Happiness is a jewel whose price isn’t weighted in gold or money, neither can it be purchased. How can you keep yourself happy despite the depressing and weighing activities around us? Here are 169 inspiring quotes about happiness from business people, entertainers, spiritual leaders, writers, philosophers, sports figures, women’s advocates, artists, mindfulness experts, political leaders, academics, and unknown people:

169 Short Happiness Quotes From Famous and Unknown People

Quotes from Business People

Joseph Addison said “Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.” Your business values express someone to love, your business mission communicates something to do, and your business vision gives you something to hope for. Pursue your business values, vision, and mission and you can achieve happiness. -Alan Melton

Success is getting what you want. Happiness is wanting what you get. -Dale Carnegie

If you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much. -Jim Rohn

It’s the moments that I stopped just to be, rather than do that have given me true happiness. -Richard Branson

Today is life – the only life you are sure of. Make the most of today. Get interested in something. Shake yourself awake. Develop a hobby. Let the winds of enthusiasm sweep through you. Live today with gusto. -Dale Carnegie

If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes. -Andrew Carnegie

Happiness comes from peace. Peace comes from indifference. –Naval Ravikant

Happiness is a state where nothing is missing. -Naval Ravikant

That’s your unlimited desires that are clouding your peace, your happiness. -Naval Ravikant

Not wanting something is as good as having it. -Naval Ravikant

Happiness is a choice and a skill, and you can dedicate yourself to learning that skill and making that choice. -Naval Ravikant

School, politics, sports, and games train us to compete against others. True rewards – wealth, knowledge, love, fitness, and equanimity – come from ignoring others and improving ourselves. -Naval Ravikant

Don’t postpone joy until you have learned all of your lessons. Joy is your lesson. -Alan Cohen

Happiness is the default state. It’s what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in life. -Naval Ravikant

Short Happiness Quotes from Entertainers

Be healthy and take care of yourself, but be happy with the beautiful things that make you, you. -Beyoncé

The biggest adventure you can ever take is to live the life of your dreams. -Oprah Winfrey

Every day is a new day. -Carrie Underwood

The most important thing is to enjoy your life – to be happy. It’s all that matters. -Audrey Hepburn

Happiness is the best makeup. -Drew Barrymore

Roll with the punches and enjoy every minute of it. -Meghan Markle

Simplicity makes me happy. -Alicia Keys

The only thing that will make you happy is being happy with who you are. -Goldie Hawn

The most important thing is to enjoy your life – to be happy – it’s all that matters. -Audrey Hepburn

The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams. -Oprah Winfrey

Blessed are those who can give without remembering and take without forgetting. -Bernard Meltzer

If we would just slow down, happiness would catch up to us. -Richard Carlson

Quotes from Spiritual Leaders

It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness. -Charles Spurgeon

Spread love everywhere you go. Let no one ever come without leaving happier. -Mother Teresa

Suppose you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. -Dalai Lama

Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions. -Dalai Lama

Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony. -Mahatma Gandhi

In our lives, change is unavoidable, loss is unavoidable. In the adaptability and ease with which we experience change lies our happiness and freedom. -Buddha

Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. -Buddha

The purpose of our lives is to be happy. -Dalai Lama

If you find happiness, people may be jealous. Be happy anyway. -Mother Teresa

Don’t let your happiness depend on something you may lose. -C.S. Lewis

Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions. -Dalai Lama

Life is the dancer, and you are the dance. -Eckhart Tolle

Indeed, man wishes to be happy even when he so lives as to make happiness impossible. -Augustine of Hippo

You can only have bliss if you don’t chase it. -Henepola Gunaratana

I am very happy because I have conquered myself and not the world. I am very happy because I have loved the world and not myself. Sri Chinmoy

Happiness does not lead to gratitude. Gratitude leads to happiness. -David Steindl-Rast

I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I do know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who have sought and found how to serve. -Albert Schweitzer

On the whole, the happiest people seem to be those who have no particular cause for being happy except that they are so. -William R. Inge

Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy. -Thich Nhat Hanh

Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory. -Albert Schweitzer

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. -Reinhold Niebuhr

There is no way to happiness — happiness is the way. -Thich Nhat Hanh (notable-quotes.com)

