Gretchen Happiness Quotes & Sayings

People have an inborn disposition that's set within a certain range, but they can boost themselves to the top of their happiness range or push themselves down to the bottom of their happiness range by their actions. — Gretchen Rubin

Contemporary research shows that happy people are more altruistic, more productive, more helpful, more likable, more creative, more resilient, more interested in others, friendlier, and healthier. Happy people make better friends, colleagues, and citizens. — Gretchen Rubin

Sleep is the new sex. — Gretchen Rubin

Happiness is hard because it's very subjective. I know the people that seem happiest to me, but whether they are actually - what they're really like inside is really hard to say. — Gretchen Rubin

Keep it simple' wasn't always the right response. Many things that boosted my happiness also added complexity to my life. Having children. Learning to post videos to my website. Going to an out-of-town wedding. Applied too broadly, my impulse to 'Keep it simple' would impoverish me. 'Life is barren enough surely with all her trappings,' warned Samuel Johnson, 'let us therefore by cautious how we strip her. — Gretchen Rubin

When I find myself focusing overmuch on the anticipated future happiness of arriving at a certain goal, I remind myself to 'Enjoy now'. If I can enjoy the present, I don't need to count on the happiness that is (or isn't) waiting for me in the future. — Gretchen Rubin

While some more passive forms of leisure, such as watching TV or surfing the Internet, are fun in the short term, over time, they don't offer nearly the same happiness as more challenging activities. — Gretchen Rubin

Because money permits a constant stream of luxuries and indulgences, it can take away their savor, and by permitting instant gratification, money shortcuts the happiness of anticipation. Scrimping, saving, imagining, planning, hoping
these stages enlarge the happiness we feel. — Gretchen Rubin

It was my interest in happiness that led me to the subject of habits, and of course, the study of habits is really the study of happiness. Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life, and a significant element of happiness. — Gretchen Rubin

I think self-knowledge is a key to happiness.We can build happy lives only on the foundation of our own natures, our own values, and our own interests. — Gretchen Rubin

Your favourite virtue ... Simplicity
Your favourite virtue in man ... Strength
Your favourite virtue in woman ... Weakness
Your chief characteristic ... Singleness of purpose
Your idea of happiness ... To fight
Your idea of misery ... Submission
The vice you excuse most ... Gullibility
The vice you detest most ... Servility
Your aversion ... Martin Tupper
Favourite occupation ... Book-worming
Favourite poet ... Shakespeare, Aeschylus, Goethe
Favourite prose-writer ... Diderot
Favourite hero ... Spartacus, Kepler
Favourite heroine ... Gretchen [Heroine of Goethe's Faust]
Favourite flower ... Daphne
Favourite colour ... Red
Favourite name ... Laura, Jenny
Favourite dish ... Fish
Favourite maxim ... Nihil humani a me alienum puto [Nothing human is alien to me]
Favourite motto ... De omnibus dubitandum [Everything must be doubted]. — Karl Marx

By mindfully deciding how to act in line with my values instead of mindlessly applying my rules, I was better able to make the decisions that supported my happiness. — Gretchen Rubin

It's about living in the moment and appreciating the smallest things. Surrounding yourself with the things that inspire you and letting go of the obsessions that want to take over your mind. It is a daily struggle sometimes and hard work but happiness begins with your own attitude and how you look at the world. — Gretchen Rubin

I had everything I could possibly want
yet I was failing to appreciate it. Bogged down in petty complaints and passing crises, weary of struggling with my own nature, I too often failed to comprehend the splendor of what I had. — Gretchen Rubin

I often learn more from one person's highly idiosyncratic experiences than I do from sources that detail universal practices or cite up-to-date studies. — Gretchen Rubin

Sometimes I think it's easier to think about being happier, for what ever that means to you then worrying about what is happiness and what would life be if I finally achieved this ultimate happiness? — Gretchen Rubin

I knew I wouldn't discover happiness in a faraway place or in unusual circumstances; it was right here, right now - as in the haunting play "The Blue Bird," where two children spend a year searching the world for the Blue Bird of Happiness, only to find it waiting for them when they finally return home. — Gretchen Rubin

Work harder to appreciate your ordinary day. — Gretchen Rubin

One major challenge within happiness is loneliness. The more I've learned about happiness, the more I've come to believe that loneliness is a terrible, common, and important obstacle to consider. — Gretchen Rubin

It's easy to make the mistake of thinking that if you have something you love or there's something you want, you'll be happier with more. — Gretchen Rubin

One reason that challenge brings happiness is that it allows you to expand your self - definition. You become larger. Suddenly you can do yoga or make homemade beer or speak a decent amount of Spanish. Research shows that the more elements make up your identity, the less threatening it is when any one element is threatened. — Gretchen Rubin

