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161 " Happiness is a by-product, never an objective. It’s an unexpected windfall from a life lived well. "
― Eric Weiner , The Socrates Express: In Search of Life Lessons from Dead Philosophers
162 " For the English, life is about not happiness but muddling through, getting by. In that sense, they are like the ancient Aztecs. When an Aztec child was born, a priest would say, “You are born into a world of suffering; suffer then and hold your peace. "
― Eric Weiner , The Geography of Bliss: One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World
163 " Compassion arises spontaneously from wisdom. "
― Eric Weiner , Man Seeks God: My Flirtations with the Divine
164 " Normally, we think of the religious as people who care more, not less than the rest of us. This is not true, not exactly. The truly religious care more deeply about fewer things and do't give a hoot about the rest. "
165 " Worst of all was Freud. While not technically a brooding philosopher, Freud did much to shape our views on happiness. He once said: “The intention that Man should be happy is not in the plan of Creation.” That is a remarkable statement, especially coming from a man whose ideas forged the foundation of our mental-health system. Imagine if some doctor in turn-of-the-century Vienna had declared: “The intention that Man should have a healthy body is not in the plan of Creation.” We’d probably lock him up, or at least strip him of his medical license. We certainly wouldn’t base our entire medical system on his ideas. Yet that is exactly what we did with Freud. "
166 " messiness stimulates creative thought. "
― Eric Weiner , The Geography of Genius: A Search for the World's Most Creative Places from Ancient Athens to Silicon Valley
167 " But Nozick did think long and hard about the relationship between hedonism and happiness. He once devised a thought experiment called the Experience Machine. Imagine that “superduper neuropsychologists” have figured out a way to stimulate a person’s brain in order to induce pleasurable experiences. It’s perfectly safe, no chance of a malfunction, and not harmful to your health. You would experience constant pleasure for the rest of your life. Would you do it? Would you plug into the Experience Machine? If not, argued Nozick, then you’ve just proved that there is more to life than pleasure. We want to achieve our happiness and not just experience it. Perhaps we even want to experience unhappiness, or at least leave open the possibility of unhappiness, in order to truly appreciate happiness. "
168 " I heard came from a potbellied Bhutanese hotel owner named Sanjay Penjor. GNH, Penjor told me, “means knowing your limitations; knowing how much is enough.” Free-market economics has brought much good to the world, but it goes mute when the concept of “enough” is raised. As the renegade economist E. F. Schumacher put it: “There are poor societies which have too little. But where is the rich society that says ‘Halt! We have enough!’ There is none. "
169 " You can tell a lot about a country by the way people drive. Getting someone behind the wheel of a car is like putting them into deep hypnosis; their true self comes out. "
170 " It is this kind of resourcefulness, I think, that explains how this hardy band of Vikings managed to survive more than one thousand years on an island that is about as hospitable to human habitation as the planet Pluto—if Pluto were a planet, that is, which it’s not. "
171 " In Britain, the happy are few and suspect….For the British, happiness is a transatlantic import. And by “transatlantic” they mean American. ....For the English, life is about not happiness but muddling through, getting by. "
― Eric Weiner
172 " Then, madam, they do nothing.” Albert Einstein once said, “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” Economics is long overdue for the kind of radical shift in thinking that Einstein brought to his field of physics. Does Gross National Happiness represent such a breakthrough? "
173 " Boredom, a certain kind of boredom, is really impatience. You don't like the way things are, they aren't interesting enough for you, so you decide- and boredom is a decision that you are bored. "
174 " Take heart, says Epicurus. Nature has you covered. She has made the necessary desires easy to obtain and the unnecessary ones difficult "
175 " How we pursue the goal of happiness matters at least as much, perhaps more, than the goal itself. "
176 " Happiness is a choice. Not an easy choice, not always a desirable one, but a choice nonetheless. "
177 " Bertrand Russell, who lived until the age of ninety-seven, suggests expanding the circle of your interests, making them “wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life. "
178 " Fighting, done properly, is productive. Both sides can arrive not only at a win-win solution but something more: a solution that neither would have found had they not fought in the first place. "
179 " I visited Dubai, and all of the buildings seemed so new, like they were made of cardboard, barely there. Then I went home to London. And I never thought I’d say this about London—the weather is dreadful, you know—but I felt so much better. The buildings look solid, as if they go underground six stories. "
180 " George Orwell was skeptical of this approach: “Nearly all creators of utopia have resembled the man who has a toothache and therefore thinks happiness consists in not having a toothache. "