Happier Quotes

“the best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“In Aristotle's words, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“Ralph Waldo Emerson explains, "It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“Life is too short to be in a hurry." If we are always on the go, we are reacting to the exigencies of day-to-day life rather than allowing ourselves the space to create a happy life.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“Incremental change is better than ambitious failure. . . .Success feeds on itself.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“Leonardo da Vinci pointed out that "simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“Don't ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. —”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. —Aristotle”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. — Albert Einstein”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“Happy people live secure in the knowledge that the activities that bring them enjoyment in the present will also lead to a fulfilling future.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“those who kept a daily gratitude journal—writing down at least five things for which they were grateful—enjoyed higher levels of emotional and physical well-being.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“happiness, not money or prestige, should be regarded as the ultimate currency—the currency by which we take measure of our lives.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“A human being, like a business, makes profits and suffers losses. For a human being, however, the ultimate currency is not money, nor is it any external measure, such as fame, fortune, or power. The ultimate currency for a human being is happiness. Money and fame are subordinate to happiness and have no intrinsic value. The only reason money and fame may be desirable is that having them or the thought of having them could lead to positive emotions or meaning. In themselves, wealth and fame are worthless: there would be no reason to seek fame and fortune if they did not contribute, in some way, toward happiness.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“In emphasizing achievements (which are tangible) over the cultivation of a love of learning (which is intangible), schools simultaneously reinforce the rat-race mentality and stifle children's emotional development.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“Such attachment to past failures has been described by Martin Seligman as "learned helplessness.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“the best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“When we fail to attain a desired outcome, we often extrapolate from that experience the belief that we have no control over our lives or over certain parts of it. Such thinking leads to despair.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“Time-use may be the determinant of well-being that is the most susceptible to improvement.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“Happiness grows less from the passive experience of desirable circumstances than from involvement in valued activities and progress toward one's goals. —”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“When the question is "Why do you want to be happy?" the answer is simple and definitive. We pursue happiness because it is in our nature to do so. When the answer to a question is "Because it will make me happy," nothing can challenge the validity and finality of the answer. Happiness is the highest on the hierarchy of goals, the end toward which all other ends lead.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“When we fail to attain a desired outcome, we often extrapolate from that experience the belief that we have no control over our lives or over certain parts of it. Such thinking leads to despair. Timon, unhappy as a rat racer, equally unhappy”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“Si bien el fracaso no garantiza el éxito; la ausencia de fracaso casi siempre garantiza la ausencia de éxito.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“Love cannot last without a rational foundation: just as positive emotions are insufficient for lasting happiness (the hedonist cannot sustain happiness because there is no meaning in his life), so strong feelings, in and of themselves, are insufficient to sustain love. When a man falls in love with a woman, he does so for certain conscious or unconscious reasons. He may feel that he just loves her "for who she is" but not be sure what he means by that; when asked to articulate why he loves her, he might respond, "I don't know, I just do." We are taught that falling in love with someone is about following our heart, not our mind—that love, by definition, is inexplicable, mystical, beyond reason. However, if it really is love that we feel, we do feel it for a reason. These reasons might not be conscious and accessible, but they nevertheless exist. If, then, there are actual reasons for loving someone, if there are certain conditions under which we fall in love, can there be such a thing as unconditional love? Or is the idea of unconditional love fundamentally unreasonable? It depends on whether or not the characteristics we love in someone are manifestations of that person's core self.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“Para vivir una vida plena y gratificante —una vida feliz—, tenemos que permitirnos experimentar toda la gama de emociones humanas. En otras palabras, tenemos que concedernos el permiso para ser humanos.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, La búsqueda de la felicidad: Por qué no serás feliz hasta que dejes de perseguir la perfección

“Time is a zero-sum game, a limited resource. Life is too short to do only what we have to do; it is barely long enough to do what we want to do.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“We no longer accumulate to live; we live to accumulate.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“While I do not believe that things necessarily happen for the best, I know that some people are able to make the best of things that happen.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“Yet when we set realism and idealism in opposition to one another—when we live as though having ideals and dreams were unrealistic and detached—we are allowing a false dichotomy to hold us back. Being an idealist is being a realist in the deepest sense—it is being true to our real nature. We are so constituted that we actually need our lives to have meaning. Without a higher purpose, a calling, an ideal, we cannot attain our full potential for happiness. While I am not advocating dreaming over doing (both are important), there is a significant truth that many realists—rat racers mostly—ignore: to be idealistic is to be realistic. Being”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment

“not money or prestige, should be regarded as the ultimate currency—the currency by which we take measure of our lives.”
― Tal Ben-Shahar, Happier: Learn the Secrets to Daily Joy and Lasting Fulfillment