But perhaps the most acute sense of happiness from writing was the happiness of expressing a very complicated idea - the kind of idea that takes hundreds of pages to capture. — Gretchen Rubin

Turns out that people who try new things, go new places, learn new skills, etc. are happier. This can be tough, because novelty and challenge also bring frustration and irritation - but if you can push through that, novelty and challenge can bring enormous happiness rewards. — Gretchen Rubin

Volunteering to help others is the right thing to do, and it also boosts personal happiness; a review of research by the Corporation for National and Community Service shows that those who aid the causes they value tend to be happier and in better health. They show fewer signs of physical and mental aging. And it's not just that helpful people also tend to be healthier and happier; helping others causes happiness. "Be selfless, if only for selfish reasons," as one of my happiness paradoxes holds. About one-quarter of Americans volunteer, and of those, a third volunteer for more than a hundred hours each year. — Gretchen Rubin

Happiness can seem like an abstract, transcendent notion, but in fact, I found that getting enough sleep (very important!!), getting exercise, not letting myself get too hungry, not letting myself get too cold (I'm a person who is always cold), made a big difference. Partly because I felt happier, partly because feeling physically comfortable makes it easier to keep other difficult happiness-boosting resolutions like biting my tongue. — Gretchen Rubin

If I can do something in less than one minute, I don't let myself procrastinate. I hang up my coat, put newspapers in the recycling, scan and toss a letter. Ever since I wrote about this rule in 'The Happiness Project,' I've been amazed by how many people have told me that it has made a huge difference in their lives. — Gretchen Rubin

I realize that in a happy life, making your bed should play a very small part, I don't know why this is so helpful to people getting started on a happiness project, but for some reason, making your bed - it's concrete, it's manageable. There's a big difference between having a bed that's unmade and a bed that's made. That little bit of outer order in people's lives seem to help them get started. So, that's a very small thing that you can do. — Gretchen Rubin

Accept myself, and expect more of myself.
Give myself limits to give myself freedom.
Make people happier by acknowledging that they're not feeling happy.
Plan ahead to be spontaneous; only with careful preparation do I feel carefree.
Accomplish more by working less.
Happiness doesn't always make me feel happy.
Flawed can be more perfect than perfection.
It's very hard to make things easier.
My material desires have a spiritual aspect.
Hell is other people. Heaven is other people.
What was "happiness," anyway, and was it even possible to make myself happier? — Gretchen Rubin

It is by studying little things, that we attain the great art of having as little misery and as much happiness as possible. — Gretchen Rubin

For quotes, I have one document for general quotes; the other for happiness-related quotes, which I use for the 'Moment of Happiness,' my daily emails of happiness quotes. — Gretchen Rubin

One of the things that you see ancient philosophers and contemporary scientists agree on is that strong relationships are a key to happiness, maybe the key to happiness. People who have more strong relationships in their lives just feel happier. — Gretchen Rubin

According to current research, in the determination of a person's level of happiness, genetics accounts for about 50 percent; life circumstances, such as age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, income, health, occupation, and religious affiliation, account for about 10 to 20 percent; and the remainder is a product of how a person thinks and acts. — Gretchen Rubin

They say that people teach what they need to learn. By adopting the role of happiness teacher, if only for myself, I was trying to find the method to conquer my particular faults and limitations. — Gretchen Rubin

Your unhappiness doesn't help anyone else - and in fact, as I mentioned in another answer, happy people are more altruistically inclined. So happiness is not a selfish goal. — Gretchen Rubin

My research had revealed that challenge and novelty are key elements to happiness. The brain is stimulated by surprise, and successfully dealing with an unexpected situation gives a powerful sense of satisfaction. — Gretchen Rubin

One of my key realizations about happiness, and a point oddly under-emphasized by positive psychologists, given its emphasis in popular culture, is that outer order contributes to inner calm. More than it should. — Gretchen Rubin

What's fun for other people may not be fun for you- and vice versa. — Gretchen Rubin

It was time to expect more of myself. Yet as I thought about happiness, I kept running up against paradoxes. I wanted to change myself but accept myself. I wanted to take myself less seriously
and also more seriously. I wanted to use my time well, but I also wanted to wander, to play, to read at whim. I wanted to think about myself so I could forget myself. I was always on the edge of agitation; I wanted to let go of envy and anxiety about the future, yet keep my energy and ambition. — Gretchen Rubin

Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. — Gretchen Rubin

I'm constantly on the hunt for insights about happiness or ideas about how to be happier - which probably makes me a somewhat tiresome companion at times. — Gretchen Rubin

The belief that unhappiness is selfless and happiness is selfish is misguided. It's more selfless to act happy. It takes energy, generosity, and discipline to be unfailingly lighthearted, yet everyone takes the happy person for granted. No one is careful of his feelings or tries to keep his spirits high. He seems self-sufficient; he becomes a cushion for others. And because happiness seems unforced, that person usually gets no credit. — Gretchen Rubin

