I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy. J D Salinger
6Education doesn’t make you happy. Nor does freedom. We don’t become happy just because we’re free – if we are. Or because we’ve been educated – if we have. But because education may be the means by which we realize we are happy. It opens our eyes, our ears, tells us where delights are lurking, convinces us that there is only one freedom of any importance whatsoever, that of the mind, and gives us the assurance – the confidence – to walk the path our mind, our educated mind, offers. Iris Murdoch
With my eyes closed, I would touch a familiar book and draw its fragrance deep inside me. This was enough to make me happy. Haruki Murakami, Norwegian Wood
The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things. Epictetus
It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe.
To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I’d been happy, and that I was happy still. For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration. Albert Camus, The Stranger
It’s a kind of spiritual snobbery that makes people think they can be happy without money. Albert Camus
To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others Albert Camus
Life does not agree with philosophy: there is no happiness that is not idleness, and only what is useless is pleasurable. Anton Chekhov
How happy some o’er other some can be! William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream I i 226, Helena to self
But O! how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes. William Shakespeare, As You Like It V ii 41-42, Orlando
If it were now to die
’Twere now to be most happy. William Shakespeare, Othello II i 190-191
I’d have thee live,
For in my sense ’tis happiness to die. ibid. V ii 295-296
O happiness enjoyed but of a few,
And, if possessed, as soon decayed and done. William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece, 23
Happy, happy Christmas, that can win us back to the delusions of our childish days; that can recall to the old man the pleasures of his youth; that can transport the sailor and the traveller, thousands of miles away, back to his own fire-side and his quiet home! Charles Dickens
He went to the church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and for, and patted the children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens of homes, and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never dreamed of any walk, that anything, could give him so much happiness. Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol p119
Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes. Charles Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby
Don’t expect happiness … it’s all a big Nothing. The Sopranos s2e7: D-Girl starring James Gandolfini & Lorriane Bracco & Edie Falco & Michael Imperioli & Dominic Chianese & Steven van Zandt & Tony Sirico & Robert Iler et al, Gran, HBO 2000
Are you happy? The Sopranos s3e4: Employee of the Month, Dr Melfi to Tony
Happiness is something I know nothing about. Rebecca 1940 starring Laurence Olivier & Joan Fontaine & Judith Anderson & George Sanders & Nigel Bruce & Florence Bates & Reginald Denny & Gladys Cooper & C Aubrey Smith et al, director Alfred Hitchcock
One question: do you make Brick happy? Well? Cat on a Hot Tin Roof 1958 starring Paul Newman & Elizabeth Taylor & Burl Ives & Judith Anderson & Jack Carson & Madeleine Sherwood & Larry Gates & Vaughn Taylor, director Richard Brooks, Big Moma to Maggie
You call this happiness? Surrounded by toadying lackeys and paid sycophants, living with a love-goddess-sex-bomb-model-megastar. You call this contentment? Red Dwarf s3e5: Timeslides, Rimmer to Lister, BBC 1989
For the first time in my life I was happy. Star Trek s1e24: This Side of Paradise, Spock to Kirk & McCoy
America is a vast conspiracy to make you happy. John Updike, Problems, 1980
The British do not expect happiness. I had the impression, all the time that I lived there, that they do not want to be happy; they want to be right. Quentin Crisp
All I ask is the chance to prove that money can’t make me happy. Spike Milligan
Money can’t buy you happiness but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery. Spike Milligan
Under capitalism the common man enjoys amenities which in ages gone by were unknown and therefore inaccessible even to the richest people. But, of course, these motorcars, television sets and refrigerators do not make a man happy. In the instant in which he acquires them, he may feel happier than he did before. But as soon as some of his wishes are satisfied, new wishes spring up. Such is human nature. Ludwig von Mises, The Anti-Capitalistic Mentality
I wouldn’t expect happiness. Tony Hancock, interview BBC 1960
Happiness is having a rare steak, a bottle of whisky, and a dog to eat the rare steak. Johnny Carson
We do have the right to pursue happiness. Howard Marks
We found out it [cannabis] makes them happy. Dr Leo E Hollister
Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. It is far better take things as they come along with patience and equanimity. Carl Jung
Happiness is the interval between periods of unhappiness. Don Marquis
We are not strong enough to stand up against endless grief. And yet pain is the constant drone of life. So if we are to have any happiness at all, it is only in the passing instant. Charles Frazier
Happiness is a warm puppy. Charles M Schulz
Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family – in another city. George Burns
A man who as a physical being is always turned toward the outside, thinking that his happiness lies outside him, finally turns inward and discovers that the source is within him. Soren Kierkegaard
The world of the happy is quite different from that of the unhappy. Ludwig Wittgenstein
Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so. John Stuart Mill, Autobiography