Here are my top 10 favourite happiness quotes and many more. Enjoy and let them inspire you!

1. It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere. – Agnes Repplier

2. “Happiness is an attitude. We either make ourselves miserable, or happy and strong. The amount of work is the same.” ~ Francesca Reigler, artist

3. When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us. - Helen Keller

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

5. Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. – Benjamin Disraeli

6. The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet. – James Oppenheim

7. Happiness is not so much in having as sharing. We make a living by what we get, but we make a life by what we give. – Norman Mac Ewan

8. People spend a lifetime searching for happiness; looking for peace. They chase idle dreams, addictions, religions, even other people, hoping to fill the emptiness that plagues them. The irony is the only place they ever needed to search was within. – Ramona L. Anderson

9. Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier.  The way it actually works is the reverse.  You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.  ~Margaret Young

10. When someone does something good, applaud! You will make two people happy.
- Samuel Goldwyn

And other great quotes about happiness:

It isn’t what you have, or who you are, or where you are, or what you are doing that makes you happy or unhappy. It is what you think about. — Dale Carnegie

Don’t ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. — Harold Whitman

There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.  ~Freya Stark, The Journey’s Echo

It’s not how much we have, but how much we enjoy that makes happiness. – Unknown

Happiness often sneaks in through a door you didn’t know you left open. – John Barrymore

Nobody really cares if you’re miserable, so you might as well be happy.  ~Cynthia Nelms

People take different roads seeking fulfillment and happiness.  Just because they’re not on your road doesn’t mean they’ve gotten lost.  ~H. Jackson Browne

The happiest people don’t have the best of it. They make the best of everything.

Happiness is a way of travel, not a destination. Roy Goodman

We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements in life, when all we need to make us really happy is something to be enthusiastic about.  ~Charles Kingsley

People are as happy as they make up their minds to be. Abraham Lincoln

Gratefulness is the key to a happy life that we hold in our hands, because if we are not grateful, then no matter how much we have we will not be happy — because we will always want to have something else or something more. – Brother David Steindl-Rast

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude. – Denis Waitley

The true way to render ourselves happy is to love our work and find in it our pleasure – Francoise de Motteville

There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved. – George Sand

The basic thing is that everyone wants happiness, no one wants suffering. And happiness mainly comes from our own attitude, rather than from external factors. If your own mental attitude is correct, even if you remain in a hostile atmosphere, you feel happy. -H.H. The Dalai Lama

Consider the following. We humans are social beings. We come into the world as the result of others’ actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others’ activities. For this reason it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationships with others. – H.H. The Dalai Lama

When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace. – H.H. The Dalai Lama

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. – H.H. The Dalai Lama

Many people have a wrong idea of what constitutes true happiness. It is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose. – Helen Keller

Those who bring sunshine into the lives of others, cannot keep it from themselves. – James M. Barrie

The world has to learn that the actual pleasure derived from material things is of rather low quality on the whole and less even in quantity than it looks to those who have not tried it. – Oliver Wendell Holmes

Growth itself contains the germ of happiness. – Pearl S. Buck

If you want to be happy, be.  ~Leo Tolstoy

Most people would rather be certain they’re miserable, than risk being happy.  ~Robert Anthony

This is my “depressed stance.”  When you’re depressed, it makes a lot of difference how you stand.  The worst thing you can do is straighten up and hold your head high because then you’ll start to feel better.  If you’re going to get any joy out of being depressed, you’ve got to stand like this.  ~Charlie Brown

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.  ~Abraham Lincoln

We tend to forget that happiness doesn’t come as a result of getting something we don’t have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have.  ~Frederick Keonig

Happiness is a direction, not a place.  ~Sydney J. Harris

We are no longer happy so soon as we wish to be happier.  ~Walter Savage Landor

So long as we can lose any happiness, we possess some.  ~Booth Tarkington

You cannot always have happiness, but you can always give happiness.  ~Author Unknown

There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.  ~Freya Stark, The Journey’s Echo

Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.  ~Robert Brault, robertbrault.com

To be happy, we must not be too concerned with others.  ~Albert Camus, The Fall, 1956

Some pursue happiness, others create it.  ~Author Unknown

The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.  ~Epictetus

You need to learn to be happy by nature, because you’ll seldom have the chance to be happy by circumstance.  ~Lavetta Sue Wegman

Plenty of people miss their share of happiness, not because they never found it, but because they didn’t stop to enjoy it.  ~William Feather

Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response.  ~Mildred Barthel

Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling.  ~Margaret Lee Runbeck

Aristotle
To live happily is an inward power of the soul.

Happiness comes from spiritual wealth, not material wealth… Happiness comes from giving, not getting. If we try hard to bring happiness to others, we cannot stop it from coming to us also. To get joy, we must give it, and to keep joy, we must scatter it. – John Templeton

The greater part of our happiness or misery depends on our dispositions, and not on our circumstances. We carry the seeds of the one or the other about with us in our minds wherever we go. – Martha Washington

Happiness is not having what you want. It is wanting what you have. – Anon

Happiness is enhanced by others but does not depend upon others. – Anon

Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times. – Anon

Some cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go. – Oscar Wilde

Change your thoughts and you change your world. – William James

Happiness is a habit—cultivate it. – Elbert Hubbard

Worry doesn’t help tomorrow’s troubles, but it does ruin today’s happiness.
- Unknown

“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts: therefore, guard accordingly, and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature.” ~ Marcus Aurelius

“Simply put, you believe that things or people make you unhappy, but this is not accurate. You make yourself unhappy.” ~ Wayne Dyer

“We always have enough to be happy if we are enjoying what we do have–and not worrying about what we don’t have.” ~ Ken Keyes, Jr.

Being happy doesn’t mean everything is perfect. It means you have decided to look beyond the imperfections. –Unknown

Like swimming, riding, writing, or playing golf, happiness can be learned. — Boris Sokoloff

Happiness radiates like the fragrance from a flower, and draws all good things toward you. — Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

To get up each morning with the resolve to be happy . . . is to set our own conditions to the events of each day. To do this is to condition circumstances instead of being conditioned by them. — Ralph Waldo Emerson

And finally:

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mistery. And today ? Today is a gift. That’s why we call it the present. B. Olatunji

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” (attributed to Lao Tzu – founder of Taoism)

You have probably heard the saying before. Did you ever notice how powerful it is ?

I have met so many people and clients who feel disappointed for not starting or progressing their big projects and dreams. They often don’t know where to start and in view of the mountain of tasks ahead, they feel like giving up before they’ve really started. In this respect, we are all the same.

And yet, sometimes people achieve BIG things and you wonder how they do it, where they take the energy, time and stamina from. The answer is often so simple and even better: it is available to all of us not just a selected few. The answer is to take one little baby step at a time – and enjoy the process !

For this to work, you need to manage your expectations. Give yourself permission to take a couple of years to work on your BIG project. So what if it doesn’t happen next year. If you don’t even start it, it will never happen at all.

Then, break it down into pieces. What would you want to have achieved by the end of the first year ? If this still feels daunting, extend the total period further until your first year goal feels doable. Break your tasks down further to a monthly level/ ideally weekly.

Now think about what would be the very first baby step in the direction of your goal ? A phone call ? Surfing the net ? A few notes ?

Just focus on your first step and when that one is done, focus on the next one but only that one, don’t look ahead and get disheartened. The winners are the ones who just keep going: step by step. And they enjoy each step because their big goal is in line with something they are passionate about, so their little steps feel exciting, too – most of the time. The other times they just display perseverance in the sure knowledge that it will lead to the goal.

As Sir Edmund Hillary was saying. Ultimately, “It’s not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.”

