110+ Gretchen Rubin Quotes On Habits, Inspiring And Refreshing

Gretchen Rubin is an American author, who is best known for her bestselling book, The Happiness Project. She is a writer and speaker who focuses on habits, happiness, and human nature. She is also the author of several other books, including Better Than Before and The Four Tendencies. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Gretchen Rubin on habits, inspiring, refreshing.

Top 10 Gretchen Rubin Quotes

1. Working is one of the most dangerous forms of procrastination.
2. Happiness: "You Bring Your Own Weather To The Picnic."
3. If I pretend to myself that I'm different from the way I truly am, I'm going to make choices that won't make me happy.
4. Money. It's a good servant but a bad master.
5. Act the way you WANT to feel.
6. I'm a person who's fine saying 'No.' I like saying to myself, "no gossiping," "no nagging."
7. One of the best ways to make yourself happy is to make other people happy. One of the best ways to make other people happy is to be happy yourself.
8. Negative emotions like loneliness, envy, and guilt have an important role to play in a happy life; they’re big, flashing signs that something needs to change.
9. Never start a sentence with the words 'No offense.
10. Studies show that aggressively expressing anger doesn't relieve anger but amplifies it. On the other hand, not expressing anger often allows it to disappear without leaving ugly traces.

Gretchen Rubin Short Quotes

• Knowing what you admire in others is a wonderful mirror into your deepest, as yet unborn, self.
• Pouring out ideas is better for creativity than doling them out by the teaspoon.
• Flawed can be more perfect than perfection.
• What you do every day matters more than what you do every once in a while.
• Sometimes I succeed, sometimes I fail, but every day is a clean slate and a fresh opportunity.
• The things that go wrong often make the best memories.
• Be a storehouse of happy memories.
• Self-awareness is a key to self-mastery
• It's the task that's never started that's more tiresome.
• Getting paperwork under control makes me feel more in control of my life generally.

Gretchen Rubin Quotes About Habits

A 'treat' is different from a 'reward', which must be justified or earned. A treat is a small pleasure or indulgence that we give to ourselves just because we want it. Treats give us greater vitality, which boosts self-control, which helps us maintain our healthy habits. — Gretchen Rubin

We can use decision-making to choose the habits we want to form, use willpower to get the habit started, then - and this is the best part - we can allow the extraordinary power of habit to take over. At that point, were free from the need to decide and the need to use willpower. — Gretchen Rubin

Think about what kind of person you are and shape your habits, and your happiness, to show what's true about you instead of thinking that you can just import the right answer from the outside. — Gretchen Rubin

In 'Before and After,' I identify the sixteen strategies that we can use to make or break our habits. Some are quite familiar, such as 'Monitoring,' 'Scheduling,' and 'Convenience.' Some took me a lot of effort to identify, such as 'Thinking,' 'Identity,' and 'Clarity.' — Gretchen Rubin

Habits are the invisible architecture of everyday life. — Gretchen Rubin

When we don't get any treats, we feel depleted, resentful, and angry, and we feel justified in self-indulgence. We start to crave comfort - and grab that comfort wherever we can, even if it means breaking good habits. — Gretchen Rubin

I'm doing a lot of speaking and talking about habits, which is this subject that obsesses me. That's a lot of fun. — Gretchen Rubin

Gretchen Rubin Quotes About Inspiring

Look for happiness under your own roof. — Gretchen Rubin

Creativity arises from a constant churn of ideas, and one of the easiest ways to encourage that fertile froth is to keep your mind engaged with your project. When you work regularly, inspiration strikes regularly. — Gretchen Rubin

When you work regularly, inspiration strikes regularly. — Gretchen Rubin

The thing that inspires me most is reading and just observing the people around me. I think those are the two things that make me want to write. — Gretchen Rubin

Gretchen Rubin Famous Quotes And Sayings

When I thought about why I was sometimes reluctant to push myself, I realized that it was because I was afraid of failure - but in order to have more success, I needed to be willing to accept more failure. — Gretchen Rubin

It's about living in the moment and appreciating the smallest things. Surrounding yourself with the things that inspire you and letting go of the obsessions that want to take over your mind. It is a daily struggle sometimes and hard work but happiness begins with your own attitude and how you look at the world. — Gretchen Rubin

Say “no” only when it really matters. Wear a bright red shirt with bright orange shorts? Sure. Put water in the toy tea set? Okay. Sleep with your head at the foot of the bed? Fine. Samuel Johnson said, “All severity that does not tend to increase good, or prevent evil, is idle." — Gretchen Rubin