Another study suggested that getting one extra hour of sleep each night would do more for a person's happiness than getting a $60,000 raise. — Gretchen Rubin

In the scope of a happy life, a messy desk or an overstuffed coat closet is a trivial thing, yet I find - and I hear from other people that they agree - that getting rid of clutter gives a disproportionate boost to happiness. — Gretchen Rubin

It struck me, in fact, that all of my work on habits and happiness was meant to help us construct, as much as possible, just that: everyday life in Utopia. Everyday life with deep, loving relationships and productive, satisfying work; everyday life with energy, health, and productivity; everyday life with fun, enthusiasm, and engagement, with as little regret, guilt, or anger as possible. — Gretchen Rubin

This is one of the many paradoxes of happiness: we seek to control our lives, but the unfamiliar and the unexpected are important sources of happiness. — Gretchen Rubin

Laughter is more than just a pleasurable activity ... When people laugh together, they tend to talk and touch more and to make eye contact more frequently. — Gretchen Rubin

We need to have intimate, enduring bonds; we need to be able to confide; we need to feel that we belong; we need to be able to get support, and just as important for happiness, to give support. We need many kinds of relationships; for one thing, we need friends. — Gretchen Rubin

Although people sometimes assume that the happy are self-absorbed and complacent, just the opposite is true. In general, happiness doesn't make people want to drink daiquiris on the beach; it makes them want to help rural villagers gain better access to clean water. — Gretchen Rubin

We must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it. — Gretchen Rubin

It's easy to be heavy; hard to be light. — Gretchen Rubin

Look for happiness under your own roof. — Gretchen Rubin

To eke out the most happiness from an experience, we must anticipate it, savor it as it unfolds, express happiness, and recall a happy memory. — Gretchen Rubin

Once I started trying to give positive reviews, though, I began to understand how much happiness I took from the joyous ones in my life
and how much effort it must take for them to be consistently good=tempered and positive. It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light. We nonjoyous types suck energy and cheer from the joyous ones; we rely on them to buoy us with their good spirit and to cushion our agitation and anxiety. At the same time, because of a dark element in human nature, we're sometimes provoked to try to shake the enthusiastic, cheery folk out of their fog of illusion
to make them see that the play was stupid, the money was wasted, the meeting was pointless. Instead of shielding their joy, we blast it. — Gretchen Rubin

The opposite of happiness is unhappiness, not depression. — Gretchen Rubin

Although we presume that we act because of the way we feel, in fact we often feel because of the way we act. — Gretchen Rubin

A sense of growth is so important to happiness that it's often preferable to be progressing to the summit rather than to be at the summit. — Gretchen Rubin

During my study of happiness, I noticed something that surprised me: I often learn more from one person's highly idiosyncratic experiences than I do from sources that detail universal principles or cite up-to-date studies. — Gretchen Rubin

Experts say that denying bad feelings intensifies them, acknowledging bad feelings allows good feelings to return. — Gretchen Rubin

Happiness," wrote Yeats, "is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing." Contemporary researchers make the same argument: that it isn't goal attainment but the process of striving after goals-that is, growth-that brings happiness. — Gretchen Rubin

What I've also noticed is the term happiness, or happy is intimidating to some people. Some people deny that it's even possible to be happy, or to achieve happiness. Happiness sounds like this magical destination that you arrive at and then everything is sort of solved, or it's different. — Gretchen Rubin

Happiness is a critical factor for work, and work is a critical factor for happiness. In one of those life-isn't-fair results, it turns out that the happy outperform the less happy. Happy people work more hours each week - and they work more in their free time, too. — Gretchen Rubin

Like most people, I have several pet subjects - that may or may not be interesting to other people. Don't get me started on happiness, or habits, or children's literature, or Winston Churchill, unless you really want to talk about it. — Gretchen Rubin

There is a preppy wabi-sabi to soft, faded khakis and cotton shirts, but it's not nice to be surrounded by things that are worn out or stained or used up. — Gretchen Rubin

Happiness comes not from having more, not from having less, but from wanting what you have. — Gretchen Rubin

Each week, I post a video about some 'Pigeon of Discontent' raised by a reader. Because, as much as we try to find the 'Bluebird of Happiness,' we're also plagued by those small but pesky 'Pigeons of Discontent.' — Gretchen Rubin

A book is a better way to develop a complicated idea, or to tell a big story and to show how ideas weave in and out of each other, which is something that comes up a lot in happiness because all these ideas are interconnected. — Gretchen Rubin

Both money and health contribute to happiness mostly in the negative; the lack of them brings much more unhappiness than possessing them brings happiness.
p 169 — Gretchen Rubin

While television is a good servant, it's a bad master. It can swallow up huge quantities of our lives without much happiness bang for the buck. — Gretchen Rubin