The Joys of Living Quotes

“Where did the idea come from that we should take life so seriously, anyway? Why should a man be such a slave to his breadwinning? We ought to be able to get a good living, even to make fortunes, and yet have a good time every day of our lives. This idea of being a slave most of the time, and of only occasionally enjoying a holiday, is all wrong.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“The habit of learning to appreciate to the utmost every situation in life adds wonderfully to the sum total of one's happiness. But many people are incapable of real happiness because they never learn to appreciate anything except that which appeals to their own comfort, pleasure, or appetite.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“The power of material things, to bestow happiness, to bring joy into the life is tremendously exaggerated. The right mental attitude, the trained mind, will bring to us the best there is in the universe.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“The human machine is the only medium by which the soul and the mind connect with the material world, and this marvelous mechanism, this temple Beautiful, should be kept in the superbest condition, for whatever mars it mars the soul's expression. M In our present system of education we are taught nearly everything except the very thing that we ought to know most about—the art of living. The schools and colleges teach scores of things that we never use directly in practical life,”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“The human mind is happiest when it is most active in performing the functions which it was intended to perform. One of man's greatest passions is that of achievement, the passion for doing things, the ambition to accomplish. This is one of the greatest satisfactions of life, and satisfaction is the chief ingredient in happiness.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“Fun is the cheapest and best medicine in the world for your children as well as for yourself. Give it to them in good large doses. It will not only save you doctors' bills, but it will also help to make your children happier, and will improve their chances in life.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“Real happiness comes from the cultivation, the development, of the highest that is in us.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“Why do we allow the mirage of to-morrow to keep our eyes from the beauties of to-day?”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“Oh, what riches live in a sunny soul! Take joy with you; cling to her, no matter where you go or what you do. It is your lubricating oil which would prevent the jars, the discords, and shut out the sorrows of life. What a heritage is a smiling face,—to be able to fling out sunshine everywhere one goes, to scatter the shadows and to lighten sorrowing hearts; to have the power to send cheer into despairing souls through a sunny and radiant disposition!”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“Remember that there is something else in the world even more important than making money. Your health, your family, your friendships should mean a thousand times more to you than dollarchasing. Life was given us for enjoyment, not for one long, strenuous, straining struggle in the dreary drudgery of scraping dollars together.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“It is not the possession of money that constitutes wealth, that gives the highest satisfaction, and awakens the consciousness of noble achievement, the assurance that one is fulfilling his mission, and that he is reading aright the sealed message which the Creator placed in his hand at birth.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“One of the worst doctrines ever set afloat is that real happiness is in material things instead of in a condition of mind.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“It is said that "long livers are great hopers." If you keep your hope bright in spite of discouragements, and meet all difficulties with a cheerful face, it will be very difficult for age to trace its furrows on your brow. There is longevity in cheerfulness.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“whether it is an engine or a human brain,—exercise or deteriorate is the law of life.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“The time will come when human drones will be ostracized from society as nobodies, as thieves of honest men's efforts, thieves of the results of honest men's labor. The coming civilization will not tolerate these thieves of society, these lazy vagabonds who do nothing but steal the products of their labor and demoralize society by their vicious example.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“There is no suffering, except remorse, so fatal as that which comes from the consciousness of strangled ambition, blasted hope, stifled aspiration. To be conscious that we possess decided ability for some particular calling, and to be compelled by circumstances, year after year, to be chained to drudgery which the heart loathes, requires supreme courage.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“We long for freedom, we want to soar, to try the wings God gave us; yet we are losing our power because we do not, cannot, exercise it. We are wasting life, losing strength in petty pursuits and enslaving drudgery.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“Why do we allow anticipated joys to blind us to those that are close by”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“We were made to dominate our environment. It was not intended that we should be buffeted about by accident or chance. Our greatest enemies live in our own brains, in our imaginations, in our wrong ideas of life. We were intended to be conquerors instead of slaves and there is no slavery like the slavery to a conviction or a superstition that makes us cowards.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“The world is a looking-glass which flings back to us the reflection of ourselves. If we laugh it laughs back at us. If we shed tears, it reflects a sorrowful face.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“The only way to be happy is to take advantage of the little opportunities that come to us to brighten life as we go along. To postpone enjoyment day after day and year after year, until we get more money or a better position, is to cheat ourselves not only of present enjoyment, but also of the power to enjoy in the future. One of the greatest tragedies of life is the postponement of enjoyment.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“We can so educate the will power that it will focus the thoughts upon the bright side of things, and upon objects which elevate the soul, thus forming a habit of happiness and goodness which will enrich the whole life. The habit of making the best of everything and of always looking on the bright side is a fortune in itself.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“If you have not what you like, like what you have until you can change your environment. "Do not waste your vitality in hating your life; find something in it which is worth liking and enjoying, while you keep steadily at work to make it what you desire. Be happy over something, every day, for the brain is a thing of habit, and you cannot teach it to be happy in a moment, if you allow it to be miserable for years.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“Happiness is the soul's joy in the possession of the intangible.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“The great mass of people do not extract ten per cent, of the happiness possible in their everyday life, largely because they were never trained to think of the normal sources of enjoyment. Their minds are blank, except for the little grooves which their daily routine has stamped in their brain tissue.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“If he would only burst his self-imposed shackles, get out of himself, break away from the narrow bounds of his sickly, limited thought, he could be a power in the world.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“Robust health and optimism produce happiness. The power of a sunny soul to transform the most trying situations in life is beyond all power to compute. The world loves the sunny soul, the man who carries his holidays in his eye and his sunshine with him. The determination to be kind and helpful to every one, to be cheerful, no matter what comes to us, is a great happiness producer. "When a man does not find repose in himself it is vain for him to seek it elsewhere.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“The sight of other people's prosperity seems to kill their appreciation and the enjoyment of their possessions. To be happy, we must approve of ourselves; and there is something within us which always condemns the selfish act, as it does the sinful act. I have never known a greedy, grasping, selfish person to be happy. Where these propensities dominate in the nature, it is impossible for the things which create love to live. These rank, vulgar weeds kill the more tender plants and flowers which radiate sweetness and beauty, contentment and happiness.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“It is the juices of youth, the joy and gladness carried along through the busy years that make old age tolerable.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living

“The first duty we owe a child is to teach him to fling out his inborn gladness and joy with the same freedom and abandon as the bobolink does when it makes the meadow joyous with its song. Suppression of the fun-loving nature of a child means the suppression of its mental and moral faculties. Joy will go out of the heart of a child after a while if he is continually suppressed.”
― Orison Swett Marden, The Joys of Living