On Happiness Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to On Happiness. Here they are! All 200 of them:

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I am so clever that sometimes I don't understand a single word of what I am saying.
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Oscar Wilde (The Happy Prince and Other Stories)
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For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own.
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Robert A. Heinlein (Stranger in a Strange Land)
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Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive who is Youer than You.
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Dr. Seuss (Happy Birthday to You!)
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Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.
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Abraham Lincoln
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When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us.
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Helen Keller
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So, this is my life. And I want you to know that I am both happy and sad and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.
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Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
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Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
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Marthe Troly-Curtin (Phrynette Married)
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It's so hard to forget pain, but it's even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.
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Chuck Palahniuk (Diary)
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Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
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Ernest Hemingway (The Garden of Eden)
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I finally understood what true love meant...love meant that you care for another person's happiness more than your own, no matter how painful the choices you face might be.
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Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)
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You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.
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Albert Camus
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The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off.
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Joe Klaas (The Twelve Steps to Happiness: A Practical Handbook for Understanding and Working the Twelve Step Programs for Alcoholism, Codependency, Eating Disorders, and Other Addictions)
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Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.
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Mahatma Gandhi
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Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.
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Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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There's nothing like deep breaths after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore stomach for the right reasons.
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Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
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Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.
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John Lennon
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Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions.
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Dalai Lama XIV
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I would always rather be happy than dignified.
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Charlotte BrontΓ« (Jane Eyre)
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If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.
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J.R.R. Tolkien
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Happy Hunger Games! And may the odds be ever in your favor.
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Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games (The Hunger Games, #1))
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Attitude is a choice. Happiness is a choice. Optimism is a choice. Kindness is a choice. Giving is a choice. Respect is a choice. Whatever choice you make makes you. Choose wisely.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.
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Tom Bodett
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All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
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Leo Tolstoy (Anna Karenina)
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Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.
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Anne Frank
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She was a girl who knew how to be happy even when she was sad. And that’s importantβ€”you know
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Marilyn Monroe
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The Seven Social Sins are: Wealth without work. Pleasure without conscience. Knowledge without character. Commerce without morality. Science without humanity. Worship without sacrifice. Politics without principle. From a sermon given by Frederick Lewis Donaldson in Westminster Abbey, London, on March 20, 1925.
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Frederick Lewis Donaldson
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Take responsibility of your own happiness, never put it in other people’s hands.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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You may not be her first, her last, or her only. She loved before she may love again. But if she loves you now, what else matters? She's not perfectβ€”you aren't either, and the two of you may never be perfect together but if she can make you laugh, cause you to think twice, and admit to being human and making mistakes, hold onto her and give her the most you can. She may not be thinking about you every second of the day, but she will give you a part of her that she knows you can breakβ€”her heart. So don't hurt her, don't change her, don't analyze and don't expect more than she can give. Smile when she makes you happy, let her know when she makes you mad, and miss her when she's not there.
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Bob Marley
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The most important thing is to enjoy your lifeβ€”to be happyβ€”it's all that matters.
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Audrey Hepburn
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Happiness is a warm puppy.
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Charles M. Schulz
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The Paradoxical Commandments People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered. Love them anyway. If you do good, people will accuse you of selfish ulterior motives. Do good anyway. If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies. Succeed anyway. The good you do today will be forgotten tomorrow. Do good anyway. Honesty and frankness make you vulnerable. Be honest and frank anyway. The biggest men and women with the biggest ideas can be shot down by the smallest men and women with the smallest minds. Think big anyway. People favor underdogs but follow only top dogs. Fight for a few underdogs anyway. What you spend years building may be destroyed overnight. Build anyway. People really need help but may attack you if you do help them. Help people anyway. Give the world the best you have and you'll get kicked in the teeth. Give the world the best you have anyway.
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Kent M. Keith (The Silent Revolution: Dynamic Leadership in the Student Council)
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You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.
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Jonathan Safran Foer
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Don’t waste your time in anger, regrets, worries, and grudges. Life is too short to be unhappy.
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Roy T. Bennett
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It isn't what you have or who you are or where you are or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about it.
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Dale Carnegie (How to Win Friends and Influence People)
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With freedom, flowers, books, and the moon, who could not be perfectly happy?
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Oscar Wilde (De Profundis)
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Like most misery, it started with apparent happiness.
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Markus Zusak (The Book Thief)
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No medicine cures what happiness cannot.
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Gabriel GarcΓ­a MΓ‘rquez
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Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.
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George Burns
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Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.
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Marcel Proust
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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 β€˜happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.
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John Lennon
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If you want to be happy, do not dwell in the past, do not worry about the future, focus on living fully in the present.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be.
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Charles Dickens (Great Expectations)
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Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.
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Oscar Wilde
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I felt my lungs inflate with the onrush of sceneryβ€”air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, "This is what it is to be happy.
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Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)
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If you like her, if she makes you happy, and if you feel like you know her---then don't let her go.
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Nicholas Sparks (Message in a Bottle)
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The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open.