]]> http://www.developandgrow.com/lifecoach/blog/even-the-longest-journey-begins-with-a-single-step/feed/ 0 http://www.developandgrow.com/lifecoach/blog/what-to-you-get-enthusiastic-about/ http://www.developandgrow.com/lifecoach/blog/what-to-you-get-enthusiastic-about/#comments Sat, 01 Nov 2008 07:24:15 +0000 Silke http://www.developandgrow.com/lifecoach/?p=107 Enthusiasm is such a beautiful trait. Don’t you love being around enthusiastic people ? Even if you don’t share their enthusiasm, don’t they make you smile ? Lift you up ?

I just came across some great quotes about enthuiasm. This one from Samule Ullmann, I absolutely love:

“Nobody grows old merely by living a number of years. We grow old by deserting our ideals. Years may wrinkle the skin but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul.”

Think about it. Isn’t that so deep and so true ?

Ralph Waldo Emerson also commented on enthusiasm: ” Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is due to the triumph of enthusiasm”

What are you enthusiastic about ?

What were your ideals when you were younger ?

Remember a time when you were totally enthusiastic last ? What was it about ? Who was it with ?

How could you get enthusiasm back into your life ? How could you be enthusiastic more often ?

The million dollar question is: How to find my passion ? And my simple answer is: CREATE it ! Yes, this is no mistake. You don’t need to search for it, discover it or find it. Your passion, purpose, reason for being or life contribution can actually be created ! Sure, you will need to spend a bit of work on knowing and understanding yourself. But from there PASSION IS A CHOICE (just like happiness is a choice) ! All you need to do, is to decide that you WANT to live your passion, that it matters to you.

There are lots of techniques to get you in touch with what brings you alive and what you feel passionate about. In my workshop “Discover Your Life Purpose & Love Your Life” I use the major one’s. But you could start with taking 15 minutes for yourself answering 3 simple questions:

“What do I love doing (even if I got no money for it) ?”
“If I could anything I wanted to do and money/time/family would be no issue, what would I do with my life ?”
” What did I use to enjoy as a child ?”

Answer each question with 10 lines at least. Don’t stop until you have filled all 10 lines. Then have a look at your answers. Anything you had lost touch with lately ? Anything that gets your hear beat faster ?

How could you get more of that into your life now ? What if you CHOSE AND DECIDED to put these passions into the centre of your life ? How would your life be different ?
What changes would you have to make ? And if you made them, what (or who) would you have to say “NO” to from now on ?

Now commit to ONE ACTION for the coming week that will have you live (one of) your passion(s). Then learn from it. Stay conscious about how you feel and what impact this one action has on you and those around you. Then decide to do it again until it becomes your life and who you are !

CHOOSE TO LIVE YOUR PASSION.

A poem from Celaleddin-i Rumi Mevlana

Passion makes the old medicine new:
Passion lops off the bough of weariness.
Passion is the elixir that renews:
how can there be weariness
when passion is present?
Oh, don’t sigh heavily from fatigue:
seek passion, seek passion, seek passion!

It Couldn’t be Done

Somebody said “it couldn’t be done,”
But he with a chuckle replied

That maybe it couldn’t, but he wouldn’t be one
Who wouldn’t say so ‘til he tried.

So he buckled right in with a bit of a grin on his face.
If he worried he hid it.

He started to sing as he tackled that thing that
Couldn’t be done and he did it.

Somebody scoffed. “Oh, you’ll never do that,
At least no one has ever done it.”

But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,
And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of grin,
Without any doubting or quiddit,

He started to sing as he tackled that thing
That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you, it cannot be done.
There are thousands to prophecy failure.

There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
The dangers that wait to assail you.

But you buckle right in with a bit of a grin;
You take off your coat and go t it.

You start to sing as you tackle that thing
That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it!

– Edgar Guest -

What thing will YOU tackle right now !??

Well, William H. Murray, a Scottish mountaineer, wrote in the Scottish Himalayan Expedition about the benefits of burning one’s bridges:

Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back; always ineffectiveness. Concerning all acts of initiative (and creation) there is one elementary truth, the ignorance of which kills countless ideas and splendid plans: that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then providence moves too. All sorts of things occur to help one that would not otherwise have occurred. A whole stream of events issues from the decision, raising in one’s favour all manner of unforeseen incidents and meetings and material assistance which no man would have dreamed would come his way.

