Top 100 Gretchen Rubin Quotes
#2. A 'treat' is different from a 'reward,' which must be justified or earned. A treat is a small pleasure or indulgence that we give to ourselves just because we want it. Treats give us greater vitality, which boosts self-control, which helps us maintain our healthy habits.
Gretchen Rubin
#3. Like Dr. Johnson, I'm an Abstainer: I find it far easier to give up something altogether than to indulge moderately. And this distinction has profound implications for habits.
Gretchen Rubin
#4. I read a lot, all the time, but often I read books for research, or because they're interesting to me in some way, even if they aren't exactly 'pleasurable.'
Gretchen Rubin
#5. Embrace good smells. No cost, no calories, no energy, no time - a quick hit of pleasure.
Gretchen Rubin
#6. Happiness is the meaning and purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.
Gretchen Rubin
#8. What I've also noticed is the term happiness, or happy is intimidating to some people. Some people deny that it's even possible to be happy, or to achieve happiness. Happiness sounds like this magical destination that you arrive at and then everything is sort of solved, or it's different.
Gretchen Rubin
#9. Turn off your email; turn off your phone; disconnect from the Internet; figure out a way to set limits so you can concentrate when you need to, and disengage when you need to. Technology is a good servant but a bad master.
Gretchen Rubin
#10. Instead of always worrying about being efficient, I wanted to spend time on exploration, experimentation, digression, and failed attempts that didn't always look productive.
Gretchen Rubin
#12. We can use decision-making to choose the habits we want to form, use willpower to get the habit started, then - and this is the best part - we can allow the extraordinary power of habit to take over. At that point, we're free from the need to decide and the need to use willpower.
Gretchen Rubin
#13. You can love someone but not want to keep a gift from that person. It's okay to pass an item along to someone who will appreciate it more.
Gretchen Rubin
#14. Gave up Nutella in December 2011. A few years later I thought I would be able to handle the Nutella once more so I bought two jars on sale. I ate 4,000 calories of Nutella over 36 hours.
Gretchen Rubin
#15. The conduct of our lives is the true reflection of our thoughts. - MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE
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#16. It's so easy to wish that we'd made an effort in the past, so that we'd happily be enjoying the benefit now, but when now is the time when that effort must be made, as it always is, that prospect is much less inviting.
Gretchen Rubin
#17. To a truly remarkable extent, we're more likely to do something if it's convenient, and less likely if it's not. For this reason, we should pay close attention to the convenience of any activity we want to make into a habit.
Gretchen Rubin
#18. It's easier to get rid of things when you're giving them to someone who can use them, but don't let this kind intention become a source of clutter itself. I have a friend who has multiple piles all over her house, each lovingly destined for a particular recipient.
Gretchen Rubin
#19. This freedom from decision making is crucial, because when I have to decide - which often involves resisting temptation or postponing gratification - I tax my self-control.
Gretchen Rubin
#20. After someone's death, how strange to see the value drain away from his or her possessions; useful objects such as clothes, or dish towels, or personal papers become little more than trash.
Gretchen Rubin
#21. Happiness," wrote Yeats, "is neither virtue nor pleasure nor this thing nor that, but simply growth. We are happy when we are growing." Contemporary researchers make the same argument: that it isn't goal attainment but the process of striving after goals-that is, growth-that brings happiness.
Gretchen Rubin
#22. Mere acquisition isn't enough to establish a good habit
Gretchen Rubin
#23. In an interview in the Paris Review, novelist and Rebel John Gardner made an observation that I've never forgotten: Every time you break the law you pay, and every time you obey the law you pay.
Gretchen Rubin
#24. As Samuel Johnson said, To hear complaints is wearisome alike to the wretched and the happy.
Gretchen Rubin
#25. Nothing,' wrote Tolstoy, 'can make our life, or the lives of other people, more beautiful than perpetual kindness.
Gretchen Rubin
#26. For quotes, I have one document for general quotes; the other for happiness-related quotes, which I use for the 'Moment of Happiness,' my daily emails of happiness quotes.
Gretchen Rubin
#27. One of my most important 'Secrets of Adulthood': Outer order contributes to inner calm.
Gretchen Rubin
#28. In The First 20 Minutes, Gretchen Reynolds notes, I stand on one foot when I brush my teeth at night.
Gretchen Rubin
#29. A series of small but real accomplishments gives people the energy and confidence to continue. For instance, a person who wants to write a novel might resolve to write one sentence each day. Or a person who wants to start running might resolve to run for one minute.
