The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom

by Jonathan Haidt

As Ben Franklin said: “We are not so sensible of the greatest Health as of the least Sickness.”

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”

Gossip is a policeman and a teacher. Without it, there would be chaos and ignorance.

“the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.”

Good and evil do not exist outside of our beliefs about them.

If you are fighting for good or for God, what matters is the outcome, not the path.

The struggle between “for” and “against” is the mind’s worst disease.

“I think that, as life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time at peril of being judged not to have lived.”

Adversity may be necessary for growth because it forces you to stop speeding along the road of life, allowing you to notice the paths that were branching off all along, and to think about where you really want to end up.

We do not receive wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can make for us, which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world.

Ignorant people see everything in black and white—they rely heavily on the myth of pure evil—and they are strongly influenced by their own self-interest. The wise are able to see things from others’ points of view, appreciate shades of gray, and then choose or advise a course of action that works out best for everyone in the long run.