If you asked somebody 'what do you wish for in life?' they wouldn't say 'happiness.' I would have answered 'excitement knowledge ' God knows - I mean many many different things but certainly not 'happiness'. It seemed like a foreign concept to wish for something that specific and that singular.

I have kids and I want to have a long life and there are certain things that are conducive to that and certain things that aren't. I've opted for the road of happiness and long life.

Happiness for me is getting to write about the most important things I know.

Eventually we reach the point where we start to realize that we are not going to find peace contentment happiness strength fearlessness - all of the things that in our heart of hearts we wish we had - outside of us.

The principle we call self-love never seeks anything external for the sake of the thing but only as a means of happiness or good: particular affections rest in the external things themselves.

Fame is indeed beautiful and benign and gentle and satisfying but happiness is something at once tender and brilliant beyond all things.

You need characters who want things. They want love they want recognition they want happiness.

The most simple things can bring the most happiness.

I'm actually tougher on myself as I get older. It's a vicious cycle. The things that are important in life are the things that you can't buy in life: love health and happiness. I say that and I believe that and I try to live that.

The Divine of the Lord in heaven is love for the reason that love is receptive of all things of heaven such as peace intelligence wisdom and happiness.

Aye I'm tellin' ye happiness is one of the few things in this world that doubles every time you share it with someone else.

As long as I am given the opportunity to keep performing and keep exploring in whatever medium I'll be happy. As long as I get to spend time with my family I'll be happy. As long as I can write in some form I'll be happy. It is the essential things like that I equate with happiness.

Every man judges his own happiness and satisfaction with life in terms of his possession or lack of possession of those things that he considers worthwhile and valuable.

So even though I consider myself a fairly upbeat person energetic and things like that I never do very well on happiness tests.

I admit I can't shake the idea that there is virtue in suffering that there is a sort of psychic economy whereby if you embrace success happiness and comfort these things have to be paid for.

You know I think we Indians are afraid to show and celebrate our happiness lest things change around. But I feel that it's okay to be sad and okay to show when you are happy.

We all have a hungry heart and one of the things we hunger for is happiness. So as much as I possibly could I stayed where I was happy. I spent a great deal of time in my younger years just writing and reading walking around the woods in Ohio where I grew up.

I have my moments. Ever since I was a boy I never was someone who was at ease with happiness. Too often I embrace introspection and self-doubt. I wish I could embrace the good things.

Maturity - among other things the unclouded happiness of the child at play who takes it for granted that he is at one with his play-mates.

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

This happiness consisted of nothing else but the harmony of the few things around me with my own existence a feeling of contentment and well-being that needed no changes and no intensification.

Thus happiness depends as nature shows less on exterior things than most suppose.

I'm fulfilled in what I do. I never thought that a lot of money or fine clothes - the finer things of life - would make you happy. My concept of happiness is to be filled in a spiritual sense.

When we recall the past we usually find that it is the simplest things - not the great occasions - that in retrospect give off the greatest glow of happiness.