Quotes from Jonathan Rauch

increases in the suicide rate and in incidence of mental illness.

becoming better off economically seemed to make people less satisfied.

Rapid change makes people very unhappy." The result is what she calls the paradox of frustrated achievers and happy peasants.

A very dangerous principle is now being established as a social right: Thou shalt not hurt others with words.

richer people were happier than poorer people, but getting richer didn't make a country happier.

happiness comes from judging our own standing relative to those around us.

IT IS VERY difficult for an ordinary heterosexual to imagine that an ordinary homosexual is in fact not, deep inside, a repressed heterosexual who needs to try harder with women or just get his act together.

Impelled by the notions that science is oppression and criticism is violence, the central regulation of debate and inquiry is returning to respectability—this time in a humanitarian disguise.

like resigning ourselves to the abandonment of our youthful dreams and the deflation of our youthful hopes.

The happiness differences between rich and poor countries that one might expect on the basis of within-country differences by economic status are not borne out by the international data," Easterlin

People, after all, for the most part do not spend a lot of energy comparing themselves with others in far-off lands.

Compromise is what it's got to be all about when you're governing, because no one is ever going to have a big enough majority to just do what they want to do all the time.

There will be more coming afterwards if we don't re-empower politicians to get organized and work together.