#happin

You don't ask people with knives in their stomachs what would make them happy; happiness is no longer the point. It's all about survival; it's all about whether you pull the knife out and bleed to death or keep it in... ↗

— Nick Hornby

#life #survival #death

When I die, don't come, I wouldn't want a leaf to turn away from the sun -- it loves it there. There's nothing so spiritual about being happy but you can't miss a day of it, because it doesn't last. ↗

— Frank O'Hara

#happiness #poetry #death

I want that. I want that awful intense and serious unhappiness, cos then I might feel better, and then I might be happy. ↗

— David Thewlis

#happiness #sadness #death

In actuality, we don't look for smiles in pictures of bliss, but rather, for the happiness in life itself. Painters know this, but this is preciously what they cannot depict. That's why they substitute the joy of seeing for the joy of life. ↗

— Orhan Pamuk

#joy-of-life #joy-of-seeing #painting #life

From across the woods, as if by common accord, birds left their trees and darted upward. I joined them, flew amount them, they did not recognize me as something apart from them, and I was happy, so happy, because for the first time in years, and forevermore, I had not killed, and never would. ↗

— George Saunders

#death #dying #happiness #death

Quand nous prendrons conscience de notre rôle, même le plus effacé, alors seulement nous serons heureux. Alors seulement nous pourrons vivre en paix et mourir en paix, car ce qui donne un sens à la vie donne un sens à la mort. (Terre des Hommes, ch. VIII) ↗

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

#happiness #life #death

Enlightenment is a paradoxical phenomenon. You need to be commited to become enlightenment, and to do whatever is necessary to make it happen. But at the same time you can not force enlightenment to happen by sheer will. It is like the situation with happiness: you can not force happiness to happen, but you can create the right circumstances for happiness to happen. You need to be willing to die, to let go of your limited sense of “I”, to achieve enlightenment. I can feel a deepening thirst to die, to dissolve into the silence, in my heart and being. ↗

— Swami Dhyan Giten

#ego #enlightenment #happiness #heart #inner-being

Ester asked why people are sad. "That’s simple," says the old man. "They are the prisoners of their personal history. Everyone believes that the main aim in life is to follow a plan. They never ask if that plan is theirs or if it was created by another person. They accumulate experiences, memories, things, other people's ideas, and it is more than they can possibly cope with. And that is why they forget their dreams. ↗

— Paulo Coelho

#future #happiness #life #plans #sadness

Listen to what is being preached today. Look at everyone around us. You've wondered why they suffer, why they seek happiness and never find it. If any man stopped and asked himself whether he's ever held a truly personal desire, he'd find the answer. He'd see that all his wishes, his efforts, his dreams, his ambitions are motivated by other men. He's not really struggling even for material wealth, but for the second-hander's delusion - prestige. A stamp of approval, not his own. He can find no joy in the struggle and no joy when he has succeeded. He can't say about a single thing: 'This is what I wanted because I wanted it, not because it made my neighbors gape at me'. Then he wonders why he's unhappy. ↗

— Ayn Rand

#prestige #dreams

In a person's lifetime there may be not more than half a dozen occasions that he can look back to in the certain knowledge that right then, at that moment, there was room for nothing but happiness in his heart. ↗

— Ernestine Gilbreth Carey

#happiness #life #memories #moments #satisfaction