Top 100 Happiness Pursuit Quotes
#1. There can be many opinions on a thing, but there is only one truth."
Vashet smiled lazily. "And if the pursuit of the truth was my goal, that would concern me." She gave a long yawn, stretching like a happy cat. "Instead I will focus on the joy in my heart, [...}
Patrick Rothfuss
#2. Happiness and beauty are by-products. Folly is the direct pursuit of happiness and beauty.
George Bernard Shaw
#3. All moments of joy include an element of happiness. But not all moments of happiness include joy. Happiness often comes from drive reduction-avoidance of pain or the pursuit of pleasure for pleasure's sake. The essence of joy, on the other hand, is spirit.
Laurel Mellin
#4. What I wish is not that you pursue happiness, but that you actually find happiness. Is it possible to pursue happiness if the pursuit itself does not make you happy?
Deepak Malhotra
#5. The rub is that the pursuit of happiness, as an end in itself, tends automatically, and widely, to be replaced by the pursuit of pleasure with a consequent general softening of the fibers of will, intelligence, spirit.
Whittaker Chambers
#6. The single most important principle I ever discovered is this: the goal or purpose of the Christian is precisely the pursuit of happiness - in God. The reason for this is that there is no greater way to glorify God than to find in Him the happiness that my soul so desperately craves.
Sam Storms
#7. This is why Sonja Lyubomirsky, a leader in the scientific study of well-being, has written that she prefers the phrase "creation or construction of happiness" to the more popular "pursuit," since "research shows that it's in our power to fashion it for ourselves."13
Shawn Achor
#8. Happiness was not an abundance of riches or amusements, it was evenings such as these, when people were engaged in a worthy pursuit and surrounded by kindred spirits. It
Elizabeth Camden
#9. For me, the only sources of moral values are the pursuit of understanding and the pursuit of happiness.
Matthew Stewart
#10. The crowning fortune of a man is to be born to some pursuit which finds him employment and happiness, whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or statues, or songs.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#11. As people spin faster and faster in the pursuit of merely personal happiness, they become exhausted in the futile effort of chasing themselves.
Andrew Delbanco
#12. The mind is a mass of contradictions and conflicts. We lie to make others trust us. We hide our true selves in the pursuit of intimacy. We chase happiness in ways that drive happiness away. When we're wrong we fight the hardest to prove we're right. Caught
John Verdon
#13. The Declaration calls us to recognize the inherent equality of all people. And when it becomes unmistakably evident that a government is denying the governed life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, it's the right of people to establish a new government to secure these unalienable rights.
Mike Crapo
#14. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of property were just what Aristotle did not talk about. They are the conditions of happiness; but the essence of happiness, according to Aristotle, is virtue. So the moderns decided to deal with the conditions and to let happiness take care of itself.
Allan Bloom
#15. Happiness is an elusive state of mind not to be gained by clumsy pursuit.It is given to those who do not sue for it:to be unconcerned about a desired good is probably the only way to possess it.
Ruskin Bond
#16. Now a guarantee of happiness - that's a great deal. But a guarantee to be allowed to pursue the jackpot of happiness? Merely an opportunity to buy a lottery ticket. Someone would surely win millions, but millions would surely pay for it.
Viet Thanh Nguyen
#18. With all respect to Mr. Jefferson, I would put the pursuit of wisdom ahead of the pursuit of happiness.
Edmund Fuller
#19. It is not in the pursuit of happiness that we find fulfillment, it is in the happiness of pursuit.
Denis Waitley
#20. Don't let the pursuit of happiness stop you from being happy right here, right now.
Karen Salmansohn
#21. I'm on the pursuit of happiness and I know, everything that shines ain't always gonna be gold. But I'll be fine once I get it, I'll be good.
Kid Cudi
#22. When great causes are on the move in the world, stirring all men's souls, drawing them from their firesides, casting aside comfort, wealth and the pursuit of happiness in response to impulses at once awe-striking and irresistible, we learn that we are spirits, not animals.
