'The fact is always obvious much too late, but the most singular difference between happiness and joy is that happiness is a solid and joy a liquid.'

'Art is the human disposition of sensible or intelligible matter for an aesthetic end.'

- Author James Joyce (1882 -1941)

'You will never be happier than you expect. To change your happiness, change your expectation.'

- Hollywood legend Bette Davis (1908 - 1989)

'You will never feel proud of your work if you find no joy within it; your best work is always joyful work.'

- Stevie Wonder (1950-present)

A psychiatrist warns that chasing happiness can lead to misery

Rafa Euba, a retired consultant psychiatrist, argues that happiness is a vague and abstract concept that is hard to quantify. He suggests accepting that suffering and pain are a normal part of life. An attainable goal for one's life is to attempt to minimize pain, and pursue balance and contentment rather than a false ideal of permanent bliss.

'Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night.'

- Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) in "Elenora"

'Happiness depends more upon the internal frame of a persons own mind—than on the externals in the world.'

- George Washington (1732-1799)

'The soul should always stand ajar, ready to welcome the ecstatic experience.'

- Poet Emily Dickinson (1830–1886)

'It's those who lie outside ordinary experience who have the most to teach us.'

- Author Malcolm Gladwell (1963 - present)

'The good ole days weren't always good, and tomorrow ain't as bad as it seems.'

- Billy Joel (1949-present)

'There's a hell of a distance between wise-cracking and wit. Wit has truth in it; wise-cracking is simply calisthenics with words.'

- Writer Dorothy Parker (1893-1967)

Some of the 'Jeopardy!' host Alex Trebek's best quotes

"The secret to happiness, of course, is not getting what you want; it's wanting what you get."

A quote by Alex Haley

"Either you deal with what is the reality, or you can be sure that the reality is going to deal with you."

'Her own thoughts and reflections were habitually her best companions.'

- Legendary author Jane Austen (1775 -1817)

'I would rather that my spark should burn out in a brilliant blaze than it should be stifled by dry-rot ... The proper function of man is to live, not to exist. I shall not waste my days in trying to prolong them. I shall use my time.'

- Author Jack London (1876 - 1916)

'Knowledge will forever govern ignorance.'

- US President James Madison (1751-1836)

Visualizing where happiness comes from

Researchers asked 10,000 participants to list 10 things that recently made them happy. One author broke down the responses into subject-verb-object categories, isolating the people and events that made responders satisfied. The result highlights how simple things like having dinner or watching a movie made someone happy. Dive in and look for some ideas or tips on feeling happy today with this fascinating visualization.

'Mediocrity is always invisible until passion shows up and exposes it'

- Graham Cooke

'Mistakes are almost always of a sacred nature. Never try to correct them. On the contrary: rationalize them, understand them thoroughly. After that, it will be possible for you to sublimate them.'

- Artist Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)

'When you're climbing Mount Everest, nothing is easy. You just take one step at a time, never look back and always keep your eyes glued to the top.'

- Author Jacqueline Susann (1918-1974)

Writer DH Lawrence argued that the novel is the height of literature

DH Lawrence was a 20th-century writer, known for his novel “Lady Chatterley’s Lover.” In his essay “Why the Novel Matters,” written in 1925, Lawrence argues that the novel, more than any other literary form, allows readers to experience the whole of human experience, writing that “only in the novel are all things given full play.”

'Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead.'

Meyer Wolfsheim in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby"

Watch writer John Steinbeck's Nobel Prize acceptance speech.

'When you come to a fork in the road, take it.'

- Baseball great Yogi Berra (1925-2015)

JRR Tolkien believed fairy tales needed dramatic reversals of fortune

Tolkien coined the term "eucatastrophe" to define what he believed as an essential key to good storytelling: “The consolation of fairy-stories [is] the joy of the happy ending: or more correctly of the good catastrophe, the sudden joyous ‘turn.'"

Despite his sometimes caustic satire, Dickens was ultimately an optimist

Michael Slater, a professor of Victorian literature at Birkbeck College, notes that Dickens' anger at Parliament and social injustice never got in the way of his optimism. "There is a constant allegiance to the lives of ordinary people and their pleasures," he said in a 2001 interview with "In Our Time."

Existentialist writer Jean-Paul Sartre coined the famous phrase 'Hell is—other people' in his play 'No Exit'

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

Salvador Dalí believed he was his own dead brother, who had died nine months before he was born

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

Browse a detailed visual analysis of over 200,000 similes—comparisons that often use 'like' or 'as'—from popular fiction to see how frequently writers the same idiomatic expressions.

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

In 2026, Finland was named the world's happiest country for the ninth consecutive year based on its wealth, social safety network, and high life expectancy, among other factors.

Warren Buffett's former professor Benjamin Graham is known as the 'father of value investing,' a strategy in which investors seek to buy stocks trading below their intrinsic worth.

The 19th-century painters of the Hudson River School were among the first American romantics, with portraits that displayed the natural beauty of the young country.

See the most iconic photos from four decades of LIFE magazine

The original copy of the Declaration of Independence is not a pristine document, and even features a smudged anonymous handprint in the bottom left corner.

Dorothy's famous entrance into Oz in 'The Wizard of Oz' relied on analog tricks, including a body double and sepia-toned paint, as much as it did on technology

Frank Lloyd Wright's houses are historically hard to sell because they're old, subject to local landmark commissions, and often unfashionable

When a Paris department store hesitated to sell Estée Lauder's perfume, she 'accidentally' broke a bottle, causing the smell to spread throughout the store and shoppers to start asking to buy the scent.

All rainbows are 'raincircles' caused by water droplets separating white sunlight into a spectrum of colors, but Earth's surface blocks the bottom half of the circle from our line of sight.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

The Great Salt Lake's distinct dual coloration results from high-salinity organisms that only live in the northern portion and produce a purple protein.

'Silent' fireworks have gained more interest in recent years as a quieter celebratory option.

Studies suggest when you sleep is as important as how much you get, and syncing with your circadian rhythms may lead to less fatigue and improved long-term health outcomes

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

How fusion—which releases energy when two lighter atoms combine to form a heavier atom—differs from fission

Explore chaos in this simulation of two double pendulums, where small differences in the release angles produce wildly different outcomes.

Jimmy Carter signed a 1978 bill that legalized home brewing, a move credited with kick-starting the craft beer industry.