The How of Happiness Quotes

“[Optimism] is not about providing a recipe for self-deception. The world can be a horrible, cruel place, and at the same time it can be wonderful and abundant. These are both truths. There is not a halfway point; there is only choosing which truth to put in your personal foreground.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“Happiness is not out there for us to find. The reason that it’s not out there is that it’s inside us.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“Gratitude is an antidote to negative emotions, a neutralizer of envy, hostility, worry, and irritation. It is savoring; it is not taking things for granted; it is present oriented.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“The face of happiness may be someone who is intensely curious and enthusiastic about learning; it may be someone who is engrossed in plans for his next five years; it may be someone who can distinguish between the things that matter and the things that don’t; it may be someone who looks forward each night to reading to her child. Some happy people may appear outwardly cheerful or transparently serene, and others are simply busy. In other words, we all have the potential to be happy, each in our own way.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“happiness, more than anything, is a state of mind, a way of perceiving and approaching ourselves and the world in which we reside.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“I use the term happiness to refer to the experience of joy, contentment, or positive well-being, combined with a sense that one’s life is good, meaningful, and worthwhile.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“Forgiving people are less likely to be hateful, depressed, hostile, anxious, angry, and neurotic.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“So go for it. Smile, laugh, stand tall, act lively, and give hugs. Act as if you were confident, optimistic, and outgoing. You’ll manage adversity, rise to the occasion, create instant connections, make friends and influence people, and become a happier person.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“Sometimes when I’m facing a horrendous week or am upset over a perceived slight, I remind myself that I won’t remember it (much less care about it) one month, six months, or a year from now. (The more extreme version of this strategy is to use the deathbed criterion: Will it matter when you’re on your deathbed?)”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“You have to participate relentlessly in the manifestations of your own blessings. And once you have achieved a state of happiness, you must never become lax about maintaining it, you must make a mighty effort to keep swimming upward into that happiness forever, to stay afloat on top of it.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“happiness level is entirely in your hands, that your “unhappy genes” do not doom you to unhappiness or, worse, to depression.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“It may be obvious that to achieve anything substantial in life—learn a profession, master a sport, raise a child—a good deal of effort is required.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“Thus the key to happiness lies not in changing our genetic makeup (which is impossible) and not in changing our circumstances (i.e., seeking wealth or attractiveness or better colleagues, which is usually impractical), but in our daily intentional activities.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“we habitually fail to enjoy, savor, and live in the present, as our minds are often someplace else. However, when you think about it, the present moment is all we are really guaranteed.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“If we observe genuinely happy people, we shall find that they do not just sit around being contented. They make things happen. They pursue new understandings, seek new achievements, and control their thoughts and feelings. In sum, our intentional, effortful activities have a powerful effect on how happy we are, over and above the effects of our set points and the circumstances in which we find themselves. If an unhappy person wants to experience interest, enthusiasm, contentment, peace, and joy, he or she can make it happen by learning the habits of a happy person.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“Finally, if you resolve that the trouble you're enduring now is indeed significant and will matter in a year, then consider what the experience can teach you. Focusing on the lessons you can learn from a stress, irritant, or ordeal will help soften its blow. The lessons that those realities impart could be patience, perseverance, loyalty, or courage. Or perhaps you're learning open-mindedness, forgiveness, generosity, or self-control. Psychologists call this posttraumatic growth, and it's one of the vital tools used by happy, resilient people in facing the inevitable perils and hardships of life.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“We found that the happiest people take pleasure in other people’s successes and show concern in the face of others’ failures. A completely different portrait, however, has emerged of a typical unhappy person—namely, as someone who is deflated rather than delighted about his peers’ accomplishments and triumphs and who is relieved rather than sympathetic in the face of his peers’ failures and undoings.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“I meditate every morning for twenty minutes. It is a sacred time that I protect from all intrusions or commitments, and for the rest of the day I am more centered and open-minded, not as sensitive or irritable or tense. I feel a sense of well-being that lasts all day. A day that I miss doing it is not the same, somehow wrecked.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“Renew your commitment every day. Not only the strategy but the very act of recommitment will become easier and more automatic with time.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“Depression is an illness, not a failing. It’s what psychologists call a syndrome—that is, a group of signs and symptoms that form a pattern.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“Like interpersonal therapists, marital and family therapists recognize that depressed individuals often have problems with family relationships. Indeed, if you are married and depressed, you are very likely to be experiencing distress in your marriage.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“The second reason to seek help for your depression is that it can wreak lasting damage on your life. Research shows that the toll depression takes is as great as that of a chronic physical disorder like diabetes, arthritis, or high blood pressure”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“You must resolve to undertake a program to become happier. You must learn what you need to do. You must put weekly or even daily effort into it. You must commit to the goal for a long period of time, possibly for the rest of your life.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“Most people recognize, however, that relief of symptoms is not the depressed person’s ultimate objective. If you are depressed, your goal is not just not to be depressed; your goal is to be happy.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“To be sure, depression has been described as a syndrome distinguished by a deficit of positive emotions: a lack of joy, curiosity, contentment, enthusiasm—that is, an empty cup.4 Indeed, inability to take pleasure in joyful events is a hallmark of depression.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“So, if you suddenly experienced a financial windfall, you would ultimately be much happier if you spent the money on numerous pleasant, mood-boosting things occurring on a day-to-day or weekly basis—a daily lunch of expensive sushi, a weekly massage, a regular delivery of fresh flowers, or Sunday-morning calls to your best friend in Europe—rather than spend it all on a single big-ticket item that you believe you would really love, like a new top-of-the-line Jaguar or the remodeling of a bathroom with hand-painted tile.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“Indeed, frequent positive emotions—feelings of joy, delight, contentment, serenity, curiosity, interest, vitality, enthusiasm, vigor, thrill, and pride—are the very hallmark of happiness.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want

“Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back and realize they were the big things.”
― Sonja Lyubomirsky, The How of Happiness: A Scientific Approach to Getting the Life You Want