And even Goethe agrees:

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it ! Boldness has genius, magic and power in it.

When are you jumping ?

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living,
I want to know what you ache for
And if you dare to dream of meeting your hearts longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are,
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love,
For your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your sorrow,
If you have been opened by life’s betrayals,
Or if you have become shriveled and closed for fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,
Without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with JOY, mine or your own,
If you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you
To the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful,
Be realistic or to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you disappoint another to be true to yourself,
If you can bear the accusation and not betray your own soul.
I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore be trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty
Even when its’ not pretty every day
And if you can source your life from it’s presence.
I want to know if you live with failure, yours or mine,
And still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon “YES.”

It doesn’t interest me me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair,
Weary and bruised to the bone
And do what needs to be done for the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you are or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me
And not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself
And if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Indian Elder May 1994

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us.

We ask ourselves, “who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous ?” Actually who are you not to be ? Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.

We were born to manifest the glory that is within us. And as we let our light shine we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence
automatically liberates others.
-Marianne Williamson (used by Mandela 1994 in his inauguration speech)

Does it speak to you ? What does it stir up for you ?

“In the East, many thousand years ago, it was believed that every person on Earth was a god. But humankind abused their powers, so the Supreme Lord decided that he’d take it all away. The question then became where he would hide the godhead – the source of all human talent, potential, and glory. The first advisor said, ‘Why don’t you dig a hole deep in the ground and place the godhead in there ?’ ‘No’, replied the master, ‘eventually someone will dig deep enough and find it.’

The second advisor then spoke. ‘I have an idea’, he said. ‘Why not put this source of all human power on the top of the highest mountain ?’ Again the master refused. ‘No. Someone will eventually scale that mighty mountain and find it.’

Finally, the third advisor commented ‘What if you place the godhead at the bottom of the deepest ocean?’ The master replied, ‘No, someone will dive down into the ocean and discover it.’ The master then paused and reflected. After a few moments, he spoke knowingly: ‘I have the solution. I will place this source of extraordinary power, magnificence, and glory inside the heart of every man, woman, and child on the planet, for they’ll never think to look there.’”

Feelings are a great way of communication from the heart and the often mentioned “gut feel” is one of the best. Are you aware of your feelings ? Where/how to you notice them ? Can you name them when they show up ? When did you last look into your heart to listen to what it is telling you ? This is a great time and opportunity to re-connect. If not now, then when ?

Today is all you have got ! Make the most of it. So many people are putting up with disatisfactory and unhappy lives in the hope that one day it will all be better. It will be when you find the right partner, the kids have grown up, the mortgage is paid for, the markets are more favourable, the promotion has been granted…etc. Instead of making the most out of the moment right now, are you already thinking about how it will probably all be better later, tomorrow, next year ?

If this rings home for you, have a read of this beautiful and moving piece written by a 85-year old man:

“If I had my life to live over again, I’d try to make more mistakes next time. I wouldn’t be so perfect. I would relax more. I’d limber up. I’d be sillier than I’ve been on this trip. In fact, I know very few things that I would take so seriously. I’d be crazier, I’d be less hygienic.
I’d take more chances, I’d take more trips. I’d climb more mountains, I’d swim more rivers, I’d go more places I have never been to. I’d eat more ice-cream and fewer beans.

I’d have more actual troubles and fewer imaginary ones! You see, I was one of those people who lived prophylactically and sensibly and sanely hour after hour and day after day. Oh, I’ve had my moments. And if I had it to do over again, I’d have more of those moments – moment by moment by moment. I’ve been one of those people who never went anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a gargle, a rain coat and a parachute. If I had to do it all over again, I’d travel lighter next time.

If I had it to do over again I’d start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay way later in the fall. I’d ride more merry-go-rounds. I’d watch more sunrises and I’d play with more children. If I my life to live over again.

But you see, I don’t.”