Gretchen Rubin
#30. For one person, organized files might be a crucial tool for creativity; another person finds inspiration in random juxtapositions.
Gretchen Rubin
#31. Although we presume that we act because of the way we feel, in fact we often feel because of the way we act.
Gretchen Rubin
#32. In the Strategy of Pairing, I couple two activities, one that I need or want to do, and one that I don't particularly want to do, to get myself to accomplish them both. It's not a reward, it's not a treat, it's just a pairing.
Gretchen Rubin
#34. In their thought-provoking book Focus, researchers Tory Higgins and Heidi Grant Halvorson argue that people lean toward being "promotion-focused" or "prevention-focused" in their aims.
Gretchen Rubin
#35. The desire to start something at the "right" time is usually just a justification for delay. In almost every case, the best time to start is now.
Gretchen Rubin
#37. I can build a happy life only on the foundation of my own nature.
Gretchen Rubin
#38. I don't want to reject my life. I want to change my life without changing my life.
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#39. The most reliable predictor of not being lonely is the amount of contact with women. Time spent with men doesn't make a difference.
Gretchen Rubin
#40. While some more passive forms of leisure, such as watching TV or surfing the Internet, are fun in the short term, over time, they don't offer nearly the same happiness as more challenging activities.
Gretchen Rubin
#41. I feel unsettled at any time when I'm not writing. And I mean that. There's a sense of peace, and of being in the right place, that I experience only when I'm writing.
Gretchen Rubin
#42. Skillful conversationalists can explore disagreements and make points in ways that feel constructive and positive rather than combative or corrective.
Gretchen Rubin
#43. Get enough exercise and sleep: Sounds trivial, but it's not. You may have the urge to work 24/7, to skip the gym and to stay up late to get a few more things done. That's short-sighted. Exercise and sleep are critical to having the physical and mental energy necessary to meet a challenge.
Gretchen Rubin
#44. We all want to get along well with other people, and one way to do this is to help people feel good about themselves. If you make a person feel smart and insightful, that person will enjoy your company.
Gretchen Rubin
#45. Another study suggested that getting one extra hour of sleep each night would do more for a person's happiness than getting a $60,000 raise.
Gretchen Rubin
#46. Second Splendid Truth
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 e happy yourself.
p 147
Gretchen Rubin
#47. There's a kind of magical thinking about these kinds of things. Throw away those bad photos before the "magic" attaches to them, so the good ones stand out.
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#48. There are no do overs and some things just aren't going to happen. It is a little sad but you just have to embrace what is
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#49. Habit makes it dangerously easy to become numb to our own existence. For
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#50. Research suggests that about 40 percent of our behavior is repeated almost daily, and mostly in the same context.
Gretchen Rubin
#51. Working is one of the most dangerous forms of procrastination.
Gretchen Rubin
#52. Never start a sentence with the words 'No offense.
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#53. studies show that the absence of feeling bad isn't enough to make you happy; you must strive to find sources of feeling good. One
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#54. Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life.
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#55. Perfection may be an impossible goal, but habits help us to do better. Making headway toward a good habit, doing better than before, saves us from facing the end of another year with the mournful wish, once again, that we'd done things differently.
Gretchen Rubin
#56. A willingness to be pleased requires modesty and even innocence
easy to deride as mawkish and sentimental.
Gretchen Rubin
#57. Keeping a habit, in the smallest way, protects and strengthens it. I write every day, even if it's just a sentence, to keep my habit of daily writing strong.
Gretchen Rubin
#59. I'm a creature of routine, and I hate feeling incompetent, so I avoided novelty and challenge. Making an effort to push myself in that way has brought me surprising boost.
Gretchen Rubin
#60. Some kind of clutter is difficult - letting go of things with sentimental value, sifting through papers - but some clutter I find very refreshing to clear. I drive my daughters nuts because I'm always wandering into their rooms to clear clutter.
Gretchen Rubin
#63. I sat on that crowded bus, I grasped two things: I wasn't as happy as I could be, and my life wasn't going to change unless I made it change. In that single moment, with that realization, I decided to dedicate a year to trying to be happier.
Gretchen Rubin
#64. The pleasure of doing the same thing, in the same way, every day, shouldn't be overlooked. The things I do every day take on a certain beauty and provide a kind of invisible architecture to my life.
Gretchen Rubin
#65. 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.
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#66. It was my interest in happiness that led me to the subject of habits, and of course, the study of habits is really the study of happiness. Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life, and a significant element of happiness.
Gretchen Rubin
#67. I'd always vaguely expected to outgrown my limitations.
