To a truly remarkable extent, we’re more likely to do something if it’s convenient, and less likely if it’s not. For this reason, we should pay close attention to the convenience of any activity we wa...
This self-knowledge is crucial because we can build a happy life only on the foundation of our own nature, our own interests, and our own values.
There is no more miserable human being than one in whom nothing is habitual but indecision, and for whom the lighting of every cigar, the drinking of every cup, the time of rising and going to bed eve...
There is a myth, sometimes widespread, that a person need do only inner work . . . that a man is entirely responsible for his own problems; and that to cure himself, he need only change himself. . . ....
The pleasure of doing the same thing, in the same way, every day, shouldn't be overlooked. The things I do every day take on a certain beauty and provide a kind of invisible architecture to my life.
The most important step is the first step. All those old sayings are really true. Well begun is half done. Don’t get it perfect, get it going. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step....
The habit of the habit is more important than the habit itself. For this reason, it can be helpful to keep a habit symbolically, even if we can’t keep it literally, to keep a habit in place. Someone w...
The conduct of our lives is the true reflection of our thoughts. —Michel de Montaigne, Of the Education of Children
Studies show that in a phenomenon called emotional contagion, we unconsciously catch emotions from other people—whether good moods or bad ones. Taking the time to be silly means that we’re infecting o...
Studies show that if you reward people for doing an activity, they often stop doing it for fun; being paid turns it into work. Parents, for example, are warned not to reward children for reading—they’...
Studies show that if you have five or more friends with whom to discuss an important matter, you’re far more likely to describe yourself as very happy.
Studies show that each common interest between people boosts the chances of a lasting relationship and also brings about a 2 percent increase in life satisfaction.
Researchers were surprised to find, write Roy Baumeister and John Tierney in their fascinating book Willpower, that people with strong self-control spent less time resisting desires than other people...
Recently I’d been intrigued to read about a self-publishing site, Lulu.com. According to the Web site, I could print a proper hardback book, complete with dust jacket, for less than thirty dollars.
Procrastinators may resemble Sprinters, because they too tend to finish only when they’re against a deadline, but the two types are quite different. Sprinters choose to work at the last minute because...
Plainness was not necessarily simplicity, Frank Lloyd Wright cautioned. Elimination, therefore, may be just as meaningless as elaboration, perhaps more often is so. To know what to leave out and what...
Physical activity is the magical elixir of practically everything.
People take less food when using tongs, instead of spoons, to serve themselves.
Outer order isn’t a matter of having less or having more; it’s a matter of wanting what we have.
Our lives are in the space between Isaiah Berlin’s We are doomed to choose and every choice may entail an irreparable loss and Borges’s Garden of Forking Paths, where every choice produces a quantum e...