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Chuck Palahniuk (Invisible Monsters)
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I have the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. Or I can go mad by ricocheting in between.
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Sylvia Plath (The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath)
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There are no happy endings. Endings are the saddest part, So just give me a happy middle And a very happy start.
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Shel Silverstein (Every Thing on It)
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There is no real ending. It’s just the place where you stop the story.
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Frank Herbert
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Hope Smiles from the threshold of the year to come, Whispering 'it will be happier'...
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Alfred Tennyson
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Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
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Bertrand Russell (The Conquest of Happiness)
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Be grateful for what you already have while you pursue your goals. If you aren’t grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you would be happy with more.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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You can't be happy unless you're unhappy sometimes".
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Lauren Oliver (Delirium (Delirium, #1))
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Sanity and happiness are an impossible combination.
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Mark Twain
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Many people lose the small joys in the hope for the big happiness.
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Pearl S. Buck
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Top 15 Things Money Can’t Buy Time. Happiness. Inner Peace. Integrity. Love. Character. Manners. Health. Respect. Morals. Trust. Patience. Class. Common sense. Dignity.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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Any fool can be happy. It takes a man with real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep.
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Clive Barker (Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War)
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The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.
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Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Letting go means to come to the realization that some people are a part of your history, but not a part of your destiny.
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Steve Maraboli
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Even if you cannot change all the people around you, you can change the people you choose to be around. Life is too short to waste your time on people who don’t respect, appreciate, and value you. Spend your life with people who make you smile, laugh, and feel loved.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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It's been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will.
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L.M. Montgomery (Anne of Green Gables (Anne of Green Gables, #1))
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Don't you think it's better to be extremely happy for a short while, even if you lose it, than to be just okay for your whole life?
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Audrey Niffenegger (The Time Traveler's Wife)
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Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get
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W.P. Kinsella
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Money can't buy happiness, but it can make you awfully comfortable while you're being miserable.
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Clare Boothe Luce
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Happiness [is] only real when shared
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Jon Krakauer (Into the Wild)
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He’s not perfect. You aren’t either, and the two of you will never be perfect. But if he can make you laugh at least once, causes you to think twice, and if he admits to being human and making mistakes, hold onto him and give him the most you can. He isn’t going to quote poetry, he’s not thinking about you every moment, but he will give you a part of him that he knows you could break. Don’t hurt him, don’t change him, and don’t expect for more than he can give. Don’t analyze. Smile when he makes you happy, yell when he makes you mad, and miss him when he’s not there. Love hard when there is love to be had. Because perfect guys don’t exist, but there’s always one guy that is perfect for you.
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Bob Marley
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The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.
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Marcus Aurelius (Meditations)
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Always find opportunities to make someone smile, and to offer random acts of kindness in everyday life.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.
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Franz Kafka
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I've got nothing to do today but smile.
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Paul Simon
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It's like Tolstoy said. Happiness is an allegory, unhappiness a story.
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Haruki Murakami (Kafka on the Shore)
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The worst part of success is trying to find someone who is happy for you.
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Bette Midler
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Happiness can be found, even in the darkest of times, if one only remembers to turn on the light.
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J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3))
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A child can teach an adult three things: to be happy for no reason, to always be busy with something, and to know how to demand with all his might that which he desires.
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Paulo Coelho
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Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.
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Ayn Rand
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I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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God can't give us peace and happiness apart from Himself because there is no such thing.
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C.S. Lewis
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Cry. Forgive. Learn. Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness.
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Steve Maraboli
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Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world.
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Orhan Pamuk (Snow)
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I'll just have them change the entry in the demonology textbook from 'almost extinct' to 'not extinct enough for Alec. He prefers his monsters really, really extinct.' Will that make you happy?
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Cassandra Clare (City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments, #2))
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And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, 'If this isn't nice, I don't know what is.
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Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (A Man Without a Country)
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Happiness consists in getting enough sleep. Just that, nothing more.
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Robert A. Heinlein (Starship Troopers)
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He was my mum and dad's best friend. He's a convicted murderer, but he's broken out of wizard prison and he's on the run. He likes to keep in touch with me, though...keep up with my news...check if I'm happy...
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J.K. Rowling (Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Harry Potter, #3))
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In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer. And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.
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Albert Camus
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Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn't calculate his happiness.
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Fyodor Dostoevsky (Notes from Underground, White Nights, The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, and Selections from The House of the Dead)
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please believe that things are good with me, and even when they're not, they will be soon enough. And i will always believe the same about you.
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Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
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Stop comparing yourself to other people, just choose to be happy and live your own life.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of life. " Live, then, and be happy, beloved children of my heart, and never forget, that until the day God will deign to reveal the future to man, all human wisdom is contained in these two words, 'Wait and Hope.
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Alexandre Dumas
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I am not proud, but I am happy; and happiness blinds, I think, more than pride.
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Alexandre Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo)
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When the first baby laughed for the first time, its laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies.
