The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World

by Eric Weiner

The Dutch will tolerate anything, even intolerance.

tolerant people tend to be happy.

the Swiss are happy because they go to great lengths not to provoke envy in others. The Swiss know instinctively that envy is the great enemy of happiness, and they will do anything to squash it.

The American way is: If you’ve got it, flaunt it. The Swiss way is: If you’ve got it, hide it.

I have achieved happiness because I don’t have unrealistic expectations.”

there is nothing greater than compassion. If you have done something good, then in the moment you should feel satisfaction.

How else to explain the fact that the happiest countries in the world—Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, the Netherlands—are hardly religious at all?

They believe in six weeks of vacation, in human rights, in democracy, in lazy afternoons spent sitting in cafés, in wearing socks and sandals at the same time.

materialistic people are less happy than people who are not.

People who volunteer regularly are, statistically, happier than those who don’t.

One man’s paradise can be another’s hell, and the converse holds true as well.

The glue that holds the entire enterprise together is culture. It makes all the difference.