Thursday 13: Thirteen happiness quotes

unshine! Wow, to wake up and see blue sky, pink clouds and real sunshine? Just a miracle, I tell you. A very happy miracle. (As opposed to all the sad miracles you hear about? I know. Always stating the obvious..)

I've been saving these quotes up for awhile, waiting for just the right week to pour a little happiness inspiration out into the world. What with the whole post-holiday, January-is-too-long funk that's been going around, this seemed like a good week...

Combine that with a heavy dose of real-world natural disaster and, well, maybe happiness quotes seem a little flip when there are people struggling to survive, find water, find loved ones? Perhaps, but the sentiments below are as applicable this week as any, in fact, maybe even more so. I trust you can read them in the spirit with which they are shared, and find some nugget of wisdom that resonates with you to carry you through another week.

In no particular order:

1. There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do. --Freya Stark

2. 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

3. Happiness cannot come from without. It must come from within. It is not what we see and touch or that that which others do for us which makes us happy; it is that which we think and feel and do, first for the other fellow and then for ourselves. --Helen Keller

 5. People tend to think that happiness is a stroke of luck, something that will descend like fine weather if you're fortunate. But happiness is a result of personal effort. You fight for it, strive for, insist upon it, and sometimes even travel around the world looking for it. You have to participate relentlessly. --Elizabeth Gilbert

6. Action may not always bring happiness, but there is no happiness without action. --William James

7. Happiness is not the absence of problems but the ability to deal with them. --Jack Brown

9. Remember, happiness doesn't depend on who you are or what you have; it depends solely on what you think. --Dale Carnegie

10. Your time is limited. Don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma, which is living the result of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drowned your own inner voice. And, most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. --Steve Jobs

11. There is no duty we so underrate as the duty of being happy. By being happy we sow anonymous benefits upon the world. --Robert Louis Stevenson

12. Each morning when I open my eyes I say to myself: I, not events, have the power to make me happy or unhappy today. I can choose which it shall be. Yesterday is dead, tomorrow hasn't arrived yet. I have just one day, today, and I'm going to be happy in it. --Groucho Marx

13. Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. --Abraham Lincoln

I leave you with this graphic, found at netpaths.net, which frankly, in my book, sums it up fairly well.

May your Thursday be filled with happiness!

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