even comes to the boulderin the perpetual shade of pine barrens,to rain falling on the open sea,to the wineglass, weary of holding wine.
Jane Kenyon
Suffering sucks. Don't do it. Go home and love your wife. Go home and love yourself. Go homeand base your happiness on one thing and one thing only: freedom. Choose freedom, not suffering. Create a life of freedom, not wanting. Have some really good coffee and listen to the red-winged blackbirds in the marsh. Ignore the mosquitoes.
Laura Munson
The formula of happiness and success is just, being actually yourself, in the most vivid possible way you can.
Meryl Streep
Dear me! how happy and good we'd be, if we had no worries!
Louisa May Alcott
Flowers always make people better, happier, and more helpful; they are sunshine, food and medicine to the mind.
Luther Burbank
Your success and happiness lies in you. Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invicible host against difficulties.
Helen Keller
You would not be here TODAY if YESTERDAY was your defining moment. LIVE THIS DAY and move towards your dreams.
Steve Maraboli
The best way to insure you achieve the greatest satisfaction out of life is to behave intentionally.
Deborah Day
Blaming is so much easier than taking responsibility, because if you take responsibility … then you might be to blame.
Jennifer O'Neill
Happiness is the pleasantest of emotions; because of this, it is the most dangerous. Having once felt happiness, one will do anything to maintain it, and losing it, one will grieve.
Kij Johnson
We need more than just the Law of Attraction. We need to connect with its more successful twin, the Law of Generosity. And further entwine ourselves with their parent; the Law of Love.
Steve Maraboli
You are the point of origin for everything in your world: you set the standard for yourself.
Steve Maraboli
Challenges in life can either enrich you or poison you. You are the one who decides.
Steve Maraboli
I think instead [of happiness] we should be working for contentment... an inner sense of fulfillment that's relatively independent of external circumstances.
Andrew Weil
If you're not getting happier as you get older, then you're fuckin' up
Ani DiFranco
Our purest form of joy comes when people we envy get hurt. That most genuine form of joy.
Chuck Palahniuk
I've always believed that happiness is just around the corner. The trick is fining the right corner.
Eric Weiner
The quickest way to experiencing the peace inside, is to learn to recognize when I am not at peace.
James Patrick McDonald
People will always notice something about you. It might be the way you walk or the way you talk, or just simply your personality. Live each day in the way you want to be remembered. Live in such a way that people will be inspired by those unique qualities that you have and strive to live better lives for themselves.
Amaka Imani Nkosazana
You need to figure out what you want, Josh. If that means you need to swim against the tide to get it, at least youre aiming for something that could make you very happy.
Jay Asher
Ladies, stress shows on your face. Happiness is the true beauty weapon." ( Kym Douglas / Cindy Pearlman, 2006)
Susan Sarandon