Those with indomitable spirit are the real successes in life. If you can so train or condition your mind that you are content regardless of what you have or do not have, and if you can stand the challenge of all your trials and remain calm, that is true happiness.
It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.
-Haruki Murakami
"Kafka on the Shore"
When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.
-John Lennon
It might be that to surrender to happiness was to accept defeat, but it was a defeat better than many victories.
-W. Somerset Maugham
"Of Human Bondage"
Happiness isn’t something that depends on our surroundings… It’s something we make inside ourselves.
-Cornelia "Corrie" Ten Boom
Hiding how you really feel and trying to make everyone happy doesn't make you nice, it just makes you a liar.
-Jenny O'connell
"The Book of Luke"
Nothing prevents happiness like the memory of happiness.
-André Gide
"L'immoralist"
The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.
-William Saroyan
"My Heart's in the Highlands"
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.
Happiness is not something you postpone for the future; it is something you design for the present.
-Jim Rohn