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J.M. Barrie (Peter Pan)
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The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.
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Mark Twain
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All happiness depends on courage and work.
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HonorΓ© de Balzac
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I'm killing time while I wait for life to shower me with meaning and happiness.
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Bill Watterson
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The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time.
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Friedrich Nietzsche
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I am both happy and sad at the same time, and I'm still trying to figure out how that could be.
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Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
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Do not set aside your happiness. Do not wait to be happy in the future. The best time to be happy is always now.
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Roy T. Bennett
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Talking to a drunk person was like talking to an extremely happy, severely brain-damaged three-year-old.
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John Green (Paper Towns)
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I'm happy. Which often looks like crazy.
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David Henry Hwang (M. Butterfly)
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When I look at my life and its secret colours, I feel like bursting into tears.
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Albert Camus (A Happy Death)
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The saddest people I've ever met in life are the ones who don't care deeply about anything at all. Passion and satisfaction go hand in hand, and without them, any happiness is only temporary, because there's nothing to make it last.
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Nicholas Sparks (Dear John)
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Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of God's kindness: kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.
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Mother Teresa
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I'm always happy," Sasha said. "Sometimes I just forget.
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Jennifer Egan (A Visit from the Goon Squad)
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Happiness is not the absence of problems, it's the ability to deal with them.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
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I think and think and think, Iβ€˜ve thought myself out of happiness one million times, but never once into it.
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Jonathan Safran Foer
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Happiness is something that comes into our lives through doors we don't even remember leaving open.
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Rose Wilder Lane
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If you want to be happy, be.
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Leo Tolstoy
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One must dare to be happy.
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Gertrude Stein
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Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.
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Omar KhayyΓ‘m (The RubΓ‘iyΓ‘t of Omar KhayyΓ‘m)
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How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot! The world forgetting, by the world forgot. Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d
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Alexander Pope (Eloisa to Abelard)
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Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.
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Maxim Gorky (The Lower Depths and Other Plays)
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So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?
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Hunter S. Thompson
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The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.
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George Washington Burnap (The Sphere and Duties of Woman: A Course of Lectures)
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I don’t know what’s worse: to not know what you are and be happy, or to become what you’ve always wanted to be, and feel alone.
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Daniel Keyes (Flowers for Algernon)
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I'd far rather be happy than right any day.
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Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, #1))
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To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.
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Albert Camus
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I didn’t go to religion to make me happy. I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don’t recommend Christianity.
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C.S. Lewis
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It was only a sunny smile, and little it cost in the giving, but like morning light it scattered the night and made the day worth living.
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F. Scott Fitzgerald
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And hand in hand, on the edge of the sand, They danced by the light of the moon.
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Edward Lear (The Owl and the Pussycat)
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I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day, and I believe in miracles
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Audrey Hepburn
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Happiness quite unshared can scarcely be called happiness; it has no taste.
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Charlotte BrontΓ«
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We don't make mistakes, just happy little accidents.
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Bob Ross
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I felt once more how simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea. Nothing else.
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Nikos Kazantzakis (Zorba the Greek)
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One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.
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Rita Mae Brown
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The more you feed your mind with positive thoughts, the more you can attract great things into your life.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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But who can say what's best? That's why you need to grab whatever chance you have of happiness where you find it, and not worry about other people too much. My experience tells me that we get no more than two or three such chances in a life time, and if we let them go, we regret it for the rest of our lives.
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Haruki Murakami (Norwegian Wood)
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Happiness depends upon ourselves.
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Aristotle
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It was the kind of kiss that made me know that I was never so happy in my whole life.
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Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
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Ψ₯Ω† Ψ§Ω„Ψ³ΨΉΨ§Ψ―Ψ© ΨͺΩ†ΨͺΩ‚Ω„ Ψ¨Ψ§Ω„ΨΉΨ―ΩˆΩ‰ ..Ω„Ψ§ ΨͺΩ†ΨͺΨΈΨ± ΨΉΨ―ΩˆΩ‰ Ψ£Ψ­Ψ― .. ΩƒΩ† Ψ­Ψ§Ω…Ω„Ψ§Ω‹ Ω„Ω‡Ψ°Ψ§ Ψ§Ω„Ω…ΩŠΩƒΨ±ΩˆΨ¨
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”
Ψ£Ω†ΩŠΨ³ Ω…Ω†Ψ΅ΩˆΨ±
β€œ
Happiness depends on your mindset and attitude.
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Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
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It's like the people who believe they'll be happy if they go and live somewhere else, but who learn it doesn't work that way. Wherever you go, you take yourself with you. If you see what I mean.
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Neil Gaiman (The Graveyard Book)
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The real things haven't changed. It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with simple pleasures; and have courage when things go wrong.
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Laura Ingalls Wilder
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Jason scratched his head. "You named him Festus? You know that in Latin, β€˜festus’ means β€˜happy’? You want us to ride off to save the world on Happy the Dragon?
