Thich Nhat Hanh Quotes

In order to have great happiness you have to have great pain and unhappiness - otherwise how would you know when you're happy?

To live in the midst of suffering, which we do, we do, amid distress, and to keep some equilibrium in the midst of that - that would be happiness enough.

Happiness is the absence of suffering. I think it's an interesting way of looking at it. I think the absence of suffering exists very rarely in the world we live in.

I think it's a mistake to miss out on joy just because you have pain.

No one could be more happy than a man who has never known affliction.

Happiness is overrated. There has to be conflict in life.

The kind of experience of humility and happiness that comes with gratitude tends to crowd out whatever is coarse, or ugly, or mean.

How unbearable at times are people who are happy, people for whom everything works out.

To appreciate heaven well, it's good for a person to have some fifteen minutes of hell.

As this world was not intended to be a state of any great satisfaction or high enjoyment, so neither was it intended to be a mere scene of unhappiness and sorrow.

It seldom happens that any felicity comes so pure as not to be tempered and allayed by some mixture of sorrow.

In our lives, we have good things and bad things, happiness and pain.

Happiness is not a reward - it is a consequence. Suffering is not a punishment - it is a result.

In the scriptures, we are told you can't really understand happiness unless you understand sadness. You don't know pleasure if you don't know pain. It's part of life. So can you learn something from somebody who has gone from success to success to success? I don't think so.

Many who seem to be struggling with adversity are happy; many, amid great affluence, are utterly miserable.

I wanted to understand pain and the human condition, which is full of pain and regret and sadness - and some happiness, if you're lucky.

I have been blessed with a good, fun, and wonderful life, but I've also seen a whole lot of pain.

Sorrow happens, hardship happens, the hell with it, who never knew the price of happiness, will not be happy.

Life is not always easy to live, but the opportunity to do so is a blessing beyond comprehension. In the process of living, we will face struggles, many of which will cause us to suffer and to experience pain.

Human life is everywhere a state in which much is to be endured, and little to be enjoyed.

Life is hard, but there are moments, sometimes hours - and, if you're really lucky, full days - where everything feels just right.

Without dark clouds in our lives, we would never know the joy of sunshine. We can become callous and unteachable if we do not learn from pain.

The best happiness will be to escape the worst misery.

Sometimes happiness consists of finding the right balance of misery.

When you have a toothache, you think that not having a toothache will make you very happy. But when you don't have a toothache, often you are still not happy. If you practice awareness, you suddenly become very rich, very very happy.