I always had the uncomfortable feeling that if I wasn't sitting in front of a computer typing, I was wasting my time - but I pushed myself to take a wider view of what was "productive." Time spent with my family and friends was never wasted. — Gretchen Rubin

Turns out that people who try new things, go new places, learn new skills, etc. are happier. This can be tough, because novelty and challenge also bring frustration and irritation - but if you can push through that, novelty and challenge can bring enormous happiness rewards. — Gretchen Rubin

Laughter is more than just a pleasurable activity...When people laugh together, they tend to talk and touch more and to make eye contact more frequently. — Gretchen Rubin

Feelings follow actions. If I'm feeling low, I deliberately act cheery, and I find myself actually feeling happier. If I'm feeling angry at someone, I do something thoughtful for her and my feelings toward her soften. This strategy is uncannily effective. — Gretchen Rubin

One reason that challenge brings happiness is that it allows you to expand your self - definition. You become larger. Suddenly you can do yoga or make homemade beer or speak a decent amount of Spanish. Research shows that the more elements make up your identity, the less threatening it is when any one element is threatened. — Gretchen Rubin

There is a preppy wabi-sabi to soft, faded khakis and cotton shirts, but it's not nice to be surrounded by things that are worn out or stained or used up. — Gretchen Rubin

When I find myself focusing overmuch on the anticipated future happiness of arriving at a certain goal, I remind myself to 'Enjoy now'. If I can enjoy the present, I don't need to count on the happiness that is (or isn't) waiting for me in the future". — Gretchen Rubin

... one flaw throws the loveliness of [everything else] into focus. I remember reading that Shakers deliberately introduced a mistake into the things they made, to show that man shouldn't aspire to the perfection of God. Flawed can be more perfect than perfection. — Gretchen Rubin

According to current research, in the determination of a person's level of happiness, genetics accounts for about 50 percent; life circumstances, such as age, gender, ethnicity, marital status, income, health, occupation, and religious affiliation, account for about 10 to 20 percent; and the remainder is a product of how a person thinks and acts. — Gretchen Rubin

Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Lower the bar. Actually spending ten minutes clearing off one shelf is better than fantasizing about spending a weekend cleaning out the basement. — Gretchen Rubin

The First Splendid Truth: To be happy, I need to think about feeling good, feeling bad, and feeling right, in an atmosphere of growth. — Gretchen Rubin

Being taken for granted is an unpleasant but sincere form of praise. Ironically, the more reliable you are and the less you complain, the more likely you are to be taken for granted. — Gretchen Rubin

To eke out the most happiness from an experience, we must anticipate it, savor it as it unfolds, express happiness, and recall a happy memory. — Gretchen Rubin

In the scope of a happy life, a messy desk or an overstuffed coat closet is a trivial thing, yet I find — and I hear from other people that they agree — that getting rid of clutter gives a disproportionate boost to happiness. — Gretchen Rubin

One of the best ways to make yourself happy in the present is to recall happy times from the past. Photos are a great memory-prompt, and because we tend to take photos of happy occasions, they weight our memories to the good. — Gretchen Rubin

Your unhappiness doesn't help anyone else - and in fact, as I mentioned in another answer, happy people are more altruistically inclined. So happiness is not a selfish goal. — Gretchen Rubin

I realize that in a happy life, making your bed should play a very small part, I don't know why this is so helpful to people getting started on a happiness project, but for some reason, making your bed - it's concrete, it's manageable. There's a big difference between having a bed that's unmade and a bed that's made. That little bit of outer order in people's lives seem to help them get started. So, that's a very small thing that you can do. — Gretchen Rubin

The most reliable predictor of not being lonely is the amount of contact with women. Time spent with men doesn't make a difference. — Gretchen Rubin

Reading makes me want to write my own books, and just trying to understand what I see in the world around me makes me want to figure things out. — Gretchen Rubin

A book is a better way to develop a complicated idea, or to tell a big story and to show how ideas weave in and out of each other, which is something that comes up a lot in happiness because all these ideas are interconnected. — Gretchen Rubin

Enthusiasm is a form of social courage. — Gretchen Rubin

The belief that unhappiness is selfless and happiness is selfish is misguided. It's more selfless to act happy. It takes energy, generosity, and discipline to be unfailingly lighthearted, yet everyone takes the happy person for granted. No one is careful of his feelings or tries to keep his spirits high. He seems self-sufficient; he becomes a cushion for others. And because happiness seems unforced, that person usually gets no credit. — Gretchen Rubin

