Dan Ariely Quotes

Making everything more efficient should make everybody happier.

Happiness, the feeling of positivity, really is the foundation of productivity.

No thoroughly occupied person was ever found really miserable.

What's the third metric beyond money and power? I think it's a combination of wellbeing and wisdom. Because the problem also with defining success just in terms of money and power means that people feel that they have to work around the clock, burn out, and the result is people making terrible decisions.

So much of unhappiness, it seems to me, is due to nerves; and bad nerves are the result of having nothing to do, or doing a thing badly, unsuccessfully or incompetently. Of all the unhappy people in the world, the unhappiest are those who have not found something they want to do. True happiness comes to those who do their work well, followed by a refreshing period of rest. True happiness comes from the right amount of work for the day.

Everything man does today to be efficient, to fill the hour? It does not satisfy. It only makes him hungry to do more. Man wants to own his existence. But no one owns time.

In fact, people think you have to be stressed to be successful. They think if you are not stressed, something is wrong with you.

Given two people with exactly the same ability, the one person who manages day in and day out to get in one more hour of thinking will be tremendously more productive over a lifetime.

Expectations make people miserable, so whatever yours are, lower them. You'll definitely be happier.

I keep my expectations low, so nobody disappoints me." "Yeah, well, I have high expectations." I look toward Miranda. "I guess my friends do, too." "Expectations make people miserable, so whatever yours are, lower them. You'll definitely be happier.

I will always try to be happy. I don’t think people really understand the value of happiness until they know what it’s like to be in that very, very dark place. It’s not romantic. Not even a little.

If it could save a person's life, could you find a way to save ten seconds off the boot time? If there were five million people using the Mac, and it took ten seconds extra to turn it on every day, that added up to three hundred million or so hours per year people would save, which was the equivalent of at least one hundred lifetimes saved per year.

I think we are a better and a more efficient society when people actually get to do the things that they really are passionate about, and really are amazing at, because it's going to mean better stuff for us, too.

I think it will help people have a better work-life balance, that's really important - that's the centre ground for me, it's the issues people care about in their lives.

I think it's nice when everyone's happy. I'm that kind of person. But then sometimes you have people that are never happy, which also happened to me a little bit, people that always find ways to complain about everything. But if they're never happy, that's the way they are.

The purpose of time management and getting more done in less time is to enable you to spend more face time with the people you care about and doing the things that give you the greatest amount of joy in life.

Morale in an organization does not mean that "people get along together"; the test is performance not conformance.

In the end an organization is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value.

One of the most important rules of personal effectiveness is the 10/90 rule.

I write pretty fast, probably faster than most people. But I might think about something for six hours, then write it in 20 minutes. So did I write for six hours and 20 minutes, or just 20 minutes? I used to write absolutely every day, except for days when I had to travel or something.

I think there is clearly a connection between free time and procrastination. The more you have of the former, all things being equal, the more likely you are to procrastinate.

Waiting to be happy limits our brain's potential for success, whereas cultivating positive brains makes us more motivated, efficient, resilient, creative, and productive, which drives performance upward.

Don't think that you can make up for it by working twice as hard tomorrow. If you have it within your power to work twice as hard, why aren't you doing it now?

I've only got a fraction of the energy I once had, but I think I probably use it better.