LDS Quotes on Happiness
“Real, lasting happiness is possible, and marriage can be more an exultant ecstasy than the human mind can conceive. This is within the reach of every couple, every person. . . . It is certain that almost any good man and any good woman can have happiness and a successful marriage if both are willing to pay the price.”
| (1976, September 7). Marriage and divorce. BYU Devotional
In a paradoxical way, afflictions and sorrow prepare us to experience joy if we will trust in the Lord and His plan for us. This truth is beautifully expressed by a 13th-century poet: “Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.”
| Consistent and Resilient Trust
“The lessons we learn from patience will cultivate our character, lift our lives, and heighten our happiness.”
| Continue in Patience, April 2010 General Conference
“I am still determined to be cheerful and happy, in whatever situation I may be; for I have also learned from experience that the greater part of our happiness or misery depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances.”
“Don’t be so heavenly minded that you are of no earthly good. Sometimes we work overtime making the gospel of Jesus Christ miserable to live. Let your life be your trumpet.”
| BYU Education Week, August 1992
“I am satisfied that if we would look for the virtues in one another and not the vices, there would be much more of happiness in the homes of our people. There would be far less of divorce, much less of infidelity, much less of anger and rancor and quarreling. There would be more of forgiveness, more of love, more of peace, more of happiness. This is as the Lord would have it.”
| Living Worthy of the Girl You Will Someday Marry
“Oh, there can be transitory euphoria from power, influence, or material wealth, but true, lasting happiness, the kind that is felt in the early hours of the morning when you are truly honest with yourself, can be garnered only by obedience to the teachings of God. You must have honesty, integrity, chastity, virtue, and a willingness to forego something attractive, even apparently desirable for the moment, for greater good in the future. I speak of the willingness when circumstance demands to lay everything on the altar to defend true principles.”
| “Living Right,” April 22, 2004
“(Cheerfulness is) a deep trust in God’s unfolding purposes—not only for all of mankind, but for each of us as individuals.”
| “But a Few Days” (address given to CES Religious Educators, Sept. 10, 1982), 4.
“Happiness does not consist of a glut of luxury, the world’s idea of a “good time” Nor must we search for it in faraway places with strange sounding names. Happiness is found at home.”
| Hallmarks of a Happy Home, Ensign October 2001
“We can’t direct the wind, but we can adjust the sails. For maximum happiness, peace, and contentment, may we choose a positive attitude.”
| “Living the Abundant Life,” Ensign, January 2012, p. 4