Reading makes me happy. — Gretchen Rubin

There are no do overs and some things just aren't going to happen. It is a little sad but you just have to embrace what is — Gretchen Rubin

I have a passion for children's literature. Young adult literature. I love it. I've always loved it. — Gretchen Rubin

We’ve all heard of Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’ five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In contrast, I realized, happiness has four stages. To eke out the most happiness from an experience we must: anticipate it, savor it as it unfolds, express happiness, and recall a happy memory. — Gretchen Rubin

Do good, feel good; feel good, do good. — Gretchen Rubin

Happiness is hard because it's very subjective. I know the people that seem happiest to me, but whether they are actually - what they're really like inside is really hard to say. — Gretchen Rubin

I used to be very disciplined about only buying three books ahead of what I was reading, but my husband corrupted me, and now I'm dozens ahead of myself! — Gretchen Rubin

Happiness is a critical factor for work, and work is a critical factor for happiness. In one of those life-isn’t-fair results, it turns out that the happy out-perform the less happy. — Gretchen Rubin

The more I examine the issue of clutter, the more effort I put into combating it, because it really does act as a weight. — Gretchen Rubin

The number one resolution that people mention to me as something that's made them happier is - to my surprise - making the bed. — Gretchen Rubin

Time waits for no ovary. — Gretchen Rubin

Behind our unremarkable front door waits the little world of our making - our home. — Gretchen Rubin

No one regrets having changed a lightbulb. — Gretchen Rubin

We tend to overestimate what we can do in a short period, and underestimate what we can do over a long period. — Gretchen Rubin

Pay close attention to any flame of enthusiasm. — Gretchen Rubin

[S]tudies show that one of the best ways to lift your mood is to engineer an easy success, such as tackling a long-delayed chore. — Gretchen Rubin

Happy people make people happy, but I can’t make someone be happy, and no one else can make me happy. — Gretchen Rubin

I needed to change the lens through which I viewed everything familiar. — Gretchen Rubin

The absence of feeling bad isn't enough to make you happy; you must strive to find sources of feeling good — Gretchen Rubin

It's easy to be heavy; hard to be light. — Gretchen Rubin

[Benjamin Franklin]identified thirteen virtues he wanted to cultivate--temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness, tranquility, chastity and humility--and made a chart with those virtues plotted against the days of the week. Each day, Franklin would score himself on whether he practiced those thirteen virtues. — Gretchen Rubin

I've found that I snack less and concentrate better when I chew on a plastic stirrer - the kind that you get to stir your to-go coffee. I picked up this habit from my husband, who loves to chew on things. His favorite chew-toy is a plastic pen top, and gnawed pen tops and little bits of plastic litter our apartment. — Gretchen Rubin

We need to have intimate, enduring bonds; we need to be able to confide; we need to feel that we belong; we need to be able to get support, and just as important for happiness, to give support. We need many kinds of relationships; for one thing, we need friends. — Gretchen Rubin

Sometimes I think it's easier to think about being happier, for what ever that means to you then worrying about what is happiness and what would life be if I finally achieved this ultimate happiness? — Gretchen Rubin

What I've also noticed is the term happiness, or happy is intimidating to some people. Some people deny that it's even possible to be happy, or to achieve happiness. Happiness sounds like this magical destination that you arrive at and then everything is sort of solved, or it's different. — Gretchen Rubin

Self-knowledge makes me happy. — Gretchen Rubin

I can DO ANYTHING I want, but I can't DO EVERYTHING I want. — Gretchen Rubin

If you want to feel safe, healthy, and hopeful, try to act as if you did feel that way. "Fake it 'till you feel it." maybe start with health -- try to walk energetically, speak energetically, do physical things. — Gretchen Rubin

We must exercise ourselves in the things which bring happiness, since, if that be present, we have everything, and, if that be absent, all our actions are directed toward attaining it. — Gretchen Rubin

One of the most important lessons of childhood is discovering what you like to do. — Gretchen Rubin

I spend a lot of time saying to myself, "Well, is that really what I like to do? Is that really something that makes me happy?" and letting go of the things that don't make me happy. — Gretchen Rubin

The biggest waste of time is to do well something that we need not do at all. — Gretchen Rubin

The belief that unhappiness is selfless and happiness is selfish is misguided. It's more selfless to act happy. It takes energy, generosity, and discipline to be unfailingly lighthearted. — Gretchen Rubin

I enjoy the fun of failure. It's fun to fail, I kept repeating. It's part of being ambitious; it's part of being creative. If something is worth doing, it's worth doing badly — Gretchen Rubin

