The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

Category: Quotes

Lots and lots of great quotes

  • Quote

    Change that is deeply effective and positive presents a paradoxical challenge. On the one hand, there needs to be an appreciation and acceptance of how things are in the here and now. On the other hand, there needs to be an active intention to make things better. Nothing needs to change, and everything can improve. This is the way to avoid the two extremist traps of activist’s frustration or pessimistic complacency.

    – Patch Adams

    I’m reading Gesundheit by Patch Adams , a combination autobiography and explanation of his lifes work, the creation of the Gesundheit Institute. This is a marvellous book. I keep wanting to jump to he PC and put quotes from it online, and when I read this one I couldn’t contain myself. Patch cuts straight to one of the deepest paradoxes surrounding change in a clear, concise and well formulated way. My hat’s off to this man.

  • Quote

    All the ills of mankind, all the tragic misfortunes that fill our history books, all the political blunders, all the failures of the great political leaders have arisen merely from a lack of skill in dancing.

    – Moliere

  • Complaining

    I realized a while ago that if you’re against complaining, you can’t even complain about other people complaining. You can’t even complain about not being able to complain about other people complaining, and you can’t complain about that either. Oh, the agony of the positive approach :o)

  • Quote

    The radical, committed to human liberation, does not become the prisoner of a “circle of certainty” within which reality is also imprisoned. On the contrary, the more radical the person is, the more fully he or she enters into reality so that, knowing it better, he or she can better transform it. This individual is not afraid to confront, to listen, to see the world unveiled. This person is not afraid to meet the people or enter into dialogue with them. This person does not consider himself or herself the proprietor of history of all people, or the liberator of the oppressed; but he or she does commit … to fight at their side.

    – Paolo Freire in Pedagogy of the oppressed

    I’m a radical and I didn’t even know it. I especially like the part about “committed to human liberation”. To me, this goes beyond liberating people from external oppression, and includes bringing people to the realization of their own, basic human freedom.

    The “happiness at work” project expresses this. We believe that if you want to be happy at work, you must first choose to be so. That choice will not make you happy, it’s not that easy, but if you do not start with that choice, no external factor (not even a good boss, nice colleagues and a fat pay check) can make you happy. And that choice is the first step to taking your happiness and your freedom into your own hands. The first step towards realizing, that all change must start with you and be based on what you can do, rather than on waiting for “them” to fix what’s wrong.

  • Quote

    Somebody has to do something, and it’s just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us.

    – Jerry Garcia (of the Grateful Dead)

  • Quote

    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 are people who have come alive.

    – Harold Whitman

  • Quote

    So anyone who claims that I am a dreamer who expects to transform hell into heaven is wrong. I have few illusions. But I feel a responsibility to work towards the things I consider good and right. I don’t know whether I’ll be able to change certain things for the better, or not at all. Both outcomes are possible. There is only one thing I will not concede: that it might be meaningless to strive in a good cause.

    – Vaclav Havel in Summer Meditations

  • Quote

    I’m a businessman, but I’m still going to do things on my own terms. I’m going to break a lot of rules, and we’re going to blur the distinction between work and play. So we have a policy here – it’s called “Let My People Go Surfing.” A policy which is, when the surf comes up, anybody can just go surfing. Any time of the day, you just take off and go surfing… That attitude changes your whole life. If your life is set up so that you can drop anything when the surf comes up, it changes the whole way you do your life. And it has changed this whole company here.

    – Yvon Chouinard, founder of Patagonia

    Yvon explains the surf boards lined up in the entrance hallway of the companys headquarters in Ventura, California. Quoted in “Good Business” by Mihaly Csikszentmihaly.

  • Control

    A financial analyst once asked me if I was afraid of losing control of our organization. I told him I’ve never had control and I never wanted it. If you create an environment where the people truly participate, you don’t need control. They know what needs to be done, and they do it. And the more that people will devote themselves to your cause on a voluntary basis, a willing basis, the fewer hierarchs and control mechanisms you need.
    – Herb Kelleher, ex-CEO of Southwest Airlines

    From this article. Read more about Southwests way of doing business in Nuts!.

  • Quote

    Problems worthy of attack,
    prove their worth by hitting back.

    – Piet Hein