The Happiness Hypothesis

Cialdini sees human reciprocity as a similar ethological reflex: a person receives a favor from an acquaintance and wants to repay the favor.

Reciprocity is a deep instinct; it is the basic currency of social life.

Life is what we deem it, and our lives are the creations of our minds.

Something is indeed lost when psychiatrists no longer listen to their patients as people, but rather as a car mechanic would listen to an engine, looking only for clues about which knob to adjust next.

“When a man knows the solitude of silence, and feels the joy of quietness, he is then free from fear and sin.”

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell, a hell of heaven.”

As Ben Franklin said: “We are not so sensible of the greatest Health as of the least Sickness.”

Epiphanies can be life-altering,8 but most fade in days or weeks. The rider can’t just decide to change and then order the elephant to go along with the program. Lasting change can come only by retraining the elephant, and that’s hard to do.

“Nothing is miserable unless you think it so; and on the other hand, nothing brings happiness unless you are content with it.”