Gretchen Rubin > Quotes

“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, The Happiness Project

“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, The Happiness Project

“The days are long, but the years are short.”
― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

“One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy. One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.”
― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

“Never start a sentence with the words 'No offense.”
― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

“Nothing,' wrote Tolstoy, 'can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.”
― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

“Work harder to appreciate your ordinary day.”
― 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, The Happiness Project

“The First Splendid Truth: To be happy, I need to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.”
― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

“Look for happiness under your own roof.”
― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

“Say “no” only when it really matters. Wear a bright red shirt with bright orange shorts? Sure. Put water in the toy tea set? Okay. Sleep with your head at the foot of the bed? Fine. Samuel Johnson said, “All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle.”
― Gretchen Rubin

“One of the great joys of falling in love is the feeling that the most extraordinary person in the entire world has chosen you.”
― Gretchen Rubin

“Enthusiasm is more important than innate ability, it turns out, because the single more important element in developing an expertise is your willingness to practice.”
― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

“Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”
― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

“Did I have a heart to be contented? Well, no, not particularly. I had a tendency to be discontented: ambitious, dissatisfied, fretful, and tough to please...It's easier to complain than to laugh, easier to yell than to joke around, easier to be demanding than to be satisfied.”
― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

“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, The Happiness Project

“What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.”
― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

“The things that go wrong often make the best memories.”
― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

“When I thought about why I was sometimes reluctant to push myself, I realized that it was because I was afraid of failure - but in order to have more success, I needed to be willing to accept more failure.”
― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

“... one flaw throws the loveliness of [everything else] into focus. I remember reading that Shakers deliberately introduced a mistake into the things they made, to show that man shouldn't aspire to the perfection of God. Flawed can be more perfect than perfection.”
― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

“Sleep is the new sex.”
― Gretchen Rubin

“Time waits for no ovary.”
― 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, The Happiness Project

“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, The Happiness Project

“Studies show that aggressively expressing anger doesn't relieve anger but amplifies it. On the other hand, not expressing anger often allows it to disappear without leaving ugly traces.”
― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

“Money. It's a good servant but a bad master.”
― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

“There is only love.”
― Gretchen Rubin

“In fact, in what’s known as “rosy prospection,” anticipation of happiness is sometimes greater than the happiness actually experienced.”
― Gretchen Rubin

“When it comes to fake food, I’m like Samuel Johnson, who remarked, "Abstinence is as easy to me as temperance would be difficult.” In other words, I can give something up altogether, but I can’t indulge occasionally.”
― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project

“Forbearance is a form of generosity.”
― Gretchen Rubin, The Happiness Project