Israel Zangwill Quotes

As you get older you try to do things that please you more. You get a little more selfish. You start thinking I want to do things where I enjoy myself.

In this regard, pleasure is an event; happiness is a process. Pleasure is an end point; happiness is the journey. Pleasure is material; happiness is spiritual. Pleasure is self-involved; happiness is outer- and other-involved.

My parents have a strong work ethic, but their attitude to life, their philosophy, is: 'whatever makes you happy.'

I don't feel guilty in having pleasure!

There is no such thing as a guilty pleasure.

If something makes someone happy, then that's what they should do.

I've always loved the idea of 'Guilty Pleasures.'

Men are that they might have joy . . . not guilt trips.

It's a great game - the pursuit of happiness.

You will never enjoy life if you do not enjoy yourself.

Happiness is unrepented pleasure.

Today I will do something just for the fun of it. I will find something to do that's just for me and I won't worry about what I should be doing. I will learn how to make myself feel good and enjoy life to the fullest.

I enjoyed my own nature to the fullest, and we all know there lies happiness, although, to soothe one another mutually, we occasionally pretend to condemn such joys as selfishness.

Doing something purely for one's own enjoyment is fine, but, I must admit, finding that others enjoy it as well has a certain power over the corners of my mouth.

Happiness is not mere pleasure, not the outcome of wealth. It is the result of active work rather than passive enjoyment of pleasure.

The clue to happiness is being interested in life. People's happiness is as great as they can create it.

We talk about taking "pleasure in a thing": but in truth it is pleasure in ourselves, mediated by a thing.

The attraction of a life devoted to sensation, pleasure and self would probably wear thin one day, but there was still plenty of time for that yet.

Happiness is a good that nature sells us.

The rub is that the pursuit of happiness, as an end in itself, tends automatically, and widely, to be replaced by the pursuit of pleasure with a consequent general softening of the fibers of will, intelligence, spirit.

I remember when I switched from Christmas to sex as the secret of happiness.

What consoles one nowadays is not repentance but pleasure. Repentance is quite out of date.

There is no such thing as perfect happiness.

Happiness," said he, "must be something solid and permanent, without fear and without uncertainty.

Happiness is like coke — something you get as a by-product in the process of making something else.