A Quote by Matthieu Ricard

Happiness is the result of inner maturity. It depends on us alone, and requires patient work, carried out from day to day. Happiness must be built, and this requires time and effort. In the long term, happiness and unhappiness are therefore a way of being, or a life skill.

Matthieu Ricard

Quote Topics

Alone Being Built Carried Day Day To Day Depends Effort Happiness Inner Life Long Long Term Maturity Must Out Patient Requires Result Skill Term Therefore Time Unhappiness Us Way Work

Quote Author

Matthieu Ricard
French - Priest
Born: February 15, 1946

Happiness is a skill. It requires effort and time.

Andrew Weil

The belief that happiness has to be deserved has led to centuries of pain, guilt, and deception. So firmly have we clung to this single, illusory belief that we've almost forgotten the real truth about happiness. So busy are we trying to deserve happiness that we no longer have much time for ideas such as: Happiness is natural, happiness is a birthright, happiness is free, happiness is a choice, happiness is within, and happiness is being. The moment you believe that happiness has to be deserved, you must toil forevermore.

Robert Holden

My effort here is to create bliss, not happiness. Happiness is worthless; it depends on unhappiness. Bliss is transcendence: one moves beyond the duality of being happy and unhappy. One watches both; happiness comes, one watches and does not become identified with it. One does not say, 'I am happy. Peace, it is wonderful.' One simply watches, one says, 'Yes, a white cloud passing.'

Rajneesh

The mind is malleable. Our life can be greatly transformed by even a minimal change in how we manage our thoughts and perceive and interpret the world. Happiness is a skill. It requires effort and time.

Matthieu Ricard

Finding happiness is like finding yourself. You don't find happiness, you make happiness. You choose happiness. Self-actualization is a process of discovering who you are, who you want to be and paving the way to happiness by doing what brings you the most meaning and contentment to your life over the long run.

David Leonhardt

Chastity is a difficult long term matter, one must wait patiently for it to bear fruit for the happiness of loving kindness which it must bring. But at the same time chastity is the sure way to happiness.

Pope John Paul II

We ask for happiness but what we get is unhappiness. We all put our efforts into trying to be happy but we make a fundamental mistake: happiness is not related to the effort, happiness is related to not asking for it.

Rajneesh

I've been thinking about happiness-how wrong it is ever to expect it to last or there to be a time of happiness. It's not that, it's a moment of happiness. Almost every day contains at least one moment of happiness.

May Sarton

I have learned from experience that happiness is an acquired skill. Children are one of the greatest lessons in happiness, constantly challenging us to enjoy the moment, as the next one will not be the same. Gratitude is essential to happiness. Every time our children rush up to us and smile, we have something to be happy about; every time we get out of bed and can take a deep breath and go out for a walk, we have something to be happy about-that is the essence of a happy existence. Happiness is a muscle we must use, or it will wither away.

Marianne Williamson

The whole movement of happiness, unhappiness, happiness, unhappiness, could be called unhappiness. You're suffering because your state of mind is in flux, moving back and forth. The ego's happiness is really a form of suffering, because it cannot live without unhappiness.

Eckhart Tolle

Is there a difference between happiness and inner peace? Yes. Happiness depends on conditions being perceived as positive; inner peace does not.

Eckhart Tolle

So much of unhappiness, it seems to me, is due to nerves; and bad nerves are the result of having nothing to do, or doing a thing badly, unsuccessfully or incompetently. Of all the unhappy people in the world, the unhappiest are those who have not found something they want to do. True happiness comes to those who do their work well, followed by a refreshing period of rest. True happiness comes from the right amount of work for the day.

Lin Yutang

Maybe you think you’ll be entitled to more happiness later by forgoing all of it now, but it doesn’t work that way. Happiness takes as much practice as unhappiness does. It’s by living that you live more. By waiting you wait more. Every waiting day makes your life a little less. Every lonely day makes you a little smaller. Every day you put off your life makes you less capable of living it.

Ann Brashares

Power doesn't create happiness or unhappiness. It depends how you use it. Wisdom is the guiding force that directs happiness.

Frederick Lenz

I think we all mistake certain things for happiness. I think we mistake comfort for happiness and we mistake pleasure for happiness, and entertainment for happiness, when really these are just things we use as proxies for our happiness. We use them to cheer us up or try and achieve brief happiness, when really happiness is something much more profound and long lasting and exists within us.