39 Happiness Life Quotes To Live By
We all want to live a fulfilled and happy life. Happiness is so important to our life, and in fact scientific evidence has suggested that being happy can have some pretty major benefits on your overall health.
Being happy can help to promote a healthy lifestyle, and can help us to handle stress better. Our happiness levels can impact how we deal with stress, our relationship with others, and our perspective on what is around us. For example, someone who tends to be happier will look for the positives in a situation, whereas someone who lacks happiness may focus on the negatives.
What is Happiness?
The definition of happiness is rather broad, but happiness is often referred to as a positive emotional state of joy and contentment. Normally we will experience happiness in times of fulfilment, satisfactions, contentment, and joy.
The below video from psychologist Katarina Blom explains that happiness can be created, rather than waiting for it to happen to us. The video explains that by befriending your brain, you can cultivate happiness.
What happens when we are happy?
Experiences happiness is a joyful experience, but it can have a positive effect on our body and mind as a whole. When we feel happy, there are normally four main brain chemicals that play a role. These chemicals are dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, and endorphins. Each chemical has differences in their effect.
Dopamine is often linked to our reward system. When we do things that feel good or give us pleasure, the brain releases dopamine. The more this happens with a particular task, the more our brain senses this task will release dopamine and create a pleasurable experience. This is good and bad, as sometimes dopamine can be released on tasks or habits that aren't beneficial to us.
Serotonin is a neurotransmitter produced by hypothalamus. Serotonin is released by the brain at times when we feel a sense of importance. It helps regulate our mod, sleep, and appetite. Many anti-depressants actually help boost levels of serotonin, due to its ability to elevate your mood.
Oxytocin is released at times of love and connection. We can experience oxytocin release when we are intimate with others - a cuddle is known to release this and lift our mood. It's common for it to be released with sex and childbirth.
Endorphins are released when we do something that we enjoy such as sex, laughing, or exercise. They have become more well known in recent years due to their link with exercise. It is common to have a positive sense of joy after completing exercise, due to the release of endorphins.
Simple Ways To Become Happier
There are a number of simple ways we can try to be happier each day. Some of these might be:
- Eating a healthy diet - Good nutrition has a key role on our mood. It is more obvious to see this when we have a poor diet, such as heavily processed foods or malnutrition. Poor nutrition can result in a lack of energy.
- Spending time outside and in nature - Being outside with nature is the perfect time to exercise mindfulness. Focusing on all the natural beauty around us, such as the sounds, colours, textures, and smells.
- A good amount of rest, with high quality sleep - A good night's sleep helps us to form a positive mindset. When we are tired, or lacking proper rest, our body and mind can be fatigued and can easily form a negative mindset.
- Regular exercise - Any form of physical exercise can have a positive impact on how our body and mind feel. Exercise has the power to release endorphins, also known as nature's anti-depressants.
- Expressing gratitude - Expressing gratitude for what we have in our life has been shown to elevate our mood, and helps us to focus on all that is good in our world.
- Happiness Quotes - Reading and writing quotes works as the perfect reminder to us, to try and live a happier life.
- Daily meditation - Spending even just a short amount of time during the day for meditation and time out has a positive effect on our happiness. This time allows us to unwind, reflect, and energise.
We’ve compiled a list of our favourite happiness quotes about life to brighten up your day and uplift your mood. Simply pick a couple of these quotes and write them down on a piece of card, to be placed around the home or work space. Perhaps try to create your own happiness quotes using the below suggestions as a starting point.
Happiness Life Quotes To Live By
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“The secret of happiness, you see, is not found in seeking more, but in developing the capacity to enjoy less.” — Socrates
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You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.” —Mahatma Gandhi
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“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.” — Henry David Thoreau
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“The big lesson in life, baby, is never be scared of anyone or anything.” – Frank Sinatra
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“The more you praise and celebrate your life, the more there is in life to celebrate.” — Oprah Winfrey
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“When it is obvious that goals can’t be reached, don’t adjust the goals, but adjust the action steps.” — Confucius
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“All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
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“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” – John Lennon
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“In the long run, the sharpest weapon of all is a kind and gentle spirit.” — Anne Frank
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“Be where you are; otherwise you will miss your life.” — Buddha
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“Happiness is the feeling that power increases - that resistance is being overcome.” — Friedrich Nietzsche
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“Find people who will make you better.” — Michelle Obama
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“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes … the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules … You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things … They push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius …” – Steve Jobs
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“Too many of us are not living our dreams because we are living our fears.” – Les Brown
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“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” – Buddha
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“If you want to live a happy life, tie it to a goal, not to people or things.” – Albert Einstein
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“When we do the best we can, we never know what miracle is wrought in our life or the life of another.” — Helen Keller
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“Maybe that’s what life is… a wink of the eye and winking stars.” — Jack Kerouac
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“As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.” — Audrey Hepburn
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“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” – Leonardo Da Vinci
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“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” —Warren Buffett
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“The purpose of our lives is to be happy.” — Dalai Lama
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“Life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.” — John Lennon
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“If you’re not stubborn, you’ll give up on experiments too soon. And if you’re not flexible, you’ll pound your head against the wall and you won’t see a different solution to a problem you’re trying to solve.” —Jeff Bezos
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“Money and success don’t change people; they merely amplify what is already there.” — Will Smith
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“Not how long, but how well you have lived is the main thing.” — Seneca
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“In order to write about life first you must live it.”– Ernest Hemingway
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“Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.”– Thomas A. Edison
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“Get busy living or get busy dying.” — Stephen King
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“The healthiest response to life is joy.” — Deepak Chopra
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“The best portion of a good man’s life is his little nameless, unencumbered acts of kindness and of love.” — Wordsworth
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“Keep calm and carry on.” — Winston Churchill
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“Keep smiling, because life is a beautiful thing and there’s so much to smile about.” — Marilyn Monroe
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“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” —Dr. Seuss
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“Every moment is a fresh beginning.” —T.S. Eliot
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“If you live long enough, you’ll make mistakes. But if you learn from them, you’ll be a better person.” —Bill Clinton
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“Life would be tragic if it weren’t funny.” — Stephen Hawking
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“Life’s tragedy is that we get old too soon and wise too late.” — Benjamin Franklin
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“Life is about making an impact, not making an income.” — Kevin Kruse
Hopefully the above happiness life quotes help you in some small way, and remind you to try and live a happy life.