Tal Ben Shahar Quotes

the best moments usually occur when a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile

In Aristotle's words, "We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.

Ralph Waldo Emerson explains, "It is one of the most beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

Life is too short to be in a hurry." If we are always on the go, we are reacting to the exigencies of day-to-day life rather than allowing ourselves the space to create a happy life.

Our behavior toward others is often a reflection of our treatment of ourselves.

Incremental change is better than ambitious failure. . . .Success feeds on itself.

Leonardo da Vinci pointed out that "simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.

If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.

Don't ask yourself what the world needs, ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. —

Things do not necessarily happen for the best, but I can choose to make the best of things that happen.

Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. —Aristotle

One’s philosophy is not best expressed in words; it is expressed in the choices one makes. In the long run, we shape our lives and we shape ourselves. The process never ends until we die. And, the choices we make are ultimately our own responsibility. —Eleanor Roosevelt

The choice is a simple one: Learn to fail, or fail to learn.

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. — Albert Einstein

Choice is creation. To choose is to create. Through my choices I create my reality. At every moment in my life I have a choice. Moments add up to a lifetime; choices add up to a life. What kind of life do I want for myself? What choices will create this kind of life?

Happy people live secure in the knowledge that the activities that bring them enjoyment in the present will also lead to a fulfilling future.

happiness, not money or prestige, should be regarded as the ultimate currency—the currency by which we take measure of our lives.

those who kept a daily gratitude journal—writing down at least five things for which they were grateful—enjoyed higher levels of emotional and physical well-being.

The all-or-nothing mind-set leads Perfectionists to transform every setback they encounter into a catastrophe, an assault on their very worth as human beings. Their sense of self inevitably suffers as their faultfinding turns inward.

The truth knocks on the door and you say, “Go away, I’m looking for the truth” and so it goes away. —Robert M. Pirsig

All of us, regardless of the circumstances we find ourselves in, can make a conscious effort to search for possibilities around and within ourselves.

the best moments usually occur when a person's body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile.

Such attachment to past failures has been described by Martin Seligman as "learned helplessness.

In emphasizing achievements (which are tangible) over the cultivation of a love of learning (which is intangible), schools simultaneously reinforce the rat-race mentality and stifle children's emotional development.

The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone. —George Eliot

The pain associated with the fear of failure is often stronger than the pain of the failure itself

The most precious things in life are not those you get for money. —Albert Einstein

the more you look at anger, the more it disappears beneath one’s very eyes, like the frost melting under the morning sun. When one genuinely looks at it, it suddenly loses its strength.

When we fail to attain a desired outcome, we often extrapolate from that experience the belief that we have no control over our lives or over certain parts of it. Such thinking leads to despair.

I can go through life as a victim, blaming others for my misfortunes, and experiencing frustration over my condition. Or I can choose to be an active agent and do what I can do to bring about a positive change in my life.

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked. And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes filled with your tears. And how else can it be? The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.

Nobody likes to fail, but there is a difference between a normal aversion to failure and an intense fear of failure. Aversion to failure motivates us to take necessary precautions and to work harder to achieve success. By contrast, intense fear of failure often handicaps us, making us reject failure so vigorously that we cannot take the risks that are necessary for growth. This fear not only compromises our performance but jeopardizes our overall psychological well-being. Failure is an inescapable part of life and a critically important part of any successful life. We learn to walk by falling, to talk by babbling, to shoot a basket by missing, and to color the inside of a square by scribbling outside the box. Those who intensely fear failing end up falling short of their potential. We either learn to fail or we fail to learn.

A human being, like a business, makes profits and suffers losses. For a human being, however, the ultimate currency is not money, nor is it any external measure, such as fame, fortune, or power. The ultimate currency for a human being is happiness. Money and fame are subordinate to happiness and have no intrinsic value. The only reason money and fame may be desirable is that having them or the thought of having them could lead to positive emotions or meaning. In themselves, wealth and fame are worthless: there would be no reason to seek fame and fortune if they did not contribute, in some way, toward happiness.

