Most people believe that happiness and fun are virtually identical. Ask them, for example, to imagine a scene of happy people. Most people immediately conjure up a picture of people having fun (e.g. laughing, playing games, drinking at a party). Few people imagine a couple raising children, a couple married thirty years, someone reading a great book, or people doing any of the other things that really do bring happiness.

… fun is temporary, happiness is ongoing. Or to put it another way, fun is during, happiness is during and after.

A simple test to ascertain how much you enjoy and derive meaning from your work is to ask yourself whether you would continue doing it if you won the lottery.

To be a good person, it is always necessary to ask before doing something, ‘Is it right?’ To be physically fit, it is necessary to ask before eating something, ‘Is it healthful?’ To be a happy person, it is necessary to ask before acting, ‘Is it meaningful?’ The problem, of course, is that the good action, the healthful food, and the meaningful behavior are rarely the most enticing of our choices – which only proves, once again, that the greatest battle for happiness is with our own nature.

We determine how much we will allow something to make us unhappy. That we can determine our emotional response to events is hard for many people to acknowledge. Most people think that events make them unhappy, that their happiness level is essentially dictated by what happens to them. But this is untrue.

In all my studies of happiness, one of the most significant conclusions I have drawn is that there is little correlation between the circumstances of people’s lives and how happy they are. A moment’s reflection should make this obvious to anyone. We know people who have a relatively easy life and who are essentially unhappy, and we know people who have suffered a great deal but maintained a relatively high level of happiness.

One cannot be a good person without gratitude, and one cannot be a happy person without gratitude. This provides a vital link between goodness and happiness.

… when people think or write about happiness, self-control is rarely stressed. … Yet happiness is impossible without self-control. In fact, everything we want is impossible without self-control. Ask anyone who has achieved what you particularly desire to achieve, and you will find a profoundly self-disciplined individual.

If you want financial success, you need the self-control to waste little time on fun things that don’t contribute to your personal and professional development. If you want happy and healthy children, you need the self-control to spend a great deal of time with them (thus depriving yourself of time to do what you want to do for yourself). If you want to be physically fit, you need the self-control to eat less fattening, less delicious foods and to exercise regularly.