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Rick Riordan (The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus, #1))
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Sometimes life knocks you on your ass... get up, get up, get up!!! Happiness is not the absence of problems, it's the ability to deal with them.
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Steve Maraboli (Life, the Truth, and Being Free)
β€œ
I am the happiest creature in the world. Perhaps other people have said so before, but not one with such justice. I am happier even than Jane; she only smiles, I laugh.
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Jane Austen (Pride and Prejudice)
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Now and then it's good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.
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Guillaume Apollinaire
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With mirth and laughter let old wrinkles come.
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William Shakespeare (The Merchant of Venice)
β€œ
Don't let the expectations and opinions of other people affect your decisions. It's your life, not theirs. Do what matters most to you; do what makes you feel alive and happy. Don't let the expectations and ideas of others limit who you are. If you let others tell you who you are, you are living their reality β€” not yours. There is more to life than pleasing people. There is much more to life than following others' prescribed path. There is so much more to life than what you experience right now. You need to decide who you are for yourself. Become a whole being. Adventure.
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Roy T. Bennett
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I predict future happiness for Americans, if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.
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Thomas Jefferson
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Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
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Nathaniel Hawthorne
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There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world.
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Robert Louis Stevenson
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Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.
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Robert Frost
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Time to leave now, get out of this room, go somewhere, anywhere; sharpen this feeling of happiness and freedom, stretch your limbs, fill your eyes, be awake, wider awake, vividly awake in every sense and every pore.
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Stefan Zweig (The Post-Office Girl)
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And all the books you've read have been read by other people. And all the songs you've loved have been heard by other people. And that girl that's pretty to you is pretty to other people. and that if you looked at these facts when you were happy, you would feel great because you are describing 'unity.
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Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
β€œ
I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.
”
”
Sylvia Plath (The Bell Jar)
β€œ
Promise Yourself To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind. To talk health, happiness, and prosperity to every person you meet. To make all your friends feel that there is something in them To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true. To think only the best, to work only for the best, and to expect only the best. To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own. To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future. To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile. To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others. To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble. To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world, not in loud words but great deeds. To live in faith that the whole world is on your side so long as you are true to the best that is in you.
”
”
Christian D. Larson (Your Forces and How to Use Them)
β€œ
I will hurt you for this. I don't know how yet, but give me time. A day will come when you think yourself safe and happy, and suddenly your joy will turn to ashes in your mouth, and you'll know the debt is paid.
”
”
George R.R. Martin (A Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire, #2))
β€œ
There is some kind of a sweet innocence in being human- in not having to be just happy or just sad- in the nature of being able to be both broken and whole, at the same time.
”
”
C. JoyBell C.
β€œ
Will has always been the brighter burning star, the one to catch attention β€” but Jem is a steady flame, unwavering and honest. He could make you happy.
”
”
Cassandra Clare (Clockwork Prince (The Infernal Devices, #2))
β€œ
We are all alone, born alone, die alone, andβ€”in spite of True Romance magazinesβ€”we shall all someday look back on our lives and see that, in spite of our company, we were alone the whole way. I do not say lonelyβ€”at least, not all the timeβ€”but essentially, and finally, alone. This is what makes your self-respect so important, and I don't see how you can respect yourself if you must look in the hearts and minds of others for your happiness.
”
”
Hunter S. Thompson (The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman, 1955-1967)
β€œ
There is nothing more rare, nor more beautiful, than a woman being unapologetically herself; comfortable in her perfect imperfection. To me, that is the true essence of beauty.
”
”
Steve Maraboli (Unapologetically You: Reflections on Life and the Human Experience)
β€œ
How can a woman be expected to be happy with a man who insists on treating her as if she were a perfectly normal human being
”
”
Oscar Wilde
β€œ
The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved -- loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.
”
”
Victor Hugo
β€œ
I have to be alone very often. I'd be quite happy if I spent from Saturday night until Monday morning alone in my apartment. That's how I refuel." (Audrey Hepburn: Many-Sided Charmer, LIFE Magazine, December 7, 1953)
”
”
Audrey Hepburn
β€œ
Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.
”
”
Aristotle
β€œ
The constant happiness is curiosity.
”
”
Alice Munro
β€œ
Happiness is the consequence of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for it, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it. You must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.
”
”
Elizabeth Gilbert (Eat, Pray, Love)
β€œ
The problem with people is they forget that most of the time it's the small things that count.
”
”
Jennifer Niven (All the Bright Places)
β€œ
The nicest thing about feeling happy is that you think you'll never be unhappy again.
”
”
Manuel Puig (Kiss of the Spider Woman and Two Other Plays)
β€œ
People love a happy ending. So every episode, I will explain once again that I don't like people. And then Mal will shoot someone. Someone we like. And their puppy.
”
”
Joss Whedon
β€œ
Smile more. Smiling can make you and others happy.
”
”
Roy T. Bennett (The Light in the Heart)
β€œ
Nothing thicker than a knife's blade separates happiness from melancholy.
