Quotes · Skopia

65 quotes

SortEditorial Year Length

Topic·Happiness✕clear

Historical literature

Happiness depends on being free, and freedom depends on being courageous.

Thucydides, Funeral Oration, History of the Peloponnesian War · 430 BC

★ 7.5

Novel · Magazine · Modernist literature

He was unheeded, happy and near to the wild heart of life.

The Egoist · 1915

★ 7.1

To be happy is to be able to become aware of oneself without fright.

Walter Benjamin

One Way Street · 1979

★ 6.0

Man was made for joy and woe, And when this we rightly know Through the world we safely go.

1805

★ 5.4

How simple and frugal a thing is happiness: a glass of wine, a roast chestnut, a wretched little brazier, the sound of the sea... All that is required to feel that here and now is happiness is a simple, frugal heart.

Nikos Kazantzakis

Zorba the Greek · 1946

★ 5.1

Happiness is the deferred fulfillment of a prehistoric wish. That is why wealth brings so little happiness; money is not an infantile wish.

1898

★ 4.6

The eternal error men make in imagining that happiness consists in the gratification of their wishes.

Anna Karenina · 1877

★ 4.0

Autobiography and memoir

Human felicity is produc'd not so much by great pieces of good fortune that seldom happen, as by little advantages that occur every day.

Benjamin Franklin

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin · 1790

★ 3.9

Novel · Coming of age story

I would always rather be happy than dignified.

Charlotte Bronte

Jane Eyre: An Autobiography · 1847

★ 3.9

Novel · Dystopian fiction

The choice for mankind lies between freedom and happiness, and that, for the great bulk of mankind, happiness is better.

Nineteen Eighty-Four · 1949

★ 3.9

Novel · Post-colonial literature

If you're happy in a dream... does that count?

The God of Small Things · 1997

★ 3.9

Play · Tragic play · Greek theater

The happiest life consists in ignorance.

Ajax · 442 BC

★ 3.8

Philosophical literature

Nothing is miserable but what is thought so, and contrariwise, every estate is happy if he that bears it be content.

The Consolation of Philosophy · 523

★ 3.8

Philosophical literature

Who hath so entire happiness that he is not in some part offended with the condition of his estate?

The Consolation of Philosophy · 524

★ 3.8

Play · History (play)

My crown is in my heart, not on my head; Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones, Nor to be seen. My crown is called content; A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.

William Shakespeare

Henry VI, Part 3 · 1595

★ 3.8

To fill the hour—that is happiness.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Essays: Second Series (Emerson) · 1844

★ 3.8

Speech · Political speech

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.

Franklin D. Roosevelt

First Inaugural Address of Franklin D. Roosevelt · 1933

★ 3.8

Philosophical literature

Happiness and freedom begin with a clear understanding of one principle: Some things are within our control, and some things are not.

The Enchiridion · 135

★ 3.7

There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by: a good tavern or inn.

James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D · 1776

★ 3.7

Thou hast no right to bliss.

Empedocles on Etna · 1852

★ 3.7

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