Human Happiness Quotes - Page 3

• Men appear to prefer ruining one another's fortunes, and cutting each other's throats about a few paltry villages, to extending the grand means of human happiness.

  Voltaire

  War, Mean, Cutting

  Voltaire (1824). “A Philosophical Dictionary: From the French”, p.43

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• The rich philistinism emanating from advertisements is due not to their exaggerating (or inventing) the glory of this or that serviceable article but to suggesting that the acme of human happiness is purchasable and that its purchase somehow ennobles the purchaser.

  Vladimir Nabokov

  Rich, Glory, Articles

  Vladimir Nabokov (2017). “Lectures on Russian Literature”, p.313, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• New Jersey was actually a very cold place. There was such an intense concentration of wealth, and such a low concentration of any actual human happiness. A lot of people seem to be similar to the kid in school, which is doing a lot of things with no direct consequence to their joy, or their lives.

  Ezra Miller

  School, Kids, Concentration Of Wealth

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• Freedom is the real source of human happiness and creativity. Irrespective of whether you are a believer or nonbeliever, whether Buddhist, Christian, or Jew, the important thing is to be a good human being.

  Dalai Lama

  Christian, Buddhist, Real

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• Human happiness comes not from infrequent pieces of good fortune, but from the small improvements to daily life.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Pieces, Improvement, Daily Life

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• Reality isn't a particularly good guide to human happiness.

  Rory Sutherland

  Motivation, Inspiration, Reality

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• Liberty is liberty, not equality or fairness or justice or human happiness or a quiet conscience.

  Isaiah Berlin

  Fairness And Equality, Justice, Liberty

  'Two Concepts of Liberty' (1958) p. 10

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• Events unfold so unpredictably, so unfairly, human happiness does not seem to be included in the design of creation. It is only we, with our capacity to love that give meaning to the indifferent universe. And yet, most human beings seem to have the ability to keep trying and even try to find joy from simple things, like their family, their work, and from the hope that future generations might understand more.

  Woody Allen

  Simple, Capacity To Love, Giving

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• It is the activity of the intellect that constitutes complete human happiness - provided it be granted a complete span of life, for nothing that belongs to happiness can be incomplete.

  Aristotle

  Happiness, Granted, Intellect

  Aristotle, Harris Rackham (1962). “The Nicomachean ethics”

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• There is a gentle element, and man may breathe it with a calm, unruffled soul, and drink its living waters, till his heart is pure; and this is human happiness.

  Nathaniel Parker Willis

  Happiness, Heart, Men

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• There are three fundamentals for human happiness - love and faith, and work which will produce at least a minimum of material security. These things must be made possible for all human beings, men and women alike.

  Eleanor Roosevelt

  Happiness, Men, Three

  Eleanor Roosevelt (1938). “My Days”

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• Truth is the band of union and the basis of human happiness. Without this virtue there is no reliance upon language, no confidence in friendship, no security in promises and oaths.

  Jeremy Collier

  Truth, Promise, Band

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• In recent years our knowledge of modern technology has increased considerably, and as a result we have witnessed remarkable material progress, but there has not been a corresponding increase in human happiness. There is no less suffering in the world today, and there are no fewer problems. Indeed, it might be said that there are now more problems and greater dangers than ever before.

  Geshe Kelsang Gyatso

  Happiness, Knowledge, Technology

  Geshe Kelsang Gyatso (2011). “Modern Buddhism: The Path of Compassion and Wisdom - Volume 1 Sutra”, p.5, Tharpa Publications US

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• For me, religion is serious business - a farrago of authoritarian nonsense, misogyny and humble pie, the eternal enemy of human happiness and freedom.

  Katha Pollitt

  Humble, Pie, Enemy

  Katha Pollitt (2007). “Subject to Debate: Sense and Dissents on Women, Politics, and Culture”, p.29, Modern Library

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• All that has been done to weaken the foundation of an implicit faith in the Bible, as a whole, has been at the expense of the sense of religious obligation, and at the cost of human happiness.

  J. G. Holland

  Bible, Religious, Foundation

  "Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers" by Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert, p. 36, 1895.

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• Now the goodness that we have to consider is clearly human goodness, since the good or happiness which we set out to seek was human good and human happiness. But human goodness means in our view excellence of soul, not excellence of body.

  Aristotle

  Mean, Views, Soul

  Aristotle (1996). “The Nicomachean Ethics”, p.22, Wordsworth Editions

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• Government should enforce rule of law. It should enforce contracts, it should protect people bodily from being attacked by criminals. And when the government does those things, it is facilitating liberty. When it goes beyond those things, it becomes destructive to both human happiness and human liberty.

  Grover Norquist

  Government, Law, People

  "15 Questions with Grover G. Norquist". Interview with Rebecca F. Elliott, www.thecrimson.com. November 18, 2010.

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• the leading error of the human mind, - the bane of human happiness - the perverter of human virtue ... is Religion - that dark coinage of trembling ignorance! It is Religion - that poisoner of human felicity! It is Religion - that blind guide of human reason! It is Religion - that dethroner of human virtue! which lies at the root of all the evil and all the misery that pervade the world!

  Frances Wright

  Lying, Ignorance, Dark

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• It were a real increase of human happiness, could all young men from the age of nineteen be covered under barrels, or rendered otherwise invisible; and there left to follow their lawful studies and callings, till they emerged, sadder and wiser, at the age of twenty-five.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Birthday, Real, Men

  Sartor Resartus ch. 4 (1838)

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• I earnestly wish to point out in what true dignity and human happiness consists. I wish to persuade women to endeavor to acquire strength, both of mind and body, and to convince them that the soft phrases, susceptibility of heart, delicacy of sentiment, and refinement of taste, are almost synonymous with epithets of weakness, and that those beings are only the objects of pity, and that kind of love which has been termed its sister, will soon become objects of contempt.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Heart, Mind, Wish

  Mary Wollstonecraft (2012). “Mary, A Fiction and The Wrongs of Woman, or Maria”, p.303, Broadview Press

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• Hail, wedded love, mysterious law; true source of human happiness.

  John Milton

  Anniversary, Marriage, Wedding

  'Paradise Lost' (1667) bk. 4, l. 750

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• Those influences which really make and mar human happiness and greatness are beyond the reach of the law. The law can keep neighbors from trespassing, but it cannot put neighborly courtesy and good-will into their relations.

  Walter Rauschenbusch

  Happiness, Law, Mars

  "Christianity and the Social Crisis".

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• To seek out in a world full of joy the one thing that is certain to give you pain, and hug it to your bosom with all your strength; that's the greatest human happiness.

  Jean Giraudoux

  Happiness, Pain, Giving

  Jean Giraudoux (1962). “Jean Giraudoux: FOUR PLAYS, ADAPTED, AND WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MAURICE VALENCY”

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• Personal liberty is the paramount essential to human dignity and human happiness.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Liberty, Essentials, Dignity

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• Public health service should be as fully organized and as universally incorporated into our governmental system as is public education. The returns are a thousand fold in economic benefits, and infinitely more in reduction of suffering and promotion of human happiness.

  Herbert Hoover

  Suffering, Benefits, Return

  Herbert Hoover, Arnold S. Rice, United States. President (1929-1933 : Hoover) (1971). “Herbert Hoover, 1874-1964; chronology-documents-bibliographical aids”, Oceana Pubns

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