happy
International Day of Happiness, a United Nations-sanctioned holiday, is celebrated around the world March 20. In this image, six thousand Filipino participants,wearing yellow and black shirts, form a human smiley in Manila, May 30, 2015. NOEL CELIS/AFP/Getty Images

International Day of Happiness, a United Nations-sanctioned holiday, is celebrated around the world March 20, in order to help create happier lives.

The U.N. General Assembly adopted a resolution in 2011, which recognized happiness as a “fundamental human goal.” According to the day’s official website, "A profound shift in attitudes is underway all over the world. People are now recognizing that 'progress' should be about increasing human happiness and well-being, not just growing the economy."

Here are 20 quotes about happiness, compiled from Good Reads and Brainy Quote -

  1. "The only thing that will make you happy is being happy with who you are, and not who people think you are." — Goldie Hawn
  2. "The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don’t have." — Woody Allen
  3. "If you want a happy ending that depends, of course, on where you stop your story." — Orson Welles
  4. "If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion." — Dalai Lama
  5. "Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony." — Mahatma Gandhi
  6. "Morality is not the doctrine of how we may make ourselves happy, but how we may make ourselves worthy of happiness." — Immanuel Kant
  7. “Happiness is the secret to all beauty. There is no beauty without happiness.” — Christian Dior
  8. "Happiness depends upon ourselves." — Aristotle
  9. “Life will bring you pain all by itself. Your responsibility is to create joy.” — Milton Erickson
  10. "There's nothing like deep breaths after laughing that hard. Nothing in the world like a sore stomach for the right reasons." — Stephen Chbosky
  11. "We all live with the objective of being happy; our lives are all different and yet the same." — Anne Frank
  12. "Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting some on yourself." — Ralph Waldo Emerson
  13. "Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing." — William Butler Yeats
  14. “Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.” — John Lennon
  15. “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
  16. “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.” — Dale Carnegie
  17. “When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us.” — Helen Keller
  18. "Happiness is a choice. You can choose to be happy. There’s going to be stress in life, but it’s your choice whether you let it affect you or not." — Valerie Bertinelli
  19. "The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer someone else up." — Mark Twain
  20. "Success is getting what you want, happiness is wanting what you get." — W.P. Kinsella
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