Winston Churchill
#24. Because of our freedom to pursue life, liberty, and happiness. People assume the most important word in that sentence is 'freedom,' when, in fact, it is 'pursue.' If we don't pursue life, we are just as free to waste it. Our averageness is the degree to which we fail to attempt that pursuit.
Ryan Quinn
#25. Democracy rests upon two pillars: one, the principle that all men are equally entitled to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness; and the other, the conviction that such equal opportunity will most advance civilization.
Louis D. Brandeis
#26. People, to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, Bob Burgess, after the tall man with the tasseled scarf turned down a side
Elizabeth Strout
#27. The pursuit of individual happiness within those limits prescribed by social conditions, is the first requisite to the attainment of the greatest general happiness.
Herbert Spencer
#28. I couldn't peel my eyes off her face or her body. Even if she had asked me not to follow her, I would have followed anyway. I was in a Norah state of mind.
Angela Richardson
#29. Happiness is a reality of NOW, it not not something that you pursue in the future. Don't pursue happiness, but EXUDE happiness.
Farshad Asl
#30. Prosperity and abundance in a society depend on a certain type of person: the producer. Societies with few producers stagnate and decay, while nations with a large number of producers vibrantly grow-in wealth, freedom, power, influence and the pursuit of happiness.
Oliver DeMille
#31. And like anyone who is in valiant pursuit of dreams, the ups and downs come and go, but the dream lives in the heart forever.
Chris Michaels
#32. I believe everyone on this planet deserves equal rights to their own pursuit of happiness.
Joel Madden
#33. Any pursuit of happiness contrary to the common good is doomed to failure.
Alice Hegan Rice
#34. You know that the pursuit of worldly things does not bring contentment. Find satisfaction in becoming a worker among the Lord's workers
Binye Vincent
#35. People can't do something themselves, they want to tell you that you can't do it. You want something? Go get it.
Chris Gardner
#36. America was founded on the principle of inalienable rights, not dictated duties. The Declaration of Independence states that every human being has a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. It does not state that he is born a slave to the needs of others.
Alex Epstein
#37. The U. S. Constitution doesn't guarantee happiness, only the pursuit of it. You have to catch up with it yourself.
Benjamin Franklin
#38. The pursuit of prosperity shouldn't stop you from the pursuit of happiness.
Richie Norton
#39. In pursuit of happiness, smart people often end up dumbing down themselves.
Erol Ozan
#40. I am about to be married, and am of course in all the misery of a man in pursuit of happiness.
Lord Byron
#41. Actual happiness is sometimes confused with the pursuit of it; and the most mindless and crass how-tos can get jumbled in with the modestly useful, the appealingly personal, and the genuinely interesting.
Amy Bloom
#42. That cotton trade was almost the deal breaker for me. It was at that point that I said, Mr. Stupid, why risk everything on one trade? Why not make your life a pursuit of happiness rather than pain?
Paul Tudor Jones
#43. We discover the vast difference between living and feeling alive when we discover inspiration." The quickest way to true happiness is not by ambling and obsessing about the limited pursuit of happiness, but by the immediate and actionable pursuit to be inspired.
Elaina Marie
#44. This country was founded upon the principle that we are all endowed with certain inalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness - those rights are what make America great, and they belong to each and every one of us.
Charles B. Rangel
#45. To the extent to which a man is rational, life is the premise directing his actions. To the extent to which he is irrational, the premise directing his actions is death.
Ayn Rand
#46. As we see, a human being is not one in pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy,
Viktor E. Frankl
#47. All equally see in the convulsion in America an era in the history of the world, out of which must come in the end a general recognition of the right of mankind to the produce of their labor and the pursuit of happiness.
Charles Francis Adams, Sr.
#48. America is a mosaic not of groups but of individuals, each of whom carries a host of cultural influences, some chosen, some inherited, some absorbed by osmosis. That mosaic is held together by the pursuit of happiness, the most powerful mortar ever conceived. Left alone, it will long endure.
