111 Inspirational quotes about staying happy and positive in life

Quotes about staying happy, download FREE happiness worksheet, nandyzsoulshine.com

What does happiness do for you?

It heightens your awareness of –

The things you have to celebrate in your life.
Lessons to be learned in every missed attempt.
A solution to every problem.
A tailor-made definition of success that fits you perfectly.
The beauty & possibilities all around us.

And so, I’ve curated for you these quotes about staying happy to show how age-old and contemporary wisdom converge on the same thought – happiness is a way of life, an integral part of who we are because emotions make us human. You cannot know sadness without knowing happiness first.

It’s your choice which one you want to focus on more – which one makes you feel more alive.

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3 Effective mindset shifts for happiness
How can a person be happy
Quotes about staying happy through hard times
Staying happy and positive
Quotes about staying happy with yourself
Being happy on your own
Moving on to be happy again
Inspirational quotes about staying happy

3 Powerful Steps to Happiness

The answer to “what should I do to stay happy”, lies through these mindset shifts.

1. Never be afraid of change

Change is the only thing constant in life. If things didn’t change, we would still be living in prehistoric age and still things would change there. The key to handling shifts better is

Not to worry about the things out of your control, and
Making the best of what you have control over.

Keep your focus on the right thing.

2. Don’t compare

If you have to compare, compare yourself with where you were 5 or 10 years ago and how far you’ve come. Appreciate yourself for who you are and not how you compare with others. Love your flaws because they are the ones that make you unique.

Happiness and success go hand in hand, no matter what they look like for you. For someone, success might be owning a multi-million-dollar business, while for another person it might mean creating a lifestyle that leaves the smallest carbon footprint.

No matter how you define success, the goal is to feel happy & content within you – not in comparison to another.

3. Stay a child at heart:

Don’t lose that sense of excitement about tiny achievements, wonder about new things, tingle of adventure to explore uncharted paths, and sense of humor to laugh at silly jokes.

Life can be tough or exciting depending on how you decide to look at it.

Insightful motivational quotes about staying happy

How can a person be happy

Happiness might look different for everyone but does feels the same in our hearts. Having the intention first is the key to happiness…if it doesn’t come from within you, everything outside loses its sheen and power to give joy.

So, I’ve presented here these inspiring nuggets of wisdom spanning ages to show you where it all begins. Hope they bring light, hope, positivity, and peace to your day.

Quotes about staying happy through hard times

“Sometimes life knocks you on your ass… get up, get up, get up!!! Happiness is not the absence of problems, it’s the ability to deal with them.”
– Steve Maraboli

“A happy life consists not in the absence, but in the mastery of hardships.” – Helen Keller

“If being happy is important to you, try this: instead of regretting all you lack, celebrate all you’ve got.” – Brian Vaszily

“Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.”

“Ups and downs. Victories and defeats. Sadness and happiness. That’s the best kind of life.”
– Maxime Lagacé

“The art of being happy lies in the power of extracting happiness from common things.” – Henry Ward Beecher
“The greatest part of our happiness depends on our dispositions, not our circumstances.” – Martha Washington
“Anyone can be happy when times are good; the richer experience is to be happy when times are not.” – Susan Harris

“All happiness or unhappiness solely depends upon the quality of the object to which we are attached by love.”
– Baruch Spinoza

“Everything is a gift of the universe–even joy, anger, jealously, frustration, or separateness. Everything is perfect either for our growth or our enjoyment.” – Ken Keyes, Jr.
“The art of living lies less in eliminating our troubles than growing with them.” – Bernard M Baruch
“Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond to it.” – Lou Holtz

“If we can discover that our minds are bigger than our problems, we’ll see that deep down we all have the potential to be truly happy.”
– Gelong Thubten

**25 Best motivational quotes with life-changing wisdom**

“The first and most important step in being happy no matter what, is to stop complaining.” – Bob Richardson
“Sorrow and struggle are great teachers. Without them I could not have appreciated the happy times as much.” – Norman Vincent Peale
“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 and sadness run parallel to each other. When one takes a rest, the other one tends to take up the slack.”
– Hazelmarie Elliott

“The happiness which is lacking makes one think even the happiness one has unbearable.” – Joseph Roux
“In order to have great happiness you have to have great pain and unhappiness – otherwise how would you know when you’re happy?” – Leslie Caron
“True happiness occurs only when you find the problems you enjoy having and enjoy solving.” – Mark Manson