”
”
Virginia Woolf (Orlando)
β€œ
Happily ever after, or even just together ever after, is not cheesy,” Wren said. β€œIt’s the noblest, like, the most courageous thing two people can shoot for.
”
”
Rainbow Rowell (Fangirl)
β€œ
I know that's what people say-- you'll get over it. I'd say it, too. But I know it's not true. Oh, youll be happy again, never fear. But you won't forget. Every time you fall in love it will be because something in the man reminds you of him.
”
”
Betty Smith (A Tree Grows in Brooklyn)
β€œ
[H]iding 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)
β€œ
We don’t even ask happiness, just a little less pain.
”
”
Charles Bukowski
β€œ
I do not miss childhood, but I miss the way I took pleasure in small things, even as greater things crumbled. I could not control the world I was in, could not walk away from things or people or moments that hurt, but I took joy in the things that made me happy.
”
”
Neil Gaiman (The Ocean at the End of the Lane)
β€œ
An intellectual? Yes. And never deny it. An intellectual is someone whose mind watches itself. I like this, because I am happy to be both halves, the watcher and the watched. "Can they be brought together?" This is a practical question. We must get down to it. "I despise intelligence" really means: "I cannot bear my doubts.
”
”
Albert Camus
β€œ
And I thought about how many people have loved those songs. And how many people got through a lot of bad times because of those songs. And how many people enjoyed good times with those songs. And how much those songs really mean. I think it would be great to have written one of those songs. I bet if I wrote one of them, I would be very proud. I hope the people who wrote those songs are happy. I hope they feel it's enough. I really do because they've made me happy. And I'm only one person.
”
”
Stephen Chbosky (The Perks of Being a Wallflower)
β€œ
I don’t live in either my past or my future. I’m interested only in the present. If you can concentrate always on the present, you’ll be a happy man. Life will be a party for you, a grand festival, because life is the moment we’re living now.
”
”
Paulo Coelho (The Alchemist)
β€œ
A quiet secluded life in the country, with the possibility of being useful to people to whom it is easy to do good, and who are not accustomed to have it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one's neighbor β€” such is my idea of happiness.
”
”
Leo Tolstoy (Π‘Π΅ΠΌΠ΅ΠΉΠ½ΠΎΠ΅ счастиС)
β€œ
Actual happiness always looks pretty squalid in comparison with the overcompensations for misery. And, of course, stability isn't nearly so spectacular as instability. And being contented has none of the glamour of a good fight against misfortune, none of the picturesqueness of a struggle with temptation, or a fatal overthrow by passion or doubt. Happiness is never grand.
”
”
Aldous Huxley (Brave New World)
β€œ
Name one hero who was happy." I considered. Heracles went mad and killed his family; Theseus lost his bride and father; Jason's children and new wife were murdered by his old; Bellerophon killed the Chimera but was crippled by the fall from Pegasus' back. "You can't." He was sitting up now, leaning forward. "I can't." "I know. They never let you be famous AND happy." He lifted an eyebrow. "I'll tell you a secret." "Tell me." I loved it when he was like this. "I'm going to be the first." He took my palm and held it to his. "Swear it." "Why me?" "Because you're the reason. Swear it." "I swear it," I said, lost in the high color of his cheeks, the flame in his eyes. "I swear it," he echoed. We sat like that a moment, hands touching. He grinned. "I feel like I could eat the world raw.
”
”
Madeline Miller (The Song of Achilles)
β€œ
I think we ought to read only the kind of books that wound or stab us. If the book we're reading doesn't wake us up with a blow to the head, what are we reading for? So that it will make us happy, as you write? Good Lord, we would be happy precisely if we had no books, and the kind of books that make us happy are the kind we could write ourselves if we had to. But we need books that affect us like a disaster, that grieve us deeply, like the death of someone we loved more than ourselves, like being banished into forests far from everyone, like a suicide. A book must be the axe for the frozen sea within us. That is my belief.
”
”
Franz Kafka
β€œ
Generally speaking, the most miserable people I know are those who are obsessed with themselves; the happiest people I know are those who lose themselves in the service of others...By and large, I have come to see that if we complain about life, it is because we are thinking only of ourselves.
”
”
Gordon B. Hinckley
β€œ
You're a guardian angel now." I was still too much in awe to wrap my mind around it, but at the same time I felt amazement, curiosity...happiness. "I'm your guardian angel," he said. "I get my very own guardian angel? What, exactly, is your job description?" "Guard your body." His smile tipped higher. "I take my job seriously, which means I'm going to need to get acquainted with the subject matter on a personal level.
”
”
Becca Fitzpatrick (Hush, Hush (Hush, Hush, #1))
β€œ
True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.
”
”
Seneca
β€œ
From the backstabbing co-worker to the meddling sister-in-law, you are in charge of how you react to the people and events in your life. You can either give negativity power over your life or you can choose happiness instead. Take control and choose to focus on what is important in your life. Those who cannot live fully often become destroyers of life.
