Hugh Downs

Don’t worry, be happy!

A lifetime of happiness? No man alive could bear it; it would be hell on earth.

Happiness is a butterfly, which when pursued, is always beyond your grasp, but which, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.

I have to plan my happiness. That’s the thing, we think happiness just happens and it can, but you’ve got to work in some happiness too.

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.

While I am opposed to all orthodox creeds, I have a creed myself; and my creed is this. Happiness is the only good. The time to be happy is now. The place to be happy is here. The way to be happy is to make others so. This creed is somewhat short, but it is long enough for this life, strong enough for this world. If there is another world, when we get there we can make another creed.

The fact that a believer is happier than a skeptic is no more to the point than the fact that a drunken man is happier than a sober one.

Be happy; without reason.

Cheerfulness and contentment are great beautifiers, and are famous preservers of good looks.

Happiness is a continuation of happenings which are not resisted.

Happiness, wealth, and success are the byproducts of goal setting; they cannot be the goals themselves.

Happiness is the absence of striving for happiness.

Happiness cannot be travel to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.

If you let go a little you will have a little happiness. If you let go completely you will be free.

Relinquishing the delusional hope that we can or must be flawless allows us to seek happiness in the place it can be found: Our real, messy, imperfect experience