Enjoyment is just the sound of being centered. -Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh

Joy is more divine than sorrow, for joy is bread, and sorrow is medicine. -Henry Ward Beecher

Short Happiness Quotes from Writers

The mere sense of living is joy enough. -Emily Dickinson

Wealth can also be that attitude of gratitude with which we remind ourselves everyday to count our blessings.
–Chris Gardner, The Pursuit of Happyness

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know. -Ernest Hemingway

If you want to be happy, be. -Leo Tolstoy

Happiness is a gift, and the trick is not to expect it but to delight in it when it comes. -Charles Dickens

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 having it done to them; then work which one hopes may be of some use; then rest, nature, books, music, love for one’s neighbor — such is my idea of happiness. -Leo Tolstoy (Family Happiness)

The secret of happiness is to admire without desiring. -Carl Sandburg

The point is not to pay back kindness but to pass it on. -Julia Alvarez

No medicine cures what happiness cannot. -Gabriel García Márquez

If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love. -Maya Angelou

Embrace the glorious mess that you are. -Elizabeth Gilbert

If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams, and you will always look lovely. -Roald Dahl

To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist. -Oscar Wilde

We love because it’s the only true adventure. -Nikki Giovanni

What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner. -Colette

Happiness is an inside job. – William Arthur Ward

My mission in life is not merely to survive but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style. – Maya Angelou

People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy. – Anton Chekhov

Cry. Forgive. Learn. Move on. Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness. -Steve Maraboli

Happiness is a function of accepting what is. -Werner Erhard

For every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness. -Ralph Waldo Emerson

True happiness is not attained through self-gratification but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. -Helen Keller

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. -Marthe Troly-Curtin

Now and then, it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy. -Guillaume Apollinaire

Don’t cry because it’s over; smile because it happened. -Ludwig Jacobowski

Enjoy it. Because it’s happening. -Stephen Chbosky

Happiness is a direction, not a place. -Sydney J. Harris

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 that has been opened for us. -Helen Keller

True happiness arises, in the first place, from the enjoyment of one’s self. -Joseph Addison

Happiness? That’s nothing more than health and poor memory. -Albert Schweitzer

Happiness, not in another place but this place…not for another hour, but this hour. -Walt Whitman

Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out of it alive. -Elbert Hubbard

The constant happiness is curiosity. -Alice Munro

Be happy. It’s one way of being wise. -Colette

Being happy is not the only happiness. -Alice Walker

All happiness depends on courage and work. -Honoré de Balzac

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet. -James Oppenheim

There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved. -George Sand

Whoever is happy will make others happy. -Anne Frank

The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness. -William Saroyan

People are unhappy when they get something too easily. You have to sweat – that’s the only moral they know. -Dany Laferrière

The only way to find true happiness is to risk being completely cut open. -Chuck Palahniuk

The secret of happiness is freedom; the secret of freedom is courage. -Carrie Jones

Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it. -William Feather

The only joy in the world is to begin. -Cesare Pavese

The unhappy derive comfort from the misfortunes of others. -Aesop

It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will. -L.M. Montgomery

“Nobody can be uncheered with a balloon. -Winnie the Pooh

It’s been my experience that you can nearly always enjoy things if you make up your mind firmly that you will. -L.M. Montgomery

There are two ways to be happy: improve your reality or lower your expectations. -Jodi Picoult

There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do. -Freya Stark

Is it not clear, however, that bliss and envy are the numerators and denominator of the fraction called happiness? -Yevgeny Zamyatin

Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us to a wild-goose chase and is never attained. -Nathaniel Hawthorne

Sometimes we don’t find the thing that will make us happy because we can’t give up the thing that was supposed to. -Robert Brault

The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up. -Mark Twain

Short Happiness Quotes from Political Leaders

Our greatest happiness does not depend on the condition of life in which chance has placed us but is always the result of a good conscience, good health, occupation, and freedom in all just pursuits. – Thomas Jefferson

Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be. Abraham Lincoln

Since you get more joy out of giving joy to others, you should put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give. Eleanor Roosevelt

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort. Franklin D. Roosevelt

There is no passion to be found playing small – in settling for a life that is less than the one you are capable of living. Nelson Mandela

Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. Benjamin Disraeli

Short Happiness Quotes from Artists

Beauty is everywhere. You only have to look to see it. Bob Ross

Doing what you like is freedom. Liking what you do is happiness. Frank Tyger

Doing what you were born to do… That’s the way to be happy. Agnes Martin

Short Happiness Quotes from Sports Figures

Happiness is not doing fun things. Happiness is doing meaningful things. Maxime Lagacé

The truly wise and happy are never rushed. Maxime Lagacé

The greatest secret to happiness and peace is letting every life situation be what it is, instead of what you think it should be. Then, make the very best of it. Thibaut

Seek it outside, and you’ll be exhausted. Seek it inside, and you’ll find a path. Maxime Lagacé

Stop being busy. Start being present. Maxime Lagacé

Being happy is being satisfied. Being satisfied means accepting. Maxime Lagacé

Truly happy people don’t need to show others that they are. Maxime Lagacé

Your mind will seek security and comfort in accumulation (of knowledge, material, status, etc.). This is a never-ending game. Be above that. Play the long game. Maxime Lagacé

Say “no” more often so you can say “yes” to what’s important. Maxime Lagacé

More happiness quotes.

Quotes from Academics

You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to swim. Jon Kabat Zinn

Only a life lived for others is a life worthwhile. Albert Einstein

Short Happiness Quotes From Women’s Rights Advocates

Independence is happiness. Susan B. Anthony

One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory. Rita Mae Brown

Usefulness is happiness, and… all other things are but incidental. Lydia Maria Child, The American Frugal Housewife

Quotes From Mindfulness Experts

If you aren’t grateful for what you already have, what makes you think you would be happy with more. Roy T. Bennett

What we think determines what happens to us, so if we want to change our lives, we need to stretch our minds. Wayne Dyer

Most people would rather be certain they’re miserable than risk being happy. Dr. Robert Anthony

Short Happiness Quotes From Philosophers

Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness. Ayn Rand

Happiness is that state of consciousness that proceeds from the achievement of one’s values. Ayn Rand

The advantage of a bad memory is that one enjoys several times the same good things for the first time. Friedrich Nietzsche

Happiness depends upon ourselves. Aristotle

He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe. Marcus Aurelius

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. Confucius

We don’t laugh because we’re happy – we’re happy because we laugh. William James

It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it. Seneca

I’m happy. Which often looks like crazy. David Henry Hwang

What is happiness? The feeling that power is growing, that resistance is overcome. Friedrich Nietzsche

What you do not want to be done to yourself, do not do to others. Confucius

To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others. Albert Camus

Happiness depends upon ourselves. Aristotle

It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it. Seneca

The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom. Arthur Schopenhauer

For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles; it only changes them. Seneca

Happiness is a state of activity. Aristotle

The pleasure which we most rarely experience gives us the greatest delight. Epictetus

There are more things to alarm us than to harm us, and we suffer more often in apprehension than reality. Seneca

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. Confucius

Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy. Heraclitus

Happiness does not consist in pastimes and amusements but in virtuous activities. Aristotle

Tension is who you think you should be; relaxation is who you are. Chinese proverb

It is difficult to find happiness within oneself, but it is impossible to find it anywhere else. Arthur Schopenhauer

There is some kind of 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.

Ask yourself whether you are happy and you cease to be so. John Stuart Mill

When neither their property nor their honor is touched, the majority of men live content. Niccolo Machiavelli

Tension is who you think you should be; relaxation is who you are. Chinese proverb

Most of us believe in trying to make other people happy only if they can be happy in ways which we approve. Robert S. Lynd

Short Happiness Quotes from Unknown People

Start each day with a grateful heart. -Unknown

When it rains, look for rainbows. When it’s dark, look for stars. -Unknown

Happiness is inversely correlated with desire. -Unknown

Happiness is acceptance. -Unknown

Happiness is not out there; it’s in you. -Unknown

A truly happy person is one who can enjoy the scenery while on a detour. -Unknown

Difficult roads often lead to beautiful destinations. -Unknown

There is no happiness; there are only moments of happiness. -Unknown

You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy ice cream. And that’s kind of the same thing. -Unknown