Quotes About Happiness

Such questionnaires are used in order to correlate happiness with various objective factors. One

Happiness and misery play a role in evolution only to the extent that they encourage or discourage survival and reproduction. Perhaps it's not surprising, then, that evolution has molded us to be neither too miserable nor too happy. It enables us to enjoy a momentary rush of pleasant sensations, but these never last for ever. Sooner or later they subside and give place to unpleasant sensations.

Después de haber reducido la mortalidad debida al hambre, la enfermedad y la violencia, ahora nos dedicaremos a superar la vejez e incluso la muerte. Después de haber salvado a la gente de la miseria abyecta, ahora nos dedicaremos a hacerla totalmente feliz. Y después de haber elevado a la humanidad por encima del nivel bestial de las luchas por la supervivencia, ahora nos dedicaremos a ascender a los humanos a dioses, y a transformar Homo sapiens en Homo Deus.

El consumismo nos dice que para ser felices hemos de consumir tantos productos y servicios como sea posible.

happiness depends on expectations rather than objective conditions. We don't become satisfied by leading a peaceful and prosperous existence. Rather, we become satisfied when reality matches our expectations.

Having reduced mortality from starvation, disease and violence, we will now aim to overcome old age and even death itself. Having saved people from abject misery, we will now aim to make them positively happy. And having raised humanity above the beastly level of survival struggles, we will now aim to upgrade humans into gods, and turn Homo sapiens into Homo deus.

En una encuesta tras otra, los costarricenses informan de niveles mucho más elevados de satisfacción vital que los singapurenses.

We tend to believe that if we could just change our workplace, get married, finish writing that novel, buy a new car or repay the mortgage, we would be on top of the world. Yet when we get what we desire we don't seem to be any happier. Buying cars and writing novels do not change our biochemistry. They can startle it for a fleeting moment, but it is soon back to its set point.

So perhaps happiness is synchronising one's personal delusions of meaning with the prevailing collective delusions. As long as my personal narrative is in line with the narratives of the people around me, I can convince myself that my life is meaningful, and find happiness in that conviction.

People think that this political revolution or that social reform will make them happy, but their biochemistry tricks them time and again.

Eating ice cream is enjoyable; finding true love is more enjoyable; do you think that if you just eat enough ice cream, the accumulated pleasure could ever equal the rapture of true love?

Scepticism about the afterlife drives humankind to seek not only immortality, but also earthly happiness.

Family and community seem to have more impact on our happiness than money and health.

Success breeds ambition, and our recent achievements are now pushing humankind to set itself even more daring goals. Having secured unprecedented levels of prosperity, health and harmony, and given our past record and our current values, humanity's next targets are likely to be immortality, happiness and divinity.

Repeated studies have found that there is a very close correlation between good marriages and high subjective well-being, and between bad marriages and misery.

Buddha agreed with modern biology and New Age movements that happiness is independent of external conditions. Yet his more important and far more profound insight was that true happiness is also independent of our inner feelings. Indeed, the more significance we give our feelings, the more we crave them, and the more we suffer. Buddha's recommendation was to stop not only the pursuit of external achievements, but also the pursuit of inner feelings.

People pursue wealth and power, acquire knowledge and possessions, beget sons and daughters, and build houses and palaces. Yet no matter what they achieve, they are never content.

science says that nobody is ever made happy by getting a promotion, winning the lottery or even finding true love. People are made happy by one thing and one thing only - pleasant sensations in their bodies

If this is so, then our entire understanding of the history of happiness might be misguided. Maybe it isn't so important whether people's expectations are fulfilled and whether they enjoy pleasant feelings. The main question is whether people know the truth about themselves.

Rather, happiness consists in seeing one's life in its entirety as meaningful and worthwhile.

Marriage is particularly important. Repeated studies have found that there is a very close correlation between good marriages and high subjective well-being, and between bad marriages and misery.

So if I want to experience pleasant feelings, I have to constantly chase them, while driving away the unpleasant feelings. Even if I succeed, I immediately have to start all over again, without ever getting any lasting reward for my troubles.

Kami meyakini kebenaran-kebenaran ini sebagai nyata tak terbantahkan, bahwa semua manusia diciptakan setara, bahwa mereka dikaruniai oleh Pencipta mereka hak-hak tertentu yang tidak bisa dicabut yang antara lain mencakup kehidupan, kemerdekaan, dan pencarian kebahagiaan.

being satisfied with what you already have is far more important than getting more of what you want.