Virginia Postrel
#49. That is our generation's task, to make these works, these rights, these values of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness real for every American.
Barack Obama
#50. Luxury is ... to be able to take control of one's life, health, and the pursuit of happiness in a way that is joyful.
Andre Leon Talley
#51. As with the pursuit of happiness, the pursuit of truth is itself gratifying whereas the consummation often turns out to be elusive.
Richard Hofstadter
#52. Waking up is not a selfish pursuit of happiness, it is a revolutionary stance, from the inside out, for the benefit of all beings in existence.
Noah Levine
#53. Pursuit of happiness is like chasing a moving target - a target stuck to the belly of a frolicsome kangaroo.
Majid Kazmi
#54. It's the pursuit of love and happiness that is the driving force of the romantic novel.
Susanna Kearsley
#55. America's Declaration of Independence speaks of "the pursuit of happiness," but nowhere in the Bible are we told to pursue this. Happiness is elusive, and we don't find it by seeking it.
Billy Graham
#56. It is proved by surveys that happiness does not come from love, wealth, or power but the pursuit of attainable goals.
Helen Fielding
#57. A process of reason is a process of constant choice in answer to the question: True or False? - Right or Wrong?
Ayn Rand
#58. The wise man knoweth where to stop, as he runneth in the race of fortune, For experience of old hath taught him, that happiness lingered midway; And many in hot pursuit have hasted to the goal of wealth, But have lost, as they ran, those apples of gold
the mind and the power to enjoy it.
Martin Farquhar Tupper
#59. I'm not in pursuit of happiness, I'm happiness in pursuit; ready to happen everywhere I go.
Bernard Kelvin Clive
#60. Love alone is the only reasonable activity or pursuit of humankind ... Fo r Love not only annihilates our fear of meaninglessness but empowers us to seek the happiness of others. And this indeed is our greatest happiness.
Leo Tolstoy
#61. The moral is the chosen, not the forced; the understood, not the obeyed. The moral is the rational, and reason accepts no commandments.
Ayn Rand
#62. Happiness as an inescapable fate, not a pursuit.
Manu Joseph
#63. Upon the whole, he added nothing to his own happiness by all the dangers, the fatigues, and the perpetual anxiety which he had incurred in the pursuit of unlimited power.
Suetonius
#64. If America is the pursuit of happiness, the best way to pursue happiness is to help other people.
George Lucas
#65. Happiness is the most tired word in any language.
Erol Ozan
#66. The idea that power was an end in itself, rather than a means to provide the security and opportunity necessary for the pursuit of happiness, seemed to him stupid and self-defeating." (about Senator Fulbright)
Bill Clinton
#67. Some of us learned in a school of philosophy which taught that all was for the common good and nothing for oneself and have never, in any case, regarded the pursuit of happiness as anything other than an aberration of the human spirit.
John Grierson
#68. Some decide that happiness and glee are the same thing, they are not. When we choose happiness we accept the responsibility to lighten the load of someone else and to be a light on the path of another who may be walking in darkness.
Maya Angelou
#69. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends [life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness] it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute new government ...
Thomas Jefferson
#70. Almost everyone nowadays is on the wrong track in their pursuit of
happiness. They think a great deal about having and receiving, about
outward show and success and being served by others. That is what most
people call fulfillment.
True fulfillment, though, lies in giving and serving.
Paulo Coelho
#71. I think the pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of reality because illusion never leaves us ultimately happy.
Parker Palmer
#72. Slow down in your pursuit of happiness and it's more likely to catch up with you.
Ernie J Zelinski
#73. There is something very unique in American iconography about this notion of the pursuit of happiness.
David Henry Hwang
#74. Reality is that which exists; the unreal does not exist; the unreal is merely that negation of existence which is the content of a human consciousness when it attempts to abandon reason. Truth is the recognition of reality; reason, man's only means of knowledge, is his only standard of truth.
Ayn Rand
#75. Embracing a life content with fewer possessions has modeled for them the important truths that personal belongings are not the key to happiness, that security is found in their character, and that the pursuit of happiness runs a different road than the pursuit of possessions.
