Happiness Quotes | List & Tips
Happiness plays an essential role in the overall quality of life, but where does happiness come from and how do people lead happier lives?
The following happiness quotes represent some of the most thought-provoking answers to these questions from scholars and writers of the past and present.
Whether you’re seeking personal inspiration, helping others, or writing about happiness, these 20 quotes provide a variety of insights on how to lead a happier life.
20 quotes about happiness
- “If I can enjoy the present, I don’t need to count on the happiness that is (or isn’t) waiting for me in the future.” —Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project
- “Writing for twenty minutes about a positive experience dramatically improves happiness. Why? Because you actually relive the experience as you’re writing it and then relive it every time you read it. Your brain sends you back.” —Neil Pasricha, author of The Happiness Equation
- “It is by being fully involved with every detail of our lives, whether good or bad, that we find happiness, not by trying to look for it directly.” —Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, psychologist and motivation expert
- “If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” —J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy
- “Happiness is not dependent on circumstances being exactly as we want them to be, or on ourselves being exactly as we’d like to be. Rather, happiness stems from loving ourselves and our lives exactly as they are, knowing that joy and pain, strength and weakness, glory and failure are all essential to the full human experience.” —Kristin Neff, educational psychology professor and self-compassion speaker/podcaster
These nouns refer to a condition, quality, or state (e.g., “the quality of being kind”). When the adjective/root word ends in “-y,” replace it with “-i” before adding “-ness.”
QuillBot’s free Grammar Checker can help you spell words like “happiness” correctly.
- “Keep your face always towards the sunshine—and shadows will fall behind you.” —Walt Whitman, author of Leaves of Grass
- “Happiness for a reason is just another form of misery because the reason can be taken from us at any time.” —Deepak Chopra, author and self-help celebrity
- “I make a point to appreciate all the little things in my life. I go out and smell the air after a good, hard rain. These small actions help remind me that there are so many great, glorious pieces of good in the world.” —Dolly Parton, singer, songwriter, and philanthropist
- “There isn’t time, so brief is life, for bickerings, apologies, heartburnings, callings to account. There is only time for loving, and but an instant, so to speak, for that.” —Mark Twain, 19th/20th century novelist and humorist
- “I believe some of our happiest, most fulfilling moments come after our darkest, most challenging times.” —Kate Echman, host/creator of the Rawish podcast and author of The Full Spirit Workout
- “The clearest message that we get from this 75-year study is this: Good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.” —Robert Waldinger, director of the Harvard Study of Adult Development and author of The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness
- “If you think it’s happiness that makes you grateful, think again. It’s gratefulness that makes you happy.” —David Steindl-Rast, Benedictine monk and author of You Are Here: Keywords for Life Explorers and May Cause Happiness: A Gratitude Journal
For example, the connection between altruism and happiness is a key focus of the World Happiness Report 2023 (a collaboration by Gallup, the United Nations, and the Oxford Wellbeing Research Centre).
Therefore, writing Happy Birthday Messages, Thank You Messages, and other well wishes may actually improve your own happiness!
The QuillBot Paraphraser can lend a helping hand when you’re trying to find the perfect words of encouragement.
- “The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.” —John Milton, author of Paradise Lost
- “Happiness is a vine that takes root and grows within the heart, never outside it.” —Kahlil Gibran, author of The Prophet
- “We become more successful when we are happier and more positive. For example, doctors put in a positive mood before making a diagnosis show almost three times more intelligence and creativity than doctors in a neutral state, and they make accurate diagnoses 19 percent faster. Optimistic salespeople outsell their pessimistic counterparts by 56 percent. Students primed to feel happy before taking math achievement tests far outperform their neutral peers.” —Shawn Achor, author of The Happiness Advantage: How a Positive Brain Fuels Success in Work and Life
- “By happiness I mean here a deep sense of flourishing that arises from an exceptionally healthy mind. This is not a mere pleasurable feeling, a fleeting emotion, or a mood, but an optimal state of being. Happiness is also a way of interpreting the world, since while it may be difficult to change the world, it is always possible to change the way we look at it.” —Matthieu Ricard, Buddhist monk and author of Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill
- “…lots of smiling can actually make you healthier. Smiling can help reduce the level of stress-enhancing hormones like cortisol, adrenaline and dopamine, increase the level of mood-enhancing hormones like endorphins, and reduce overall blood pressure.” —Ron Gutman, healthtech entrepreneur and author of the TED talk The Hidden Power of Smiling
Some style guides (e.g., MLA or APA) have special guidelines for formatting an ellipsis. For example, MLA requires “three periods with a space before each and a space after the last ( . . . ),” which is different from Microsoft Word’s ellipsis character.
