Happiness

LDS Quotes on Happiness

Thomas S. Monson

“In the game of life a second effort is often required. The happy life is not ushered in at any age to the sound of drums and trumpets. It grows upon us year by year, little by little, until at last we realize that we have it. It is achieved in individuals not by flights to the moon or Mars, but by a body of work done so well that we can lift our heads with assurance and look the world in the eye. Of this be sure: You do not find the happy life . . . you make it.”

Thomas S. Monson  |  “Faces and Attitudes,” New Era, September 1977

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“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.”

Henry David Thoreau

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“The Christian doctrine of suffering explains, I believe, a very curious fact about the world we live in. The settled happiness and security we all desire, God withholds from us by the very nature of the world; but joy, pleasure, and merriment, He has scattered broadcast. We are never safe, but we have plenty of fun, and some ecstasy.

“It is not hard to see why. The security we crave would teach us to rest our hearts in this world and oppose an obstacle in our return to God; a few moments of happy love, a landscape, a symphony, a merry meeting with our friends, a bathe or a football match, have no such tendency. Our Father refreshes us on the journey with some pleasant inns, but will not encourage us to mistake them for home.”

CS Lewis  |  The Problem of Pain

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“In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer.”

Albert Camus

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“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?”

Arthur C. Brooks  |  Love People, Not Pleasure, NY Times

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“The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything do to with the focus of our lives.”

Russell M. Nelson  |  Joy and Spiritual Survival

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“The words death and happiness are not close companions in mortality, but in the eternal sense they are essential to one another.”

Boyd K. Packer

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“There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.”

George Sand

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“The Spirit of the gospel is optimistic; it trusts in God and looks on the bright side of things. The opposite or pessimistic spirit drags men down and away from God, looks on the dark side, murmurs, complains, and is slow to yield obedience.”

Orson F. Whitney  |  Conference Report, April 1917

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“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.”

David O. McKay  |  General Conference, October 1963

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