Then he thought himself unhappy, but happiness was all in the future; now he felt that the best happiness was already in the past.
-Leo Tolstoy
"Anna Karenina"
Quotations
Happiness
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds and six, result misery.
-Charles Dickens
Above all, let us never forget that an act of goodness is in itself an act of happiness. It is the flower of a long inner life of joy and contentment; it tells of peaceful hours and days on the sunniest heights of our soul.
-Maurice Maeterlinck "Maurice Maeterlinck"
The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be
-Marcel Pagnol
What can be added to the happiness of the man who is in health, who is out of debt and has a clear conscience?
-Adam Smith
Success is getting what you want; happiness is wanting what you get.
-W. P. Kinsella
Happiness never made anyone rich or famous. That must be why ambitious people avoid it.
-Marty Rubin
The first recipe for happiness is: Avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.
-André Maurois
It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.
-Haruki Murakami
"Kafka on the Shore"
With a genuine keenness or readiness to serve others, one can attain happiness in any group or community, and the eagerness to serve others will endow you with the power and skill necessary for the required service. Nowadays, we tend to regard it as derogatory to serve, but there is great worth in service.
-Sathya Sai Baba "Sri Sathya Sai Baba"
