Quotes from Vicki Robin

We no longer live life. We consume it.

Could we chose to amend the rules of the game to create a society that values people over profits, life over pollution, mutual care over guns and prisons, vision over dysfunction?

The dreams we had of finding meaning and fulfillment through our jobs have faded into the reality of professional politics, burnout, boredom and intense competition.

Waste lies not in the number of possessions but in the failure to enjoy them.

No matter how much you have, that voice of "more would be better" drives you to make acquisition the name of your game. Greed is one of the many strings in the human heart, and it can be pro-survival, but unchecked by a sense of fairness, balance, and love, it can gut our capacity for joy.

National Opinion Research Center surveys reveal that the percentage of Americans who describe themselves as "very happy" has been steadily declining since the late 1950s.

A 2015 US Federal Reserve Board report found that 47 percent of Americans would have to borrow money or sell something to cover a $400 emergency expense.

human happiness buttons that can be pressed—the same basic factors such as friendship, health, community, overcoming challenges with your own ingenuity, and feeling in control of your life. These work for everyone. At the same time, most of us are tempted by the ideas of convenience, status, and luxury, and buying ourselves treats to satisfy these temptations. And we're really good at justifying some of these trinkets as our true passions.

As people and as a planet we suffer from upward mobility and downward nobility.

Endless desire is one of the pitfalls of human nature, and one of the first things you need to cure if you want to get ahead more quickly.

We hit a fulfillment ceiling and never recognized that the formula of money = fulfillment not only had stopped working but had started to work against us. No matter how much we bought, the fulfillment curve kept heading down.

The world needs you to show up and follow your dreams.

Find out how much money you have earned in your lifetime—the sum total of your gross income, from the first penny you ever earned to your most

Once you catch on to what clutter is, you'll find it everywhere. Isn't meaningless activity a form of clutter? How many of the power lunches, cocktail parties, social events, and long evenings glued to your screens have been clutter—activities that add nothing positive to your life? What about disorganized days full of busyness with no sense of accomplishment?

The push for full employment, along with the growth of advertising, has created a populace increasingly oriented toward work and toward earning more money in order to consume more resources.

Not satisfied to just learn the ropes, he analyzed the game

Money is not really the thing you're after—after all, would you lock yourself in a dark, silent box forever in exchange for becoming a billionaire?

What ideas—practical to wild—do you have about how you'd pay off all your debt?

You want more money so that you can have more freedom to be yourself without worrying about the money. Likewise, you don't want more money to boost your self-esteem. You want more money as an expression of your self-esteem, of valuing your life energy.

To be successful, cultivate positive attitudes of self-respect, pride in your contribution to your workplace, dedication to your job, cooperation with your employers and coworkers, desire to do the job right, personal integrity, responsibility, and accountability—and do it just because you value your life energy.

karoshi (death by overwork).

For so many people, the stronger the evidence of failed strategies, the deeper they cling to their ways.

sustainably produced. A less obvious suggestion includes creating a "price book." Kept by thrifty housewives for decades and made famous by Amy Dacyczyn, author of The Tightwad Gazette,10 a price book enables you to recognize quickly the cheapest

Getting Away As your handling of money gets clearer and your life becomes more satisfying, you will have less of a need to "vacate." Consider