“Happiness is a conscious choice, not an automatic response.”
– Mildred Barthel

“Man is fond of counting his troubles, but he does not count his joys. If he counted them up as he ought to, he would see that every lot has enough happiness provided for it.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky

Quotes about staying happy and positive

“Happiness is not something readymade. It comes from your own actions.”
– Dalai Lama

“If you want to be happy, successful, and have extreme confidence, then you have to somehow turn the pessimistic voice in your head into an encouraging one.” – Beau Norton
“Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” – Abraham Lincoln
“There is no way to happiness – happiness is the way.” – Thich Nhat Hanh

“Be happy with what you have. Be excited about what you want.”
– Alan Cohen

“Three grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.” – Jospeh Addison
“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” – Marcus Aurelius
“Happiness is a state of mind. It’s just according to the way you look at things.” – Walt Disney

“If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.”
– Andrew Carnegie

“One of the secrets of a happy life is continuous small treats.” – Iris Murdoch
“We can’t control the world. We can only (barely) control our own reactions to it. Happiness is largely a choice, not a right or entitlement.” – David C Hill
“Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination.” – Immanuel Kant

“Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated”
– Confucius

“Cheerfulness is what greases the axles of the world. Don’t go through life creaking.”– H.W. Byles
“Happiness is not a state to arrive at, but a manner of traveling.” – Margaret Lee Runbeck
“Happiness is the default state. It’s what’s there when you remove the sense that something is missing in life.” – Naval Ravikant

“Happiness always looks small while you hold it in your hands, but let it go, and you learn at once how big and precious it is.”
– Maxim Gorky

“Happiness is the experience of loving life. Being happy is being in love with that momentary experience.” – Robert McPhillips
“The habit of being happy enables one to be freed, or largely freed, from the domination of outward conditions.” – Robert Louis Stevenson
“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.” – James Oppenheim

Being happy with yourself

“No one is in control of your happiness but you; therefore, you have the power to change anything about yourself or your life that you want to change.”
– Barbara DeAngelis

“Learn to value yourself , which means: fight for your happiness.” – Ayn Rand
“The only thing that will make you happy is being happy with who you are, and not who people think you are.” – Goldie Hawn
“Every individual is unique – it is impossible to attain any measure of happiness by comparing yourself to others.” – Christian H. Godefroy

“You are the creator of your reality. If you’re not happy with your life it’s because you are letting your mind tell you that you are not happy.”
– Kevin Kerr

“There can be no happiness if the things we believe in are different from the things we do.”– Freya Stark
“The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be.” – Marcel Pagnol
“Have fun and do not take yourself too seriously. Life is not an exam, so lighten up and make the world a happy place to live in.” – Mick McPherson

“It is not how much we have, but how much we enjoy, that makes happiness.”
– Charles Spurgeon

“To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.” – Bertrand Russell
“The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don’t have.” – Woody Allen
“Happiness grows at our own firesides, and is not picked in strangers’ gardens.” – Douglas Jerrold

“He who lives in harmony with himself lives in harmony with the universe.”
– Marcus Aurelius

“The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.” – Victor Hugo
“The essence of philosophy is that a man should so live that his happiness shall depend as little as possible on external things.” – Epictetus

Quotes about staying happy by yourself

“In our lives, change is unavoidable, loss is unavoidable. In the adaptability and ease with which we experience change, lies our happiness and freedom.”
– Buddha

“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 it.” – Dale Carnegie
“Being happy is something that each of us determines, it is not something that we find outside of yourself, it is within us and our choice.” – Catherine Pulsifer
“The thing everyone should realize is that the key to happiness is being happy by yourself and for yourself.” – Ellen DeGenres

“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.”
– Mark Twain

“Do not set aside your happiness. Do not wait to be happy in the future. The best time to be happy is always now.” – Roy T Bennett
“It’s so hard to forget pain, but it’s even harder to remember sweetness. We have no scar to show for happiness. We learn so little from peace.” – Chuck Palahniuk
“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

“In order to be utterly happy, the only thing necessary is to refrain from comparing this moment with other moments in the past.”
– Andre Gide

“When we cease trying to control, own or grasp our surroundings or the world around us, we allow ourselves to feel happy.” – Brittany Hallison
“Two persons do not belong together if they have to take turns being happy or miserable while trying to please each other.” – Helen Mayhew
“The true secret of happiness lies in the taking a genuine interest in all the details of daily life.” – William Morris

“The secret of happiness is freedom, the secret of freedom is courage.”
– Carrie Jones