”
”
AnaΓ―s Nin
β€œ
All that we are is the result of what we have thought: it is founded on our thoughts and made up of our thoughts. If a man speak or act with an evil thought, suffering follows him as the wheel follows the hoof of the beast that draws the wagon.... If a man speak or act with a good thought, happiness follows him like a shadow that never leaves him.
”
”
Gautama Buddha
β€œ
People like to say love is unconditional, but it's not, and even if it was unconditional, it's still never free. There's always an expectation attached. They always want something in return. Like they want you to be happy or whatever and that makes you automatically responsible for their happiness because they won't be happy unless you are ... I just don't want that responsibility.
”
”
Katja Millay (The Sea of Tranquility)
β€œ
The best remedy for those who are afraid, lonely or unhappy is to go outside, somewhere where they can be quite alone with the heavens, nature and God. Because only then does one feel that all is as it should be and that God wishes to see people happy, amidst the simple beauty of nature. As longs as this exists, and it certainly always will, I know that then there will always be comfort for every sorrow, whatever the circumstances may be. And I firmly believe that nature brings solace in all troubles.
”
”
Anne Frank (The Diary of a Young Girl)
β€œ
What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: 'This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more' ... Would you not throw yourself down and gnash your teeth and curse the demon who spoke thus? Or have you once experienced a tremendous moment when you would have answered him: 'You are a god and never have I heard anything more divine.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs)
β€œ
You deserve someone who loves you with every single beat of his heart, someone who thinks about you constantly, someone who spends every minute of every day just wondering what you’re doing, where you are, who you’re with, and if you’re OK. You need someone who can help you reach your dreams and protect you from your fears. You need someone who will treat you with respect, love every part of you, especially your flaws. You should be with someone who could make you happy, really happy, dancing on air happy.
”
”
Cecelia Ahern (Love, Rosie)
β€œ
Ester asked why people are sad. "That’s simple," says the old man. "They are the prisoners of their personal history. Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if that plan is theirs or if it was created by another person. They accumulate experiences, memories, things, other people's ideas, and it is more than they can possibly cope with. And that is why they forget their dreams.
”
”
Paulo Coelho (The Zahir)
β€œ
Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it. I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your knowledge. Then you will live to see that in the long-runβ€”in the long-run, I say!β€”success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it
”
”
Viktor E. Frankl (Man's Search for Meaning)
β€œ
Part of the problem with the word 'disabilities' is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can't feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren't able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities.
”
”
Fred Rogers (The World According to Mister Rogers: Important Things to Remember)
β€œ
Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more. Men were deceivers ever, One foot in sea, and one on shore, To one thing constant never. Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into hey nonny, nonny. Sing no more ditties, sing no more Of dumps so dull and heavy. The fraud of men was ever so Since summer first was leafy. Then sigh not so, but let them go, And be you blithe and bonny, Converting all your sounds of woe Into hey, nonny, nonny.
”
”
William Shakespeare (Much Ado About Nothing)
β€œ
I don't want you forgetting how different our circumstaces are. If you die, and I live, there's no life for me at all back in District Twelve. You're my whole life." Peeta says. "I would never be happy again. It's different for you. I'm not saying it wouldn't be hard. But there are other people who'd make your life worth living." "No one really needs me," he says, and there's no selfpity in his voice. It's true his family doesn't need him. They will mourn him, as will a handfull of friends. But they will get on.... I realise only one person will be damaged beyond repair if Peeta dies. Me. "I do," I say. "I need you.
”
”
Suzanne Collins (Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2))
β€œ
Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away... and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast.... be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust.... and don't expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.
”
”
Rainer Maria Rilke (Letters to a Young Poet)
β€œ
Passion makes a person stop eating, sleeping, working, feeling at peace. A lot of people are frightened because, when it appears, it demolishes all the old things it finds in its path. No one wants their life thrown into chaos. That is why a lot of people keep that threat under control, and are somehow capable of sustaining a house or a structure that is already rotten. They are the engineers of the superseded. Other people think exactly the opposite: they surrender themselves without a second thought, hoping to find in passion the solutions to all their problems. They make the other person responsible for their happiness and blame them for their possible unhappiness. They are either euphoric because something marvelous has happened or depressed because something unexpected has just ruined everything. Keeping passion at bay or surrendering blindly to it - which of these two attitudes is the least destructive? I don't know.
”
”
Paulo Coelho (Eleven Minutes)
β€œ
People disappear when they die. Their voice, their laughter, the warmth of their breath. Their flesh. Eventually their bones. All living memory of them ceases. This is both dreadful and natural. Yet for some there is an exception to this annihilation. For in the books they write they continue to exist. We can rediscover them. Their humor, their tone of voice, their moods. Through the written word they can anger you or make you happy. They can comfort you. They can perplex you. They can alter you. All this, even though they are dead. Like flies in amber, like corpses frozen in the ice, that which according to the laws of nature should pass away is, by the miracle of ink on paper, preserved. It is a kind of magic.