Gretchen Rubin
#68. I've learned to put great store in my own observations of everyday life, because while laboratory experiments are one way to study human nature, they aren't the only way.
Gretchen Rubin
#69. The imperfect book that gets published is better than the perfect book that never leaves my computer.
Gretchen Rubin
#70. Once the habit is in place, we can effortlessly do the things we want to do.
Gretchen Rubin
#71. As Michel de Montaigne observed, "The least strained and most natural ways of the soul are the most beautiful; the best occupations are the least forced."
p 233
Gretchen Rubin
#72. Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, but every day is a clean slate and a fresh opportunity
Gretchen Rubin
#73. Often, the more reliably you perform a task, the less likely it is for someone to notice that you're doing it and to feel grateful and to feel any impulse to help or to take a turn.
Gretchen Rubin
#75. Extroversion: response to reward Neuroticism: response to threat Conscientiousness: response to inhibition (self-control, planning) Agreeableness: regard for others Openness to experience: breadth of mental associations
Gretchen Rubin
#76. 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.
Gretchen Rubin
#77. Give warm greetings and farewells. I was surprised by how much this resolution changed the atmosphere of my home.
Gretchen Rubin
#78. My writing tends to become very dense, so I have to keep some cushion. Sometimes, words that seem superfluous are actually essential for the overall effect.
Gretchen Rubin
#79. I think adversity magnifies behavior. Tend to be a control freak? You'll become more controlling. Eat for comfort? You'll eat more. And on the positive, if you tend to focus on solutions and celebrate small successes, that's what you'll do in adversity.
Gretchen Rubin
#81. Say "no" only when it really matters. Wear a bright red shirt with bright orange shorts? Sure. Put water in the toy tea set? Okay. Sleep with your head at the foot of the bed? Fine. Samuel Johnson said, "All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle.
Gretchen Rubin
#82. I love cunning containers as much as anyone, but I've found that if I get rid of everything I don't need, I often don't need a container at all.
Gretchen Rubin
#83. It's hard to avoid 'unconscious overclaiming.' In unconscious overclaiming, we unconsciously overestimate our contributions relative to others. This makes sense, because we're far more aware of what we do than what other people do. Also, we tend to do the work that we value.
Gretchen Rubin
#84. Eliminating clutter would cut down the amount of housework in the average home by 40 percent.
Gretchen Rubin
#85. One major challenge within happiness is loneliness. The more I've learned about happiness, the more I've come to believe that loneliness is a terrible, common, and important obstacle to consider.
Gretchen Rubin
#86. I often learn more from one person's highly idiosyncratic experiences than I do from sources that detail universal practices or cite up-to-date studies.
Gretchen Rubin
#87. Knowing what you admire in others is a wonderful mirror into your deepest, as yet unborn, self.
Gretchen Rubin
#88. If you want someone else to do a task, don't do it yourself.
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#89. One of the findings that really interests me is that, although we think we ACT because of the way we FEEL, we often FEEL because of the way we ACT. So an almost uncanny way to change your feelings is to act the way you WISH you felt.
Gretchen Rubin
#90. Studies show that people tend to persevere longer with problems they've been told are difficult as opposed to easy.
Gretchen Rubin
#91. People are powerfully moved by imagination, belief, and knowledge. They can consider the past and future. They can make changes in their behavior out of reason in a way that animals can't do.
Gretchen Rubin
#92. They say that people teach what they need to learn. By adopting the role of happiness teacher, if only for myself, I was trying to find the method to conquer my particular faults and limitations.
Gretchen Rubin
#93. Progress, not perfection, is the goal. I'm a gold-star junkie,
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#95. By mindfully deciding how to act in line with my values instead of mindlessly applying my rules, I was better able to make the decisions that supported my happiness.
Gretchen Rubin
#96. Focus not on doing less or doing more but on doing what you value.
Gretchen Rubin
#97. Did I have a heart to be contented? Well, no, not particularly. I had a tendency to be discontented: ambitious, dissatisfied, fretful, and tough to please ... It's easier to complain than to laugh, easier to yell than to joke around, easier to be demanding than to be satisfied.
Gretchen Rubin
#98. Try to never say 'yes' on the phone; instead, say, 'I'll get back to you.' When you're actually speaking to someone, the desire to be accommodating is very strong, and can lead you to say 'yes' without enough consideration.
Gretchen Rubin
#99. Enthusiasm is more important to mastery than innate ability.
Gretchen Rubin
#100. The biggest waste of time is to do well something that we need not do at all.
Gretchen Rubin
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