Refer to your workplace or course guidelines for ellipsis formatting requirements.
- “We need laughter in our lives. Laughter is carbonated holiness. It’s like the cavalry arriving to help us get our sense of humor back.” —Anne Lamott, novelist and author of Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life and Almost Everything: Notes on Hope
- “…happiness does not really depend on objective conditions of either wealth, health or even community. Rather, it depends on the correlation between objective conditions and subjective expectations. If you want a bullock-cart and get a bullock-cart, you are content. If you want a brand-new Ferrari and get only a second-hand Fiat, you feel deprived.” —Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
- “Only when the emotions work in terms of values can the individual feel pure joy.” —Viktor Frankl, psychologist and Holocaust survivor
Tips for writing with happiness quotes
Happiness quotes are sometimes useful in personal reflections or essays for Philosophy and Psychology courses. Use the following strategies to ensure that the happiness quotes in your writing are clear and accurate:
- Introduce each happiness quote with a signal phrase that includes the author’’s name (e.g., “According to Gretchen Rubin” or “Viktor Frankl explained”).
- Use quotation marks at the beginning and end of each quote.
- Use the author’s original punctuation, spelling, and capitalization. For example, some authors don’t use the Oxford comma, but others do.
- Place the quote’s end punctuation (e.g., a period) before the final quotation marks unless you’re using parenthetical citations. In that case, place the parentheses between the quote and the sentence’s end punctuation.
- For school assignments, always follow your instructor’s citation requirements (e.g., APA, MLA, or Chicago style).
QuillBot’s free Grammar Checker and Citation Generator are also here to help you format quotes about happiness correctly.
In the song “Happiness,” Taylor Swift writes, “There’ll be happiness after you / But there was happiness because of you too / Both of these things can be true.”
Frequently asked questions about happiness quotes
- What are some short happiness quotes?
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Some short happiness quotes include the following:
“Keep your face always towards the sunshine—and shadows will fall behind you.” —Walt Whitman, author of Leaves of Grass
“Happiness for a reason is just another form of misery because the reason can be taken from us at any time.” —Deepak Chopra, author and self-help celebrity
“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” —J.R.R. Tolkien, author of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy
“It is by being fully involved with every detail of our lives, whether good or bad, that we find happiness, not by trying to look for it directly.” —Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, psychologist and motivation expert
“If I can enjoy the present, I don’t need to count on the happiness that is (or isn’t) waiting for me in the future.” —Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project
When you’re writing with happiness quotes, QuillBot’s free Citation Generator and Grammar Checker can help you avoid errors.
- How do you use quotes in an essay?
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Correct use of quotes in an essay can lift it above the normal and attract higher grades. Quotes are vital in backing up your argument or illustrating your point. You should aim to integrate or embed your quotes in your writing.
Consider this comment on The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot:
“Prufrock realizes when he sees ‘the eternal Footman hold his coat,’ that he is approaching death, and he is overwhelmed by a sense of failure and fear. Failure because his achievements are no more than a ‘moment of …greatness’ that has flickered out, and fear because he has ‘seen the eternal Footman …snicker,’ suggesting that what he faces in the afterlife is to be feared. This is confirmed in the last half line of the stanza, ‘in short I was afraid.”
Here, the quotations flow naturally as part of the point that is being made. There’s lots more to be said on the subject of paraphrasing and summarizing which is worth researching.
QuillBot’s Notepad is a great place to note your quotations as you research your essay, making them easy to locate and use. Additionally, QuillBot’s Word Counter tool can help you effectively track the word count of your quotes to ensure your writing doesn’t rely on too many quotations.
- Should I put a period before or after quotation marks?
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Typically, a period goes before the ending quotation marks in American English.
Periods with quotation marks examples (American English) The principal said the teacher was “an exemplar of the profession.”She told me, “If I leave, I’m never coming back.”
However, in British English, the period only goes inside the quotation marks if the quotation itself is a full sentence. Otherwise, it goes outside. Additionally, British English typically uses single quotation marks instead of double.
Periods with quotation marks examples (British English) The principal said the teacher was ‘an exemplar of the profession’.She told me, ‘If I leave, I’m never coming back.’
Try QuillBot’s free Grammar Checker to make sure you’re using punctuation correctly.
