Genevieve Gorder Quotes

When you say 'design,' everybody thinks of magazine pages. So it's an emotive word. Everybody thinks it's how something looks, whereas for me, design is pretty much everything.

Our guiding principle was that design is neither an intellectual nor a material affair, but simply an integral part of the stuff of life, necessary for everyone in a civilized society.

Have friends. 'Tis a second existence.

The biggest lesson from Africa was that life's joys come mostly from relationships and friendships, not from material things. I saw time and again how much fun Africans had with their families and friends and on the sports fields; they laughed all the time.

I think family, friends and a sense of community give you greater happiness than money. But, of course, one has to have a minimum on which to live. The joy I get from sitting around and having a laugh is immeasurable - much greater than anything that I have ever bought.

Design must be functional, and functionality must be translated into visual aesthetics without any reliance on gimmicks that have to be explained.

Design is not for philosophy it's for life.

No one would choose a friendless existence on condition of having all the other things in the world.

I think we pursue positive relationships whether or not they bring us engagement or happiness.

My wife taught me the importance of living well.

The most important thing is friends, family, and the people around you. That's what really makes you happy.

I've always been very comfortable with me and the people I work with, and my family have always been very plugged into who I am with my personal life.

We have to recognize that we can help increase happiness of other people by reaching out, and building connections. People have done that for me in my life. There have been many times that my family and friends have reached out to help support me and contributed to my emotional wellbeing, and ultimately to my health.

We have always thought about design as being so much more than just the way something looks. It's the whole thing: the way something works on so many different levels. Ultimately, of course, design defines so much of our experience.

Wellbeing is about the combination of our love for what we do each day, the quality of our relationships, the security of our finances, the vibrancy of our physical health, and the pride we take in what we have contributed to our communities. Most importantly, it’s about how these five elements interact.

If you want to feel more comfortable and happy, work on making the people around you more comfortable and happy.

I've worked with farmers in Zimbabwe who've lost their lands. I've worked with people in Venezuela, under threat of kidnappings, whose external world is unstable. But they have very strong social connections with their family and friends. And as a result, they're able to maintain a greater level of happiness and optimism than I've seen from bankers, consultants, or salespeople who are on the road all the time, who follow jobs separated from their families, and, as a result, find themselves missing out on the happiness that comes from those very connections that they severed.

The healing power of love and relationships has been documented in an increasing number of well-designed scientific studies involving hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world.

How happy you are depends to a very large degree on your relationships with other people.

There's no reason for unhappiness if you're living with nice design.

Money to some extent sometimes let you be in more interesting environments. But it can't change how many people love you or how healthy you are.

I'm healthier in California, probably a little happier, maybe.

Once a human being has arrived on this earth, communication is the largest single factor determining what kinds of relationships he makes with others and what happens to him in the world about him.

You are much happier when you are happy than when you ain't.

There is a quality of life which lies always beyond the mere fact of life; and when we include the quality in the fact, there is still omitted the quality of the quality.