Ruth Benedict Quotes

And what is happiness, Nathan? In my experience, it's only a moment's pause here and there on what is otherwise a long and difficult road. No one can be happy all the time.

Happiness is such a fleeting point of view - there's no such thing as continual happiness.

Happiness has a very short half-life.

I know that human happiness never remains long in the same place.

I don't ever expect to be permanently happy. I don't think that's part of the human condition.

No one should ever ask themselves that: why am I unhappy? The question carries within it the virus that will destroy everything. If we ask that question, it means we want to find out what makes us happy. If what makes us happy is different from what we have now, then we must either change once and for all or stay as we are, feeling even more unhappy.

You cannot achieve happiness. Happiness happens and is a transitory stage.

I have given up considering happiness as relevant.

Happiness and unhappiness differ as a bucket hammered from gold differs from one pressed in tin ... Each carries the same water.

Why do people spend their time being sad when they could be happy?

There is no such thing as perfect happiness.

Trying to be happy in this world is greatest illusion.

What makes women happy? Nothing, for more than ten minutes at a time, so stop worrying.

I suppose happiness is something one enjoys, but I suspect that happiness is not a state but rather a transition.

There are times in my life when I haven't been happy. Sometimes it's not even physical, it's something else. The key is identifying why you're unhappy and doing whatever you can to fix it in a healthy way.

No one is happy all his life long.

I think if you're an unhappy person, you're always going to be an unhappy person. You're probably going to be less unhappy if your business is doing well, if I'm being honest.

No one's really happy anyway, it's not human.

I've definitely gone through phases where I'm not happy with my life, and you notice in little ways until they start adding up.

Nobody can be happy all the time, and if you aim to be, ultimately you will never be happy.

Wisdom is founded on memory; happiness on forgetfulness.

Indeed there has never been any explanation of the ebb and flow in our veins--of happiness and unhappiness.

Is there any indication we shouldn't be depressed - are you living on the same planet that I am? Do you ever think that depression might be the reasonable human response to the crap we're going through as a species, meant to propel us into the next evolutionary step, or at least into taking some different course of action so we might survive? Do you ever think that maybe it's the happy people that are really screwed up in the head?

What is called happiness is an abstract idea, composed of various ideas of pleasure; for he who has but a moment of pleasure is not a happy man, in like manner that a moment of grief constitutes not a miserable one.

Happiness. It comes on unexpectedly. And goes beyond, really, any early morning talk about it.