Jonathan Haidt Quotes

Authentic happiness is always independent of external conditions. Vigilantly practice polite indifference to that which we can't control. Your happiness can only be found within.

When I look for happiness, I lose it. When I stop looking, and surrender to where I am, I find it.

The more you go within, the more you understand your true nature, and the more joy and happiness you feel in your life.

Happiness is your own treasure because it lies within you.

Happiness is inward, and not outward; and so, it does not depend on what we have, but on what we are.

The longer I live, the more I feel that true repose consists in 'renouncing' one's own self, by which I mean making up one's mind to admit that there is no importance whatever in being 'happy' or 'unhappy' in the usual meaning of the words.

The key is to be Zen-like and be happy with what one has.

True happiness is not out there. True happiness lies within.

Not every sky will be blue and not every day is springtime. So on the spiritual path a person learns to find this kind of happiness without needing nice things to happen on the outside. Rather, you find happiness by being who you really are. This isn't mystical. Young children are happy being who they are. The trick is to regain such a state when you are grown and have seen the light and dark sides of life.

The only way to happiness is never to give happiness a thought.

A man must seek his happiness and inward peace from objects which cannot be taken away from him.

When we recognize that nothing has to go right for us to be happy, that people do not have to behave for us to love them, our walk home can be surprisingly simple. We have enormous power not to manipulate the world, but to be happy and to know peace.

You will never find happiness until you stop looking for it.

Those who run after happiness will never be happy. Happiness is something that has to come to the fore from within.

I believe joy is a spiritual practice we have to work at.

Experiment with this a little. During these days that you are here with me, don't nourish any desire for happiness, and then see how your heart becomes filled with happiness. Don't have any desire for peace, and see how the turmoil within you vanishes. Don't beg for contentment and see how contentment showers down on you. Please try this - only then will you understand.

People are surprised at how down-to-earth I am. I like to stay home on Friday nights and listen to 'The Art of Happiness' by the Dalai Lama.

Through a long and painful process, I've learned that happiness is an inside job - not based on anything or anyone in the outer material world. I've become a different and better person - not perfect, but still a work in progress.

The mantra that you're given in Transcendental Meditation you keep to yourself. The reason being, true happiness is not out there, true happiness lies within.

I am a spiritual person in an eastern religion kind of way. I learned that happiness for all of us is a switch that you flick in your brain. It doesn't have anything to do with getting a new house, a new car, a new girlfriend, or a new pair of shoes. Our culture is very much about that; we are never happy with what we have today.

Happiness, contentment, the health and growth of the soul, depend, as men have proved over and over again, upon some simple issue, some single turning of the soul.

My happiness grows in direct proportion to my acceptance, and in inverse proportion to my expectations.

Happiness doesn't depend on any external conditions, it is governed by our mental attitude.

Unending joy is actually closer to us than our own skin, and there is nothing we have to do or get or be to experience it. All we have to do is stop driving it away.

With renunciation life begins.