Theme
Happiness
Joy, contentment, and the good life.
Every quote here is provenance-checked. AI will happily put a fake quote on a beautiful slide — these are the ones you can actually use, with the right name on them.
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Verified quotes about happiness
Each is traced to a real source and correctly credited. ✓ Free to use = public domain, cleared for commercial reuse. Open one for a paste-ready credit line and its reuse status.
“A thing of beauty is a joy forever”
“Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so”
“Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky”
“Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair”
“Happiness is an activity of the soul in accordance with virtue”
“Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort”
“Hope is itself a species of happiness, and, perhaps, the chief happiness which this world affords”
“I would always rather be happy than dignified”
“I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder”
“I'm for whatever gets you through the night”
“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well”
“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture”
“Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some”
“That is happiness: to be dissolved into something complete and great”
“The person, be it gentleman or lady, who has not pleasure in a good novel, must be intolerably stupid”
“The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so”
“There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy”
“Very little is needed to make a happy life”
“When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life”
“Whoever is happy will make others happy too”
“You'll never find a rainbow if you're looking down”
“Adventure is worthwhile in itself”
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony”
“If you have a garden and a library, you have everything you need”
“The most important thing is to enjoy your life - to be happy”
“Too much of a good thing can be wonderful”
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Don’t get caught out
Commonly shared about happiness — but misattributed
Popular happiness lines that get pinned on the wrong name. If you use one, credit it correctly.
“Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy”
ReallyBenjamin Franklin · not Benjamin Franklin
“Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life”
ReallyUnknown (a 20th-century American proverb) · not Confucius
“Comparison is the thief of joy”
ReallyUnknown — an anonymous modern aphorism · not C.S. Lewis
“Contentment is natural wealth, luxury is artificial poverty”
ReallyJoseph Addison · not Socrates
“Enjoy the little things in life, for one day you'll look back and realize they were the big things”
ReallyRobert Brault · not Kurt Vonnegut
“Folks are usually about as happy as they make up their minds to be”
ReallyAbraham Lincoln · not Abraham Lincoln
“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness”
ReallyAnonymous
“Golf is a good walk spoiled”
ReallyOrigin unknown (anonymous, 1890s) · not Mark Twain
“Happiness is like a butterfly: the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder”
ReallyJ. Richard Lessor (per the Walden Woods Project) — not Thoreau · not Henry David Thoreau
“Happy girls are the prettiest”
ReallyAnonymous (a MySpace-era “I believe in pink” passage) · not Audrey Hepburn
“I believe in pink. I believe that laughing is the best calorie burner. I believe in kissing, kissing a lot. I believe in being strong when everything seems to be going wrong. I believe that happy girls are the prettiest girls. I believe that tomorrow is another day and I believe in miracles”
ReallyUnknown (anonymous online author, c. 2007–08) · not Audrey Hepburn
“I would rather die of passion than of boredom”
ReallyÉmile Zola · not Vincent van Gogh
“Laughter is an instant vacation”
ReallyAnonymous (popularized by Milton Berle)
“Laughter is timeless, imagination has no age, and dreams are forever”
ReallyUnknown (falsely credited to Walt Disney) · not Walt Disney
“Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything”
ReallyFalsely credited to Plato; earliest documented in Sir John Lubbock (1889) · not Plato
“Music soothes the savage beast”
ReallyWilliam Congreve
“My girlfriend always laughs during sex — no matter what she's reading”
ReallyEmo Philips · not Steve Jobs
“Of all the means to ensure happiness, friendship is the most important”
ReallyEpicurus