The Economist on growing anxiety in America

Ordinary Americans are anxious.  Gallup, a polling firm, regularly asks Americans if they are satisfied with how things are going.  From 1980 until the early 2000s, a little more than 40%, on average, said they were.  Over the past two decades that has dropped to 25%.

~ "The envy of the world: The American economy has left other rich countries in the dust. Expect that to continue...," The Economist, October 19, 2024

Bill Walton on happiness

Never forget - happiness ends when selfishness begins.

~ Bill Walton

Bill Walton on happiness

There are four pillars to happiness, which is the ultimate goal in life-to be happy.  Health is first, family is second, home is third.  That safe place where you can go to and regroup, be in a safe place by yourself to start over.  Those three things lead to the fourth pillar which is the hope and dream that tomorrow is going to be better.  Without that you have not much at all.

~ Bill Walton, Hall of Fame basketball player and commentator, R.I.P. (1953-2024)

Ernest Hemingway on happiness and intelligence

Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.

~ Ernest Hemingway

Marcus Aurelius on happiness

The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.

~ Marcus Aurelius

Jodi Picoult on happiness

There are two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations. 

~ Jodi Picoult, American writer

John Kenneth Galbraith on divorce

The happiest time of anyone's life is just after the first divorce.

~ John Kenneth Galbraith

Daniel Kahneman on money and happiness

Money doesn't buy you happiness, but lack of money certainly buys you misery.

~ Daniel Kahneman

Ben Franklin on happiness

Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

~ Ben Franklin

Martha Washington on the seeds of happiness

I am still determined to be cheerful and to be happy in whatever situation I may be, for I have also learnt from experianence that the greater part of our happiness or misary depends upon our dispositions, and not upon our circumstances; we carry the seeds of the one, or the other about with us, in our minds, wherever we go.

~ Martha Washington

Martha Washington
1922-1925

Victor E. Frankl on success and happiness

[S]uccess, like happiness, cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side-effect of one's dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself. Happiness must happen, and the same holds for success: you have to let it happen by not caring about it.

~ Victor E. Frankl, Man's Search For Meaning, Preface to the 1992 Edition, pp. xiv-xv