”
”
Diane Setterfield (The Thirteenth Tale)
β€œ
He awoke each morning with the desire to do right, to be a good and meaningful person, to be, as simple as it sounded and as impossible as it actually was, happy. And during the course of each day his heart would descend from his chest into his stomach. By early afternoon he was overcome by the feeling that nothing was right, or nothing was right for him, and by the desire to be alone. By evening he was fulfilled: alone in the magnitude of his grief, alone in his aimless guilt, alone even in his loneliness. I am not sad, he would repeat to himself over and over, I am not sad. As if he might one day convince himself. Or fool himself. Or convince others--the only thing worse than being sad is for others to know that you are sad. I am not sad. I am not sad. Because his life had unlimited potential for happiness, insofar as it was an empty white room. He would fall asleep with his heart at the foot of his bed, like some domesticated animal that was no part of him at all. And each morning he would wake with it again in the cupboard of his rib cage, having become a little heavier, a little weaker, but still pumping. And by the midafternoon he was again overcome with the desire to be somewhere else, someone else, someone else somewhere else. I am not sad.
”
”
Jonathan Safran Foer (Everything is Illuminated)
β€œ
He dug so deeply into her sentiments that in search of interest he found love, because by trying to make her love him he ended up falling in love with her. Petra Cotes, for her part, loved him more and more as she felt his love increasing, and that was how in the ripeness of autumn she began to believe once more in the youthful superstition that poverty was the servitude of love. Both looked back then on the wild revelry, the gaudy wealth, and the unbridled fornication as an annoyance and they lamented that it had cost them so much of their lives to find the paradise of shared solitude. Madly in love after so many years of sterile complicity, they enjoyed the miracle of living each other as much at the table as in bed, and they grew to be so happy that even when they were two worn-out people they kept on blooming like little children and playing together like dogs.
”
”
Gabriel GarcΓ­a MΓ‘rquez (One Hundred Years of Solitude)
β€œ
Emotions, in my experience, aren't covered by single words. I don't believe in "sadness," "joy," or "regret." Maybe the best proof that the language is patriarchal is that it oversimplifies feeling. I'd like to have at my disposal complicated hybrid emotions, Germanic train-car constructions like, say, "the happiness that attends disaster." Or: "the disappointment of sleeping with one's fantasy." I'd like to show how "intimations of mortality brought on by aging family members" connects with "the hatred of mirrors that begins in middle age." I'd like to have a word for "the sadness inspired by failing restaurants" as well as for "the excitement of getting a room with a minibar." I've never had the right words to describe my life, and now that I've entered my story, I need them more than ever.
”
”
Jeffrey Eugenides (Middlesex)
β€œ
Dignity /ˈdignitΔ“/ noun 1. The moment you realize that the person you cared for has nothing intellectually or spiritually to offer you, but a headache. 2. The moment you realize God had greater plans for you that don’t involve crying at night or sad Pinterest quotes. 3. The moment you stop comparing yourself to others because it undermines your worth, education and your parent’s wisdom. 4. The moment you live your dreams, not because of what it will prove or get you, but because that is all you want to do. People’s opinions don’t matter. 5. The moment you realize that no one is your enemy, except yourself. 6. The moment you realize that you can have everything you want in life. However, it takes timing, the right heart, the right actions, the right passion and a willingness to risk it all. If it is not yours, it is because you really didn’t want it, need it or God prevented it. 7. The moment you realize the ghost of your ancestors stood between you and the person you loved. They really don't want you mucking up the family line with someone that acts anything less than honorable. 8. The moment you realize that happiness was never about getting a person. They are only a helpmate towards achieving your life mission. 9. The moment you believe that love is not about losing or winning. It is just a few moments in time, followed by an eternity of situations to grow from. 10. The moment you realize that you were always the right person. Only ignorant people walk away from greatness.
