“Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder.”
Happiness
LDS Quotes on Happiness
“I love the man who can smile in trouble, who can gather strength in distress and grow brave by reaction. It is the business of little minds to shrink, but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles to the death.”
“In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer.”
“The words death and happiness are not close companions in mortality, but in the eternal sense they are essential to one another.”
“The true end of life is not mere existence, not pleasure, not fame, not wealth. The true purpose of life is the perfection of humanity through individual effort, under the guidance of God’s inspiration. Real life is response to the best within us. To be alive only to appetite, pleasure, pride, money-making, and not to goodness and kindness, purity and love, poetry, music, flowers and stars, God and eternal hopes, is to deprive one’s self of the real joy of living.”
| General Conference, October 1963
“Cultivate an attitude of happiness. Cultivate a spirit of optimism. Walk with faith, rejoicing in the beauties of nature, in the goodness of those you love, in the testimony which you carry in your heart concerning things divine.”
“The more we sense…our ultimate potential, the more determined we become to achieve it. It’s the difference between your mother hounding you to practice the piano and reaching the point where you want to do it yourself. You simply will not be denied the ultimate reward and the joy of the Big Finish.”
| No Doubt About It
We will take the best men we can find among them – when they pass through the veil they are in happiness, they are in glory, they go among the disembodied spirits; but they do not go where there are resurrected bodies, for they cannot live there: a Prophet or an Apostle cannot live there. They also go into the spiritual world to live with spirits. Do they commune with the Father and Son? The Father communes with them as He pleases, through the means of angels, or otherwise the Son and Holy Ghost. This is the situation of the Prophet, the Apostle, and all Saints before they receive their resurrected bodies; but they are looking forward to the time when they shall receive their bodies from the dust; and those that have been faithful, probably, will now soon get their resurrected bodies. Abraham has had his body long ago, and dwells with the Father and the Son, among all the Prophets and faithful Saints who received their resurrected bodies immediately after the resurrection of the Savior [Section 133:55]. They were then prepared to enter into the Father’s rest and be crowned with glory and eternal lives, but they were not prepared before.
No spirit of Saint or sinner, of the Prophet or him that kills the Prophet, is prepared for their final state: All pass through the veil from this state and go into the world of spirits; and there they dwell, waiting for their final destiny.
| Journal of Discourses 6:293-294, August 15, 1852
“A father’s duty is to make his home a place of happiness and joy. He cannot do this when there is bickering, quarreling, contention or unrighteous behavior. The powerful effect of righteous fathers in setting an example, disciplining and training, nurturing and loving is vital to the spiritual welfare of his children.”
“What do you post to Facebook? Pictures of yourself yelling at your kids, or having a hard time at work? No, you post smiling photos of a hiking trip with friends. You build a fake life — or at least an incomplete one — and share it. Furthermore, you consume almost exclusively the fake lives of your social media “friends.” Unless you are extraordinarily self-aware, how could it not make you feel worse to spend part of your time pretending to be happier than you are, and the other part of your time seeing how much happier others seem to be than you?”
| Love People, Not Pleasure, NY Times