Skip to main content
ponderloop
Menu

Quotes about happiness

59 verified quotes from 39 writers, c. 475 BC to 1923.

Quotes 1 to 30 of 59, page 1 of 2.

Old books are surprisingly practical about happiness. Few of these writers treat it as luck or as something to chase; most describe it as a way of paying attention. Marcus Aurelius says very little is needed for a happy life, Stevenson calls being happy a duty we underrate, and Dickens’s Mr. Micawber reduces it to a household budget.

The list runs from Rome in the second century to Kahlil Gibran in 1923, with Austen, Thoreau, Whitman, Wilde, Twain and Montgomery in between. Each line was matched in the full text of a named public-domain edition, and each carries a short note of ours on where it comes from.

What “verified” means, and what we leave out: How we verify.

  1. With coarse rice to eat, with water to drink, and my bended arm for a pillow;—I have still joy in the midst of these things

    Confucius, The Analects, c. 475 BCTranslated by James Legge (1861)

    Our note: Confucius on being content with little; he goes on to call ill-gotten riches a floating cloud.

    Verified in the full text of The Analects on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #3330

  2. Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life

    Epictetus, The Encheiridion, c. AD 125Translated by George Long (1877)

    Our note: The Encheiridion is a short handbook of Epictetus's teaching, put together by his student Arrian.

    Verified in the full text of The Encheiridion on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #10661 · Collected in A Selection from the Discourses of Epictetus with the Encheiridion

  3. …very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life.

    Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, c. AD 180Translated by George Long (1862)

    Our note: Book VII.

    Verified in the full text of Meditations on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #15877 · Collected in The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

  4. …where a man can live, there he can also live well.

    Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, c. AD 180Translated by George Long (1862)

    Our note: Book V; he adds that this is true even in a palace.

    Verified in the full text of Meditations on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #15877 · Collected in The Thoughts of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus

  5. A Book of Verses underneath the Bough, A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread—and Thou Beside me singing in the Wilderness

    Omar Khayyam, Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám, c. AD 1120Translated by Edward FitzGerald (1889)

    Our note: The quatrain as FitzGerald revised it for his later editions; the first edition words it differently.

    Verified in the full text of Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #246

  7. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

    Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence, 1776

    Our note: Jefferson drafted the Declaration, which Congress amended and adopted on 4 July 1776.

    Verified in the full text of The Declaration of Independence on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #1

    Painted the same decade: Virgil's Tomb by Moonlight, with Silius Italicus Declaiming, Joseph Wright (Wright of Derby), 1779

  14. It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour.

    Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, 1843

    Our note: The narrator, as Scrooge watches his nephew's family laugh at a Christmas party.

    Verified in the full text of A Christmas Carol on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #46

    Painted the same decade: The Abduction of Rebecca, Eugène Delacroix, 1846

  25. It is better to be a human being dissatisfied than a pig satisfied; better to be Socrates dissatisfied than a fool satisfied

    John Stuart Mill, Utilitarianism, 1861

    Our note: Mill arguing that some pleasures are worth more than others; the essay first ran in Fraser's Magazine.

    Verified in the full text of Utilitarianism on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #11224

    Painted the same decade: The Third-Class Carriage, Honoré Daumier, 1864

  26. To have a happy youth, to be well and wisely married, and to lead useful, pleasant lives, with as little care and sorrow to try them as God sees fit to send.

    Marmee (Mrs. March), in Little Women by Louisa May Alcott, 1868

    Our note: Marmee telling Meg what she wants for her daughters.

    Verified in the full text of Little Women on Project Gutenberg · Project Gutenberg ebook #514

    Painted the same decade: The Dead Christ with Angels, Edouard Manet, 1864

Other topics

Today’s verified quote