”
”
Shannon L. Alder
β€œ
Clary, Despite everything, I can't bear the thought of this ring being lost forever, any more then I can bear the thought of leaving you forever. And though I have no choice about the one, at least I can choose about the other. I'm leaving you our family ring because you have as much right to it as I do. I'm writing this watching the sun come up. You're asleep, dreams moving behind your restless eyelids. I wish I knew what you were thinking. I wish I could slip into your head and see the world the way you do. I wish I could see myself the way you do. But maybe I dont want to see that. Maybe it would make me feel even more than I already do that I'm perpetuating some kind of Great Lie on you, and I couldn't stand that. I belong to you. You could do anything you wanted with me and I would let you. You could ask anything of me and I'd break myself trying to make you happy. My heart tells me this is the best and greatest feeling I have ever had. But my mind knows the difference between wanting what you can't have and wanting what you shouldn't want. And I shouldn't want you. All night I've watched you sleeping, watched the moonlight come and go, casting its shadows across your face in black and white. I've never seen anything more beautiful. I think of the life we could have had if things were different, a life where this night is not a singular event, separate from everything else that's real, but every night. But things aren't different, and I can't look at you without feeling like I've tricked you into loving me. The truth no one is willing to say out loud is that no one has a shot against Valentine but me. I can get close to him like no one else can. I can pretend I want to join him and he'll believe me, up until that last moment where I end it all, one way or another. I have something of Sebastian's; I can track him to where my father's hiding, and that's what I'm going to do. So I lied to you last night. I said I just wanted one night with you. But I want every night with you. And that's why I have to slip out of your window now, like a coward. Because if I had to tell you this to your face, I couldn't make myself go. I don't blame you if you hate me, I wish you would. As long as I can still dream, I will dream of you. _Jace
”
”
Cassandra Clare (City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3))
β€œ
Love is . . . Being happy for the other person when they are happy, Being sad for the person when they are sad, Being together in good times, And being together in bad times. LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF STRENGTH. Love is . . . Being honest with yourself at all times, Being honest with the other person at all times, Telling, listening, respecting the truth, And never pretending. LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF REALITY. Love is . . . An understanding so complete that you feel as if you are a part of the other person, Accepting the other person just the way they are, And not trying to change them to be something else. LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF UNITY. Love is . . . The freedom to pursue your own desires while sharing your experiences with the other person, The growth of one individual alongside of and together with the growth of another individual. LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF SUCCESS. Love is . . . The excitement of planning things together, The excitement of doing things together. LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF THE FUTURE. Love is . . . The fury of the storm, The calm in the rainbow. LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF PASSION. Love is . . . Giving and taking in a daily situation, Being patient with each other's needs and desires. LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF SHARING. Love is . . . Knowing that the other person will always be with you regardless of what happens, Missing the other person when they are away but remaining near in heart at all times. LOVE IS THE SOURCE OF SECURITY. LOVE IS . . . THE SOURCE OF LIFE!
”
”
Susan Polis Schutz
β€œ
It was many and many a year ago, In a kingdom by the sea, That a maiden there lived whom you may know By the name of ANNABEL LEE; And this maiden she lived with no other thought Than to love and be loved by me. I was a child and she was a child, In this kingdom by the sea; But we loved with a love that was more than love- I and my Annabel Lee; With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven Coveted her and me. And this was the reason that, long ago, In this kingdom by the sea, A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling My beautiful Annabel Lee; So that her highborn kinsman came And bore her away from me, To shut her up in a sepulchre In this kingdom by the sea. The angels, not half so happy in heaven, Went envying her and me- Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know, In this kingdom by the sea) That the wind came out of the cloud by night, Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee. But our love it was stronger by far than the love Of those who were older than we- Of many far wiser than we- And neither the angels in heaven above, Nor the demons down under the sea, Can ever dissever my soul from the soul Of the beautiful Annabel Lee. For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride, In the sepulchre there by the sea, In her tomb by the sounding sea.
”
”
Edgar Allan Poe
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For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfil themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals its naked death-wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk: in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow. Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach, undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life. A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought, I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail. A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labor is holy. Out of this trust I live. When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all. A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one's suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother. So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts: Trees have long thoughts, long-breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.
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Hermann Hesse (BΓ€ume: Betrachtungen und Gedichte)
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Do you love me?' I asked her. She smiled. 'Yes.' 'Do you want me to be happy?' as I asked her this I felt my heart beginning to race. 'Of course I do.' 'Will you do something for me then?' She looked away, sadness crossing her features. 'I don't know if I can anymore.' she said. 'but if you could, would you?' I cannot adequately describe the intensity of what I was feeling at that moment. Love, anger, sadness, hope, and fear, whirling together sharpened by the nervousness I was feeling. Jamie looked at me curiously and my breaths became shallower. Suddenly I knew that I'd never felt as strongly for another person as I did at that moment. As I returned her gaze, this simple realization made me wish for the millionth time that I could make all this go away. Had it been possible, I would have traded my life for hers. I wanted to tell her my thoughts, but the sound of her voice suddenly silenced the emotions inside me. 'yes' she finally said, her voice weak yet somehow still full of promise. 'I would.' Finally getting control of myself I kissed her again, then brought my hand to her face, gently running my fingers over her cheek. I marveled at the softness of her skin, the gentleness I saw in her eyes. even now she was perfect. My throat began to tighten again, but as I said, I knew what I had to do. Since I had to accept that it was not within my power to cure her, what I wanted to do was give her something that she'd wanted. It was what my heart had been telling me to do all along. Jamie, I understood then, had already given me the answer I'd been searching for, the answer my heart needed to find. She'd told me outside Mr. Jenkins office, the night we'd asked him about doing the play. I smiled softly, and she returned my affection with a slight squeeze of my hand, as if trusting me in what I was about to do. Encouraged, I leaned closer and took a deep breath. When I exhaled, these were the words that flowed with my breath. 'Will you marry me?
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Nicholas Sparks (A Walk to Remember)