120 Short Happiness Quotes to Brighten Your Day
You’re looking for a little boost to brighten your day or lift someone else’s spirits, so we have compiled a list of all the best happiness quotes to bring a smile to your face.
And if you’re looking for short happiness quotes for Instagram, we also have you covered.
Now go ahead and browse through to find your favorite.
Short Happiness Quotes for Instagram

“Happy people plan actions, they don’t plan results.” – Dennis Waitley
“What you do not want done to yourself, do not do to others.” – Confucius
“The only thing that will make you happy is being happy with who you are.” – Goldie Hawn
“Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony.” – Mahatma Gandhi
“Happiness depends upon ourselves.” – Aristotle
“Every new day gives me ceaseless hope to reach out for my dreams.” – Lailah Gifty Akita
“Remember, you’re the one who can fill the world with sunshine.” – Snow White
“We become what we think about.” – Earl Nightingale
“Happiness is a state of activity.” – Aristotle
“I got that sunshine in my pocket, got that good soul in my feet.” – Justin Timberlake
“There’s nothing like deep breaths after laughing that hard.” – Stephen Chbosky
“Most people would rather be certain they’re miserable, than risk being happy.” – Dr. Robert Anthony
“Extraordinary things are always hiding in places people never think to look.” – Jodi Picoul
“People don’t notice whether it’s winter or summer when they’re happy.” – Anton Chekhov
“Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.” – Abraham Lincoln
“Trouble knocked at the door, but, hearing laughter, hurried away.” – Benjamin Franklin
“Life is too short to live on low-fat everything.” – Kristin Scott Thomas
“Being happy isn’t having everything in your life be perfect. Maybe it’s about stringing together all the little things.” – Ann Brashares
“A table, a chair, a bowl of fruit and a violin; what else does a man need to be happy?” – Albert Einstein
“If you stay positive, good things and good people will be drawn to you.” – Mary Lou Retton
“I’m singin’ in the rain, just singin’ in the rain. What a glorious feeling. I’m happy again.” – Gene Kelly
“Happiness held is the seed; Happiness shared is the flower.” – John Harrigan
“Enjoy life while you can. It can be taken in a heartbeat.” – Jasmin Morin
“There comes a day when you’re gonna look around and realize happiness is where you are.” – Chief Tui
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.” – Eleanor Roosevelt
“Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.” – Heraclitus
“Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one’s courage.” – Anaïs Nin
“Pick out a pleasant outlook, stick out that noble chin. Wipe off that ‘full of doubt’ look, slap on a happy grin and spread sunshine all over the place. Just put on a happy face!” – Dick Van Dyck
“Happiness is not something ready-made. It comes from your own actions.” – Dalai Lama
“Happiness is a warm puppy.” – Charles M. Schulz
“The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance, the wise grows it under his feet.” – James Oppenheim
“Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.” – John Lennon
“The most important thing is to enjoy your life-to be happy-it’s all that matters.” – Audrey Hepburn
“Laughter is a sunbeam of the soul.” – Thomas Mann
“Learn to value yourself, which means: fight for your happiness.” – Ayn Rand
“No medicine cures what happiness cannot.” – Gabriel García Márquez3
“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“It’s a helluva start, being able to recognize what makes you happy.” – Lucille Ball
“Happiness is not a goal; it is a by-product.” – Eleanor Roosevelt2
“Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city.” – George Burns
“Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.” – Nathaniel Hawthorne
“Happiness is a choice that requires effort at times.” – Aeschylus
“The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past.” – Andre Maurois
“To fill the hour-that is happiness.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“Independence is happiness.” – Susan B. Anthony
“There is only one happiness in life, to love and be loved.” – George Sand
“That is happiness; to be dissolved into something completely great.” – Willa Cather
“Whoever is happy will make others happy too.” – Anne Frank1
“Action may not always bring happiness; but there is no happiness without action.” – Benjamin Disraeli
“Happiness is nothing more than good health and a bad memory.” – Albert Schweitzer
“I’d far rather be happy than right any day.” – Douglas Adams
“True happiness is not attained through self-gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose.” – Helen Keller
“If you want to be happy, set a goal that commands your thoughts, liberates your energy, and inspires your hopes.” – Andrew Carnegie
“The greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.” – Martha Washington
“The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” – Marcus Aurelius
“Happiness is a how; not a what. A talent, not an object.” – Herman Hesse
“The grand essentials to happiness in this life are something to do, something to love, and something to hope for.” – George Washington Burnap
“Now and then it’s good to pause in our pursuit of happiness and just be happy.” – Guillaume Apollinaire
“Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.” – Dr. Seuss8
“Life is 10 percent what happens to you and 90 percent how you respond to it.” – Lou Holtz
“Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.” – Robert Frost
“Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get.” – W. P. Kinsella
“Wine is constant proof that God loves us and loves to see us happy.” – Benjamin Franklin
“The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up.” – Mark Twain
“Very little is needed to make a happy life; it is all within yourself, in your way of thinking.” – Marcus Aurelius Antoninus
“Happiness is not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt
“Far better is it to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs-even though checkered by failure-than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in a gray twilight that knows not victory nor defeat.” – Theodore Roosevelt
“The secret of happiness is not in doing what one likes, but in liking what one does.” – James M. Barrie
“Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The constant happiness is curiosity.” – Alice Munro
“To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people just exist.” – Oscar Wilde
“One of the keys to happiness is a bad memory.” – Rita Mae Brown
“Man only likes to count his troubles; he doesn’t calculate his happiness.” – Fyodor Dostoevsky
“Happiness is a gift and the trick is not to expect it, but to delight in it when it comes.” – Charles Dickens
“Think of all the beauty still left around you and be happy.” – Anne Frank
“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.” – Albert Camus
“If you spend your whole life waiting for the storm, you’ll never enjoy the sunshine.” – Morris West
“Happy people don’t fail. Happy people just learn. Don’t think they’re above the push and shove. They just wait their turn. They always got a hand or a dollar to spare. Know the Golden Rule, what you’re going through even if they’ve never been there.” – Big Little Town
“Happiness is a state of mind. It’s just according to the way you look at things.” – Walt Disney
“Happiness is not a goal…it’s a by-product of a life well-lived.” – Eleanor Roosevelt (slightly different wording from your draft’s similar quote)
“The two enemies of human happiness are pain and boredom.” – Arthur Schopenhauer
“I firmly believe that any man’s finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that he holds dear, is that moment when he has worked his heart out in a good cause and lies exhausted on the field of battle – victorious.” – Vince Lombardi
“Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic.” – John Henry Jowett
“I must learn to be content with being happier than I deserve.” – Jane Austen
“For many men, the acquisition of wealth does not end their troubles, it only changes them.” – Seneca
“Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.” – Marthe Troly-Curtin
“Those who are not looking for happiness are the most likely to find it, because those who are searching forget that the surest way to be happy is to seek happiness for others.” – Martin Luther King Jr.
“Every morning is a chance at a new day.” – Marjorie Pay Hinckley
“There is great happiness in not wanting.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti
“Remember, today is the tomorrow you worried about yesterday.” – Dale Carnegie
“Say something positive, and you’ll see something positive.” – Jim Thompson
“When I wake up in the morning, I feel like a billionaire without paying taxes.” – Ernie Banks
“The best time to be happy is always now.” – Roy T. Bennett
“Don’t take life too seriously. You’ll never get out of it alive.” – Elbert Hubbard
“Success is not the key to happiness. Happiness is the key to success.” – Herman Cain
“And remember, no matter where you go, there you are.” – Confucius
“Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world.” – Orhan Pamuk
“A positive attitude awakens inner strength, energy, motivation, and initiative.” – Remez Sasson
“Tension is who you think you should be, relaxation is who you are.” – Chinese proverb
“The mere sense of living is joy enough.” – Emily Dickinson
“Tomorrow is promised to no one. Prioritize today accordingly.” – Gina Greenlee
“The present moment is filled with joy and happiness. If you are attentive, you will see it.” – Thich Nhat Hanh
“If you are positive, you’ll see opportunities instead of obstacles.” – Widad Akrawi
“No act of kindness, no matter how small, is ever wasted.” – Aesop
“Happiness [is] only real when shared.” – Jon Krakauer
“It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.” – Seneca
“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
“Simplicity makes me happy.” – Alicia Keys
“It’s almost always possible to be honest and positive.” – Naval Ravikant
“That man is richest whose pleasures are cheapest.” – Henry David Thoreau
“Resolve to keep happy, and your joy and you shall form an invincible host against difficulties.” – Helen Keller
“If thou wilt make a man happy, add not unto his riches but take away from his desires.” – Epicurus
“Roll with the punches and enjoy every minute of it.” – Meghan Markle
“We can truly love one another once we love who we are.” – Angela C. Santomero
“If you want something, don’t wish for it. Life is too short to wait.” – Stephen Hines
“Life is too short to be unhappy.” – Roy T. Bennett
“Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.” – Omar Khayyam
“Today is a new day, the first day of the rest of your life.” – Abbie Hoffman
“If you have good thoughts, they will shine out of your face like sunbeams, and you will always look lovely.” – Roald Dahl
“Gratitude is the fairest blossom which springs from the soul.” – Henry Ward Beecher