Joshua Becker
#76. I think government has a major role to play in helping us with the pursuit of happiness.
William Weld
#77. The earth is our home, the world is our playground ... created to better enhance our lives, whether for a short or long period of time in the pursuit and fulfillment of peace, love, liberty & happiness!
Timothy Pina
#78. Mystery is gone to the certainty of technological principles. So the real terror, the real aggression against life comes in the form of the pursuit of our technological happiness.
Godfrey Reggio
#79. The three basic material rights
continuity, mutual obligation, and the pursuit of happiness.
David Brin
#80. A human life is defined by its relationship with others: by its duty to its species. In the face of this duty, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are meaningless. What you call individual rights are merely the cultural fantasy of a failed civilization.
Matthew Woodring Stover
#81. My aim in life isn't so much the pursuit of happiness as the happiness of pursuit.
Charles Saatchi
#82. Life's value is lost when the pursuit of money becomes the goal as opposed to the pursuit of true happiness.
Steven Redhead
#83. Since life requires a specific course of action, any other course will destroy it. A being who does not hold his own life as the motive and goal of his actions, is acting on the motive and standard of death.
Ayn Rand
#84. You know, American citizens, I don't think, ever thought that the right to the pursuit of happiness did not include the right to marry the person you love. But for a whole number of Americans, gay Americans, that happens to be true.
Andrew Sullivan
#86. The pursuit of happiness, which American citizens are obliged to undertake, tends to involve them in trying to perpetuate the moods, tastes and aptitudes of youth.
Malcolm Muggeridge
#87. Our predicament is not the difficulty of attaining happiness, but the difficult of avoiding the misery to which the pursuit of happiness exposes us.
Michael Joseph Oakeshott
#88. Happiness is not to be found at the bottom of a bottle or from the tip of a needle; it is not to be found amidst a cloud of smoke or within a sugar-coated pill. If you look for it in these places, you will find naught but despair.
Wayne Gerard Trotman
#89. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness ... but only when you pay your taxes? That means your freedom is rented, leased, & not unalienable.
Steve Maraboli
#90. Fulfillment comes not in pursuit of happiness, but rather in pursuit of service.
Philip Yancey
#91. The pursuit of happiness is a most ridiculous phrase; if you pursue happiness you'll never find it.
C.P. Snow
#92. America stands for liberty, for the pursuit of happiness and for the unalienable right for life. This right to life cannot be granted or denied by government because it does not come from government, it comes from the creator of life.
George W. Bush
#93. Happiness is not always through success. Equally, the constant pursuit of success is sure unhappiness. But we have to find the balance. My own thoughts are that parenting is very personal. And we all feel enormous insecurity about parenting. What are they going to think of us 20 years down the line?
Amy Chua
#94. When I was growing up, I don't remember being told that America was created so that everyone could get rich. I remember being told it was about opportunity and the pursuit of happiness. Not happiness itself, but the pursuit.
Martin Scorsese
#95. History has shown time and time again that
there is no such thing as all things being equal. That is why Jefferson
wrote that our inalienable rights were life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness. Nothing is guaranteed in life, especially happiness.
Ziad K. Abdelnour
#96. All suffering is caused by ignorance. People inflict pain on others in the selfish pursuit of their own happiness or satisfaction
Dalai Lama XIV
#97. In the process of creating what we want, in pursuit of our happiness, we are just destroying the very source of our life, this planet; we are making a bonfire out of it. But still we are not satisfied, nor are we any more joyful than what people were five hundred years ago.
Sadhguru
#98. Our happiness is made up of our needs being fulfilled, our fears being kept at bay in a life made up of days, which are based on pursuing what is most important to us.
Malti Bhojwani
#99. Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it.
Nathaniel Hawthorne
#100. Cult: simply an extension of the idea that everyone's supreme aim in life is self- fulfillment and happiness and that one is entitled to wreck marriage, children and certainly one's health and sanity in pursuit of this.
Stephen Spender
