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Happiness quotes, checked against their source

Updated on How we verify quotes

What is a happy life? Writers each have their answer, and it often fits in one sentence. Every quote on this page has been checked in the original text.

Grouped by tone, they suit birthday cards, New Year wishes and morning messages.

Contents

Heartfelt

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen nor even touched, but just felt in the heart.

Helen Keller, Letter to the Reverend Phillips Brooks (The Story of My Life), Part II, letters; published in 1903, 1891 Verified quote
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The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

Victor Hugo, Les Misérables, Volume I, book V, chapter IV, 1862 Verified quote
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Inspiring

Isn’t it nice to think that to-morrow is a new day with no mistakes in it yet?

Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, Chapter XXI (Anne to Marilla), 1908 Verified quote
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Know your own happiness. You want nothing but patience—or give it a more fascinating name, call it hope.

Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility, Chapter 19 (Mrs Dashwood to Edward Ferrars), 1811 Verified quote
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Short

Beauty is nothing but the promise of happiness.

Stendhal, On Love (De l’amour), Chapter XVII, 1822 Verified quote
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To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.

Henry David Thoreau, Walden; or, Life in the Woods, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For”, 1854 Verified quote
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