In my own life I know that my state of cheerfulness is a reliable gauge of my level of spiritual enlightenment at that moment. The more cheerful, happy, contented, and satisfied I am feeling, the more aware I am of my deep connection to Spirit.

If you truly get in touch with a piece of carrot, you get in touch with the soil, the rain, the sunshine. You get in touch with Mother Earth and eating in such a way, you feel in touch with true life, your roots, and that is meditation. If we chew every morsel of our food in that way we become grateful and when you are grateful, you are happy.

I feel that I’ve done what I wanted to do, and that makes me feel fairly content.

Heroism is accessible. Happiness is more difficult.

Money is not required to buy one necessity of the soul.

Just do what must be done. This may not be happiness, but it is greatness.

Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness.

When you are discontent, you always want more, more, more. Your desire can never be satisfied. But when you practice contentment, you can say to yourself, ‚Oh yes – I already have everything that I really need.‘

Truth is a deep kindness that teaches us to be content in our everyday life and share with the people the same happiness.

Happiness: a good bank account, a good cook, and a good digestion.

There’s no happier person than a truly thankful, content person.

The smallest seed of faith is better than the largest fruit of happiness.

A woman’s heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must be pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as cakes are, by a fixed recipe.

Allow children to be happy in their own way, for what better way will they find?

Marriage is the most wonderful thing ever.

Any of us can be happy and have a good attitude when everything is going our way. But I believe it’s the real test of your character and of your faith to say, ‚Things are not going our way, but I’m still being good to people; I’m still attending church; I still have a good attitude.‘

I’d like to think you don’t stop being creative once you get happy. My ultimate goal is to end up being happy. Most of the time.

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go.

I’ve enjoyed all the parts of my career.

The child inside of you knows how to take things as they come, how to deal most effectively and happily with everything and everyone it encounters on this planet. If you can recapture that childlike essence of your being, you can stay ‚forever young at heart.‘

A contented mind is the greatest blessing a man can enjoy in this world.

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.

Anything you’re good at contributes to happiness.

Confidence, as a teenager? Because I knew what I loved. I loved to read; I loved to listen to music; and I loved cats. Those three things. So, even though I was an only kid, I could be happy because I knew what I loved.

Enjoy the satisfaction that comes from doing little things well.

What’s the use of happiness? It can’t buy you money.

A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short.

I’ve learned that men and women who are living wholehearted lives really allow themselves to soften into joy and happiness. They allow themselves to experience it.

For me, the opposite of scarcity is not abundance. It’s enough. I’m enough. My kids are enough.

If we live a self-directed, self-motivated, self-centered life, always needing to get our own way, then we’re going to be miserable. In fact, many times we believe it’s our problems that are making us unhappy when, in reality, it’s because we’re focused on ourselves!

A sincere and steadfast co-operation in promoting such a reconstruction of our political system as would provide for the permanent liberty and happiness of the United States.

Cheerfulness is the best promoter of health and is as friendly to the mind as to the body.

You entertain people who are satisfied. Hungry people can’t be entertained – or people who are afraid. You can’t entertain a man who has no food.

Big stuff and little: learning how to order breakfast in a country where I don’t speak the language and haven’t been before – that’s really satisfying to me. I like that.

True wealth is not of the pocket, but of the heart and of the mind.

We all have to live together, so we might as well live together happily.

A man will speedily sit down and sympathize with a friend’s griefs, but if he sees him honored and esteemed, he is apt to regard him as a rival and does not so readily rejoice with him. This ought not to be; without effort, we ought to be happy in our brother’s happiness.

Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.

Be more dedicated to making solid achievements than in running after swift but synthetic happiness.

Fun is good.

Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.

There is no value in life except what you choose to place upon it and no happiness in any place except what you bring to it yourself.

I would never exchange my life with anybody else’s.

Love is trembling happiness.

Man falls from the pursuit of the ideal of plan living and high thinking the moment he wants to multiply his daily wants. Man’s happiness really lies in contentment.

Blessed is he who has found his work; let him ask no other blessedness.

Happy is the hearing man; unhappy the speaking man.

I want you to feel happy and enjoy the theatre of my life the way that I do. No matter what happens with my music and wherever I go – that heart of that glamorous girl in New York will never be gone.

Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success. If you love what you are doing, you will be successful.

Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.

There is no austerity equal to a balanced mind, and there is no happiness equal to contentment; there is no disease like covetousness, and no virtue like mercy.

I never needed much, and I never thought I’d get more than what I had. A trip to Burger King was the biggest thing in the world to me. Heaven.

The recipe for perpetual ignorance is: Be satisfied with your opinions and content with your knowledge.

As much as it might look like, to someone else, that I’m successful, I never feel like I’m anywhere. The further I go, I still feel equally further from my eventual goal. Because as I grow, I get more goals. I’m never content.

A man is in general better pleased when he has a good dinner upon his table, than when his wife talks Greek.

Being happy is a matter of personal taste.

Resolve not to be poor: whatever you have, spend less. Poverty is a great enemy to human happiness; it certainly destroys liberty, and it makes some virtues impracticable, and others extremely difficult.

If the people are happy, united, wealthy, and powerful, we presume the rest. We conclude that to be good from whence good is derived.

How to gain, how to keep, how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive of all they do, and of all they are willing to endure.

A man cannot be said to succeed in this life who does not satisfy one friend.

Your successes and happiness are forgiven you only if you generously consent to share them.