Getting control of stuff makes people feel like they have more control over their lives - maybe irrationally, but it's one of these psychological truths. — Gretchen Rubin

Happiness can seem like an abstract, transcendent notion, but in fact, I found that getting enough sleep (very important!!), getting exercise, not letting myself get too hungry, not letting myself get too cold (I'm a person who is always cold), made a big difference. Partly because I felt happier, partly because feeling physically comfortable makes it easier to keep other difficult happiness-boosting resolutions like biting my tongue. — Gretchen Rubin

I grasped two things: I wasn't as happy as I could be, and my life wasnt going to change unless I made it change. — Gretchen Rubin

Superstition is the irrational belief that an object or behavior has the power to influence an outcome, when there's no logical connection between them. Most of us aren't superstitious - but most of us are a 'littlestitious.' — Gretchen Rubin

One of the findings that really interests me is that, although we think we ACT because of the way we FEEL, we often FEEL because of the way we ACT. So an almost uncanny way to change your feelings is to act the way you WISH you felt. — Gretchen Rubin

Turn off your email; turn off your phone; disconnect from the Internet; figure out a way to set limits so you can concentrate when you need to, and disengage when you need to. Technology is a good servant but a bad master. — Gretchen Rubin

If I give more to myself, I can ask more from myself. Self-regard isn't selfish. — Gretchen Rubin

I think self-knowledge is a key to happiness.We can build happy lives only on the foundation of our own natures, our own values, and our own interests. — Gretchen Rubin

If you always use your stapler in one place, keep it there, instead of thinking that all the office supplies should go in one place. I've moved a lot of things around in my house because of that. — Gretchen Rubin

I'm a creature of routine, and I hate feeling incompetent, so I avoided novelty and challenge. Making an effort to push myself in that way has brought me surprising boost. — Gretchen Rubin

Happiness comes not from having more, not from having less, but from wanting what you have. — Gretchen Rubin

It's true that people do assume that people who are critical are smarter than people who are uncritical. — Gretchen Rubin

Did I have a heart to be contented? Well, no, not particularly. I had a tendency to be discontented: ambitious, dissatisfied, fretful, and tough to please...It's easier to complain than to laugh, easier to yell than to joke around, easier to be demanding than to be satisfied. — Gretchen Rubin

I think the big myth about habits, and happiness too, is that there's somehow a magic "one size fits all" solution. That, "If it works for you it's going to work for me," and it's just a matter of figuring out what that habit would be, whether that's do it first thing in the morning, or start small, or do it for thirty days, or give yourself a cheat day. — Gretchen Rubin

It's so easy to wish that we'd made an effort in the past, so that we'd happily be enjoying the benefit now, but when now is the time when that effort must be made, as it always is, that prospect is much less inviting. — Gretchen Rubin

Remember that although the distinction can be difficult to draw, loneliness and solitude are different. — Gretchen Rubin

Contemporary research shows that happy people are more altruistic, more productive, more helpful, more likable, more creative, more resilient, more interested in others, friendlier, and healthier. Happy people make better friends, colleagues, and citizens. — Gretchen Rubin

He is my fate. He's my soul mate. He pervades my whole existence. So, of course, I often ignore him. — Gretchen Rubin

Volunteering to help others is the right thing to do, and it also boosts personal happiness — Gretchen Rubin

Some kind of clutter is difficult - letting go of things with sentimental value, sifting through papers - but some clutter I find very refreshing to clear. I drive my daughters nuts because I'm always wandering into their rooms to clear clutter. — Gretchen Rubin

People are powerfully moved by imagination, belief, and knowledge. They can consider the past and future. They can make changes in their behavior out of reason, in a way that animals can’t do. — Gretchen Rubin

September is the other January. — Gretchen Rubin

I've noticed that a lot of people do much better when all their resolutions are framed as 'Yes.' Not something like, "I'm going to give up French Fries," but something like "I'm going to eat three vegetables every day." "I'm going to hug more, kiss more, touch more." "I'm going to listen to more music." They do better when they frame things in the positive. And I think this is just part of human nature. — Gretchen Rubin

Life Lessons by Gretchen Rubin

1. Gretchen Rubin teaches us to be mindful of our habits and to strive for self-improvement. She encourages us to find joy and satisfaction in our lives by being intentional in our actions and decisions.
2. She emphasizes the importance of creating and maintaining healthy habits, as well as the power of small changes to make a big difference in our lives.
3. Finally, she reminds us that it is never too late to make changes and that we should always strive to be our best selves.