“Give a man health and a course to steer, and he’ll never stop to trouble about whether he’s happy or not.” – George Bernard Shaw
“Now and then it’s good to pause in the pursuit of happiness and just be happy.” – Guillaume Appollinaire
“It’s the moments that I stopped just to be, rather than do, that have given me true happiness.” – Sir Richard Branson

“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

“We cannot be happy if we expect to live all the time at the highest peak of intensity. Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.” –Thomas Merton

“The only way to avoid being miserable is not to have enough leisure to wonder whether you are happy or not.” – George Bernard Shaw

Moving on and being happy again

“The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, worry about the future, or anticipate troubles, but to live in the present moment wisely and earnestly.”
– Buddha

“Cry. Forgive. Learn. Move on . Let your tears water the seeds of your future happiness.” – Steve Maraboli
“Every day is a new day, and you’ll never be able to find happiness if you don’t move on.” – Carrie Underwood
“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” – Dr. Seuss

“Don’t waste your time in anger, regrets, worries, and grudges. Life is too short to be unhappy.”
– Roy T. Bennett

“Judge nothing, you will be happy. Forgive everything, you will be happier. Love everything, you will be happiest.” – Sri Chinmoy
“You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.” – Jonathan Safran Foer
“Learn to let go. That is the key to happiness.” – Buddha

“Just as a cautious businessman avoids investing all his capital in one concern, so wisdom would probably admonish us also not to anticipate all our happiness from one quarter alone.”
– Sigmund Freud

“If you want to be happy, do not dwell in the past, do not worry about the future, focus on living fully in the present.”- Roy T Bennett
“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.” – Anne Frank
“The act of being happy will often transform your mood without you even realizing it. A smile given, even if it is hard to do in your present mood, will get a smile in return.” – Catherine Pulsifer

“You don’t develop courage by being happy in your relationships everyday. You develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity.”
– Epicurus

“The greatest happiness you can have is knowing that you do not necessarily require happiness.” – William Saroyan
“Happiness is always the serendipitous result of looking for something else.” – Dr. Idel Dreimer

Inspirational quotes about staying happy

“Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the world belongs to you.”
– Lao Tzu

“To enjoy good health, to bring true happiness to one’s family, to bring peace to all, one must first discipline and control one’s own mind.” – Buddha
“To stay happy and fulfilled, goals are needed in all of the major areas of life.” – K.C. Rowntree
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“To lead a full and fulfilling life -a happy life -we need to allow ourselves to experience the full range of human emotions. In other words, we need to give ourselves the permission to be human.”
– Tal Ben-Shahar

“There is essentially one thing you must remember when you desire to be satisfied and happy in the life you live and that thing one thing is a seven letter word called balance.” – Raymona Brown
“There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish our wants or augment our means – either may do – the result is the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to do that which happens to be easier.” – Benjamin Franklin
“They say a person needs just three things to be truly happy in this world: Someone to love, something to do, and something to hope for.” – Tom Bodett

“Happiness is not a goal…it’s a by-product of a life well-lived.”
– Eleanor Roosevelt

“Happiness consists more in small conveniences or pleasures that occur every day, than in great pieces of good fortune that happen but seldom to a man in the course of his life.” – Benjamin Franklin
“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion” – Dalai Lama
“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

“Learn to enjoy every minute of your life. Be happy now. Don’t wait for something outside of yourself to make you happy in the future.”
– Earl Nightingale

“People are unhappy when they get something too easily. You have to sweat – that’s the only moral they know.” – Dany Laferriere
“Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.” – Franklin Roosevelt
“Happiness is a matter of one’s most ordinary and everyday mode of consciousness being busy and lively and unconcerned with self.” – Iris Murdoch

“If you observe a really happy man you will find him building a boat, writing a symphony, educating his son, growing double dahlias in his garden, or looking for dinosaur eggs in the Gobi desert. He will not be searching for happiness as if it were a collar button that has rolled under the radiator. He will not be striving for it as a goal in itself. He will have become aware that he is happy in the course of living life twenty-four crowded hours of the day.”
– W. Beran Wolfe

“Who is the happiest of men? He who values the merits of others, and in their pleasure takes joy, even as though it were his own.” – Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
“True happiness comes from giving. Helping others along the way makes you evaluate who you are.” – Marla Gibbs
“Everyone wants to live on top of the mountain, but all the happiness and growth occurs while you’re climbing it.” – Andy Rooney