Happiness quotation from Samuel Johnson.
“Men more frequently require to be reminded than informed.” --Samuel Johnson
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Check out my new one-minute internet movie, Secrets of Adulthood.
Twelve Personal Commandments
Four Splendid Truths
- First: To be happier, you have to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.
- Second: One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy; One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
- Third: The days are long, but the years are short. (click the link to see my one-minute movie)
- Fourth: You’re not happy unless you think you’re happy.
What Started Me Thinking
- "The best way to cheer yourself is to try to cheer somebody else up." Mark Twain
- “There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy.” Robert Louis Stevenson
- "Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things: But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her." Luke 10:41-42
- “Imaginary evil is romantic and varied; real evil is gloomy, monotonous, barren, boring. Imaginary good is boring; real good is always new, marvelous, intoxicating.” Simone Weil
- “What a wonderful life I’ve had! I only wish I’d realized it sooner.” Colette
- “It is easy to be heavy: hard to be light.” G. K. Chesterton
- “A man’s first care should be to avoid the reproaches of his own heart.” Joseph Addison
- “Best is good. Better is best.” Lisa Grunwald
- “Order is Heaven’s first law.” Alexander Pope
Happiness Theories I Reject
- Flaubert: "To be stupid, and selfish, and to have good health are the three requirements for happiness; though if stupidity is lacking, the others are useless."
- Vauvenargues: “There are men who are happy without knowing it.”
- Eric Hoffer: “The search for happiness is one of the chief sources of unhappiness.”
- Sartre: "Hell is other people."
- Willa Cather: “One cannot divine nor forecast the conditions that will make happiness; one only stumbles upon them…”
- Alexander Smith: “We are never happy; we can only remember that we were so once.”
- John Stuart Mill: “Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.”
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Gretchen Rubin is the best-selling writer whose book, The Happiness Project, is the account of the year she spent test-driving studies and theories about how to be happier. Here, she shares her insights to help you create your own happiness project.
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- June 29: How to keep reality tv from ruining your life.
- June 22: Want to feel happier by the end of the day? Your menu of options.
- June 15: 10 widespread myths about happiness -- do you believe any of these?
- June 8: 7 tips for minding my own business.
- May 18: 6 tips for battling loneliness.
- May 11: Are you always late? 7 tips to arrive on time.
- May 4: 8 reasons why Twitter can boost your happiness.
- April 27: 7 tips for giving effective praise.
- April 20: 8 reasons why waiting in line drives us crazy.
- April 13: 9 Tips To Quit Nagging.
- April 6: Quiz: Are you a moderator or an abstainer, when trying to give something up.
- March 23: 11 happiness paradoxes to contemplate as you think about your happiness project.
- March 16: 7 ways I violate some standard happiness advice.
- March 9: Quiz: What's your personality type -- for play?
Gretchen:
I like the Johnson quote. It reminds me of something my grandfather once told me about what he told potential clients back in his salesman days. "Whatever I might tell you will be things you already know," he'd say. "But, if you don't mind, I'd like to remind you of a few things."
The movie was good too.
Mark Daniels
Posted by: Mark Daniels | July 13, 2008 at 06:32 PM
Thanks! So glad you liked it.
Your grandfather's approach reminds me of something my husband told me. When he was going on a long adventure in Alaska with NOLS, his guide would always say, "You can go ahead and ..." "You can go ahead and set up your tent. "You can go ahead and start your fires." He said that it made everyone feel much less ordered about -- as if he was just confirming their own inclinations.
Posted by: Gretchen Rubin | July 14, 2008 at 06:44 AM
This is so true.. I am wondering, from which of Samuel Johnson's works is this taken?
Posted by: Jeffrey Snyder | July 15, 2008 at 04:42 AM