Happiness grows less from the passive experience of desirable circumstances than from involvement in valued activities and progress toward one's goals. —

Things do not necessarily happen for the best, but I can choose to make the best of things that happen.10

do you choose to choose and actively create the kind of life that you want for yourself?

Focusing on the good does not mean ignoring the bad, but rather the understanding that the most effective way to eradicate the bad is to do good.

Time-use may be the determinant of well-being that is the most susceptible to improvement.

When we fail to attain a desired outcome, we often extrapolate from that experience the belief that we have no control over our lives or over certain parts of it. Such thinking leads to despair. Timon, unhappy as a rat racer, equally unhappy

Through the program, people realize that many of the messages that they have internalized and accepted unthinkingly at face value were actually implanted in their mind by others (for instance, by significant adults or the media). Once they are able to recognize these messages for what they are—internalizations of the subjective ideas of others, rather than their own true beliefs about themselves—they can begin to free themselves from the oppressive and harmful consequences of these negative messages.

Experiencing this first level of suffering is inevitable. But the second level of suffering comes when we reject the first level, or when we deprive ourselves of basic human needs like exercise and learning and friendship, or when we fail to seize the moment and appreciate all that we have.

When the question is "Why do you want to be happy?" the answer is simple and definitive. We pursue happiness because it is in our nature to do so. When the answer to a question is "Because it will make me happy," nothing can challenge the validity and finality of the answer. Happiness is the highest on the hierarchy of goals, the end toward which all other ends lead.

While I do not believe that things necessarily happen for the best, I know that some people are able to make the best of things that happen.

Yet when we set realism and idealism in opposition to one another—when we live as though having ideals and dreams were unrealistic and detached—we are allowing a false dichotomy to hold us back. Being an idealist is being a realist in the deepest sense—it is being true to our real nature. We are so constituted that we actually need our lives to have meaning. Without a higher purpose, a calling, an ideal, we cannot attain our full potential for happiness. While I am not advocating dreaming over doing (both are important), there is a significant truth that many realists—rat racers mostly—ignore: to be idealistic is to be realistic. Being

Apprendre tout au long de sa vie, c'est développer pleinement la sagesse qui vient normalement avec l'âge.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?

Love cannot last without a rational foundation: just as positive emotions are insufficient for lasting happiness (the hedonist cannot sustain happiness because there is no meaning in his life), so strong feelings, in and of themselves, are insufficient to sustain love. When a man falls in love with a woman, he does so for certain conscious or unconscious reasons. He may feel that he just loves her "for who she is" but not be sure what he means by that; when asked to articulate why he loves her, he might respond, "I don't know, I just do." We are taught that falling in love with someone is about following our heart, not our mind—that love, by definition, is inexplicable, mystical, beyond reason. However, if it really is love that we feel, we do feel it for a reason. These reasons might not be conscious and accessible, but they nevertheless exist. If, then, there are actual reasons for loving someone, if there are certain conditions under which we fall in love, can there be such a thing as unconditional love? Or is the idea of unconditional love fundamentally unreasonable? It depends on whether or not the characteristics we love in someone are manifestations of that person's core self.

It’s abilities, not the disabilities, that count. —Peter Drucker

We say we want the truth; what we mean is that we want to be correct. —Mihnea Moldoveanu

If the stars should appear one night in a thousand years, how would men believe and adore; and preserve for many generations the remembrance of the city of God which had been shown! But every night come out these envoys of beauty, and light the universe with their admonishing smile.

book Happier, Tal Ben-Shahar

Samuel Smiles, a nineteenth-century English author, wrote, “It is doubtful whether any heavier curse could be imposed on man than the complete gratification of all his wishes without effort on his part, leaving nothing for his hopes, desires or struggles.

character cannot be developed in ease and quiet. Only through experience of trial and suffering can the soul be strengthened, vision cleared, ambition inspired, and success achieved.” Everybody hurts sometimes, and

There’s plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody. An Abundance Mentality involves sharing prestige, recognition, profits, and decision making. It opens possibilities, options, alternatives, and creativity. —Stephen R. Covey

of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries." History

It is doubtful whether any heavier curse could be imposed on man than the complete gratification of all his wishes without effort on his part, leaving nothing for his hopes, desires or struggles.”6

not money or prestige, should be regarded as the ultimate currency—the currency by which we take measure of our lives.

