Adam Davidson Quotes

Happiness is a real, objective phenomenon, scientifically verifiable. That means people and whole societies can now be measured over time and compared accurately with one another. Causes and cures for unhappiness can be quantified.

I used to hold a unitary view, in which I proposed that only experienced happiness matters, and that life satisfaction is a fallible estimate of true happiness.

It is now possible to quantify people's levels of happiness pretty accurately by asking them, by observation, and by measuring electrical activity in the brain, in degrees from terrible pain to sublime joy.

The word 'happiness' always bothered me, partly because it was scientifically unwieldy and meant a lot of different things to different people, and also because it's subjective.

Could a government dare to set out with happiness as its goal? Now that there are accepted scientific proofs, it would be easy to audit the progress of national happiness annually, just as we monitor money and GDP.

Life satisfaction essentially measures cheerful moods, so it is not entitled to a central place in any theory that aims to be more than a happiology.

There once was a demographic survey done to determine if money was connected to happiness and Ireland was the only place where this did not turn out to be true.

There is a huge wave of interest in happiness among researchers. There is a lot of happiness coaching. Everybody would like to make people happier.

My interest in well-being evolved from my interest in decision making - from raising the question of whether people know what they will want in the future and whether the things that people want for themselves will make them happy.

Study after study shows that happiness precedes important outcomes and indicators of thriving.

Happy people are poor psychologists.

I'm concerned about people being happy.

There's often a discussion about, 'Well, how do we know what happiness is? Is it real?' I've always argued that all of us know that there's a huge difference between how we feel when we feel happy and when we don't feel happy.

She knew what all smart women knew: Laughter made you live better and longer.

Always leave enough time in your life to do something that makes you happy, satisfied, even joyous. That has more of an effect on economic well-being than any other single factor.

Gratification and happiness are becoming important measures of our quality of life.

I want to know where joy lives. I'd interview scientists, religious leaders and heads of state. I'd want to find out exactly what makes people happy. I'd want to look into the biology, the chemistry of the human brain.

Is anyone serious about the politics of happiness? David Cameron dipped a toe in the water, using the word lightly, but denying the hard policies it implies. Labour shies away from it, but should take up the challenge.

Happiness is not the same as life satisfaction, while neither are identical to what we might call flourishing.

When you analyze happiness, it turns out that the way you spend your time is extremely important.

In my country, we're sufficiently consumed by the concept of happiness that the right to its pursuit is enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. But what is happiness?

It doesn't matter how much money you make; it's where you feel happy.

It's time we admitted that there's more to life than money, and it's time we focused not just on GDP, but on GWB - general well-being.

Happiness is a hardy annual.

It isn’t happiness I am concerned with but experience.