The Happiness Project Quotes
"To be happy, I need to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right."
"There is no love; there are only proofs of love."
"Happy people generally are more forgiving, helpful, and charitable, have better self-control, and are more tolerant of frustration than unhappy people."
"It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light."
"An uneasy conscience is a hair in the mouth."
"Happiness is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing."
"What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while."
"Most decisions don't require extensive research."
"It’s not goal attainment but the process of striving after goals—that is, growth—that brings happiness."
"The happy outperform the less happy. Happy people work more hours each week—and they work more in their free time, too."
"Happiness doesn’t always make you feel happy."
"The more elements make up your identity, the less threatening it is when any one element is threatened."
"People don’t notice your mistakes as much as you think."
"Self-knowledge is one of the qualities that I admire most in my sister."
"The absence of feeling bad isn’t enough to make you happy; you must strive to find sources of feeling good."
"Each common interest between people boosts the chances of a lasting relationship and also brings about a 2 percent increase in life satisfaction."
"Recalling happy times helps boost happiness in the present."
"A goal like launching a blog was much easier to tackle when I was in a happy frame of mind."
"The thing that’s both good and bad about living in New York City is the sense that I could be doing so much—going to the ballet, going to an off-off-Broadway play, taking a graphic design class, shopping in Williamsburg, eating in Astoria."
"What did you like to do when you were a child? What you enjoyed as a ten-year-old is probably something you’d enjoy now."
"I turned my Blank Books into commonplace books filled with clippings, memorabilia, notes from school friends, cartoons, lists, snatches of information that interested me."
"One of my Secrets of Adulthood is 'You can choose what you do; you can’t choose what you like to do.'"
"I can DO ANYTHING I want, but I can’t DO EVERYTHING I want."
"Every house needs a few junk drawers where you can find unexpected things."
"Taking the time to be silly means that we’re infecting one another with good cheer, and people who enjoy silliness are one third more likely to be happy."
"Money doesn’t buy happiness the way good health doesn’t buy happiness."
"Remember, everyone’s doing their best all the time."
"If you’re not now here, you’re nowhere."
"The business of the wise man is to be happy."
"To live in perpetual want of little things is a state, not indeed of torture, but of constant vexation."
"Love proves itself by deeds, so how am I to show my love? Great deeds are forbidden me."
"The only way I can prove my love is by every little sacrifice, every glance and word, and the doing of the least actions for love."
"We’re very sensitive to change. We measure our present against our past, and we’re made happy when we see change for the better."
"It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich."
"It’s more selfless to act happy. It takes energy, generosity, and discipline to be unfailingly lighthearted."
"Because happiness seems unforced, that person usually gets no credit."
"No man is happy who does not think himself so."
"The best way out is always through." - Robert Frost
"I choose all." - Saint Thérèse of Lisieux
"Dry light is ever the best." - Francis Bacon/Heraclitus
"What was your face before your parents were born?" - Zen Koan
"I have plenty of time for the things that are important to me." - Adjusted True Rule
"The things that go wrong often make the best memories." - Learned from mother
"People succeed in groups." - Elizabeth's True Rule
"The first thing isn’t the right thing." - Jamie's True Rule
"What’s fun for other people may not be fun for you." - Secret of Adulthood
"Nothing can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness." - Tolstoy
"It is easy to be heavy; hard to be light." - Chesterton
"You’re not happy unless you think you’re happy." - Fourth Splendid Truth
"Happiness depends partly on external circumstances, and it also depends on how you view those circumstances." - Insight on happiness
"Shield your joyous ones." - Prayer attributed to Saint Augustine
"I have now spent fifty-five years in resolving; having, from the earliest time almost that I can remember, been forming schemes of a better life. I have done nothing." - Samuel Johnson
"Everyone’s happiness project would be unique, but I am sure would have many things in common."
"Part of my interest in the Happiness Project is learning how some of the principles of happiness might also be applied to children."
"One of the things that makes me the happiest is to share what I learn with others."
"Knowing that I needed to be specific about things that could be accomplished and that being more social would lead to additional happiness."
"These three resolutions have led to all of my best experiences this year."
"The impact on my life has been immediate, and I’m certain it will last for many years, if not the rest of my life."
"In the end we are all looking for basically the same thing…Happiness!"
"To make your own happiness, to write your own Commandments and check yourself with your own resolutions is simply GENIUS!"
"We all know that happiness is not in things."
"Your year is almost up, so, are you happier?"
"The most significant prong was the feeling bad. My biggest happiness boosts had come from eliminating the bad feelings."
"One of the best ways to make myself happy is to make other people happy."
"One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy myself."
"The days are long, but the years are short."
"I could change my life without changing my life."