Gretchen Rubin Quotes

Working is one of the most dangerous forms of procrastination.

Happiness: "You Bring Your Own Weather To The Picnic."

If I pretend to myself that I'm different from the way I truly am, I'm going to make choices that won't make me happy.

Money. It's a good servant but a bad master.

Act the way you WANT to feel.

I'm a person who's fine saying 'No.' I like saying to myself, "no gossiping," "no nagging."

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.

Negative emotions like loneliness, envy, and guilt have an important role to play in a happy life; they’re big, flashing signs that something needs to change.

Focus Not on Having Less or Having More, But on Wanting What You Have.

Never start a sentence with the words 'No offense.

Studies show that aggressively expressing anger doesn't relieve anger but amplifies it. On the other hand, not expressing anger often allows it to disappear without leaving ugly traces.

Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life.

Laughter is more than just a pleasurable activity...When people laugh together, they tend to talk and touch more and to make eye contact more frequently.

Knowing what you admire in others is a wonderful mirror into your deepest, as yet unborn, self.

There is a preppy wabi-sabi to soft, faded khakis and cotton shirts, but it's not nice to be surrounded by things that are worn out or stained or used up.

Be a storehouse of happy memories.

When you work regularly, inspiration strikes regularly.

Pouring out ideas is better for creativity than doling them out by the teaspoon.

Look for happiness under your own roof.

Focus not on doing less or doing more but on doing what you value.

Happiness comes not from having more, not from having less, but from wanting what you have.

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Lower the bar. Actually spending ten minutes clearing off one shelf is better than fantasizing about spending a weekend cleaning out the basement.

To eke out the most happiness from an experience, we must anticipate it, savor it as it unfolds, express happiness, and recall a happy memory.

The First Splendid Truth: To be happy, I need to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth.

Enthusiasm is a form of social courage.

It's easy to be heavy; hard to be light.

Nothing,' wrote Tolstoy, 'can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.

The days are long, but the years are short.

What you do every day matters more than what you do once in a while.

Keep in mind that to avoid loneliness, many people need both a social circle and an intimate attachment. Having just one of two may still leave you feeling lonely.

Flawed can be more perfect than perfection.

Being taken for granted is an unpleasant but sincere form of praise. Ironically, the more reliable you are and the less you complain, the more likely you are to be taken for granted.

One of my Secrets of Adulthood is: Most decisions don't require extensive research.

September is the other January.

The things that go wrong often make the best memories.

Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, but every day is a clean slate and a fresh opportunity.

Do good, feel good; feel good, do good.

One of the things that surprised me the most is how often we assume that because something's fun for someone else, it makes somebody else happy, it will make us happy.

Outer order contributes to inner calm.

What's fun for other people may not be fun for you- and vice versa.

Self-awareness is a key to self-mastery

It's the task that's never started that's more tiresome.

I enjoy the fun of failure. It's fun to fail, I kept repeating. It's part of being ambitious; it's part of being creative. If something is worth doing, it's worth doing badly

Your unhappiness doesn't help anyone else - and in fact, as I mentioned in another answer, happy people are more altruistically inclined. So happiness is not a selfish goal.

The most reliable predictor of not being lonely is the amount of contact with women. Time spent with men doesn't make a difference.

Getting paperwork under control makes me feel more in control of my life generally.

Work harder to appreciate your ordinary day.

If I give more to myself, I can ask more from myself. Self-regard isn't selfish.

Forbearance is a form of generosity.

Volunteering to help others is the right thing to do, and it also boosts personal happiness