The Happiness Project Quotes
“What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him."
- Viktor Frankl
“Life is a roar of bargain and battle, but in the very heart of it there rises a mystic spiritual tone that gives meaning to the whole. It transmutes the dull details into romance. It reminds is that our only but wholly adequate significance is as parts of the unimaginable whole. It suggests that even while living we are living to ends outside ourselves."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes
"If you look at a thing, the very fact of your looking changes it…if you think about yourself, that very fact changes you."
- Robert Penn Warren
“There is a myth, sometimes widespread, that a person need only do inner work…that a man is entirely responsible for his own problems; and that to cure himself, he need only change himself….The fact is, a person is so formed by his surroundings, that his state of harmony depends entirely on his harmony with his surroundings."
- Christopher Alexander
“The temperament that produces a talent for little things is the opposite of that required for great ones."
- La Rochefoucauld
"I know all about the despair of overcoming chronic temptation. It is not serious, provided self-offended petulance, annoyance at breaking records, impatience, etc., don’t get the upper hand. No amount of falls will really undo us if we keep picking ourselves up each time…The only fatal thing is to lose one’s temper and give up."
- C.S. Lewis
“Dreams, books, are each a world; and books, we know,
Are a substantial world, both pure and good:
Round these, with tendrils strong as flesh and blood,
Our pastime and our happiness will grow."
- William Wordsworth
“If one thinks that one is happy, that is enough to be happy."
- Madame de la Fayette
“They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."
- Andy Warhol
“Plans are worthless, but planning is everything."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
“Habit simplifies our movements, makes them accurate, and diminishes fatigue."
- William James
“Finally I am coming to the conclusion that my highest ambition is to be what I already I am."
- Thomas Merton
“If we will have the kindness of others, we must endure their follies."
- Samuel Johnson
“One does not play Bach without having done scales. But neither does one play a scale merely for the sake of the scale."
- Simone Weil
“One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats."
- Iris Murdoch
You increase your self-respect when you feel you’ve done everything you ought to have done, and if there is nothing else to enjoy, there remains that chief of pleasures, the feeling of being pleased with oneself. A man gets an immense amount of satisfaction from the knowledge of having done good work and of having made the best use of his day, and when I am in this state I find that I thoroughly enjoy my rest and even the mildest forms of recreation."
- Eugene Delacroix
“One is happy as a result of one’s own efforts, once one knows of the necessary ingredients of happiness-simple tastes, a certain degree of courage, self-denial to a point, love of work, and, above all, a clear conscience. Happiness is no vague dream, of that I now feel certain."
- George Sand
Such as are your habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of your mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts."
- Marcus Aurelius
“The one serious conviction that a man should have is that nothing is to be taken too seriously."
- Samuel Butler
The pleasure of doing a thing in the same way at the same time every day, and savoring it, should be noted."
- Arnold Bennett
But what is work and what is not work? Is it work to dig, to carpenter, to plant trees, to fell trees, to ride, to fish, to hunt, to feed chickens, to play the piano, to take photographs, to build a house, to cook, to sew, to trim hats, to mend motor bicycles? All of these things are work to somebody, and all of them are play to somebody. There are in fact very few activities which cannot be classed either as work or play according as you choose to regard them."
- George Orwell
Curiosity is one of the permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect. Every advance into knowledge opens new prospects, and produces new incitements to farther progress."
- Samuel Johnson
“It is neither wealth nor splendor, but tranquility and occupation, which give happiness."
- Thomas Jefferson
A sheltered life can be a daring life as well. For all serious daring starts from within."
- Eudora Welty
We are so accustomed to disguising our true nature from others, that we end up disguising it from ourselves."
- La Rochefoucauld
When one loves, one does not calculate."
- St. Therese of Lisieux
Most of us are experts at solving other people’s problems, but we generally solve them in terms of our own and the advice we give is seldom for other people but for ourselves."
- Nan Fairbrother
When I think about what sort of person I would most like to have on a retainer, I think it would be a boss. A boss who could tell me what to do, because that makes everything easy when you’re working."
- Andy Warhol