I’m a big fan of Gretchen Rubin’s book The Happiness Project and Tal Ben-Shahar’s research and book Happier.

¡Recuerda cómo aprendiste! Te caes, y luego te levantas de nuevo. Pierdes el partido y luego ganas el partido. No hay otra manera. No hay otra forma de crecer. No hay otra forma de aprender. No hay otra manera de ser resistente, de ser más feliz y de ser más exitoso. Es intentar y fallar, intentar y fallar y tener éxito e intentar y fallar nuevamente. Aceptando tus errores como feedback y aprendiendo de ellos. Como dice el profesor de Harvard Tal Ben Shahar: “Aprende a fallar o falla en aprender”. DEBES aceptar que fallarás de vez en cuando. ¡Espero que falles muchas veces! No me malinterpretes ahora. Es porque cuanto más a menudo fallas, más a menudo tendrás éxito. Es un juego de números.

In Happier, Tal Ben-Shahar quotes Irvin D. Yalom, a psychotherapist who often works with dying patients: “They are able to trivialize the trivial, to assume a sense of control, to stop doing things they do not wish to do, to communicate more openly with families and close friends, and to live entirely in the present rather than in the future or the past.”23 This rare and intense positive focus on getting the most out of life is hard to come by in our ordinary lives, Ben-Shahar notes—especially when we spend so much time collectively trying to avoid thinking about death.

Les gens gentils réussissent mieux que les autres. Le plus beau quand on s'intéresse aux autres, c'est qu'on se détourne de ses propres soucis, ses propres angoisses et ca coute beaucoup moins chère qu'une psychothérapie.

Finally, there’s a self-help problem that isn’t unique to the science of happiness: it’s easier to change minds than to change behaviors. As Harvard professor of psychology Tal Ben-Shahar explains, we’re often more willing to learn something new than we are to actively adapt our lives. “Making the transition from theory to practice is difficult: changing deeply rooted habits of thinking, transforming ourselves and our world, requires a great deal of effort,” he writes. “People often abandon theories when they discover how difficult they are to put into practice.”8 Either we never try or we get bored or frustrated quickly.

The research proves what gamers already know: within the limits of our own endurance, we would rather work hard than be entertained. Perhaps that’s why gamers spend less time watching television than anyone else on the planet.11 As Harvard professor and happiness expert Tal Ben-Shahar puts it, “We’re much happier enlivening time rather than killing time.”12

Thousands of candles can be lighted from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared. —Siddhartha Gautama Buddha

We no longer accumulate to live; we live to accumulate.

Para vivir una vida plena y gratificante —una vida feliz—, tenemos que permitirnos experimentar toda la gama de emociones humanas. En otras palabras, tenemos que concedernos el permiso para ser humanos.

As my mentor Tal Ben-Shahar likes to say, “things do not necessarily happen for the best, but some people are able to make the best out of things that happen.

Time is a zero-sum game, a limited resource. Life is too short to do only what we have to do; it is barely long enough to do what we want to do.

«Aquello en lo que nos concentramos se expande, y cuando nos concentramos en las bondades de la vida, creamos más bondad. Las nuevas oportunidades, mis relaciones con los demás, hasta el dinero empezaron a aparecer con más frecuencia en mi camino cuando aprendí a ser agradecida en toda circunstancia de mi vida.» –OPRAH WINFREY