Top 250 Gretchen Rubin Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “A feeling of control is a very important aspect of happiness. People who feel in control of their lives, which is powerfully bolstered by feeling in control of time, are more likely to feel happy.”

— Gretchen Rubin

102. “Time waits for no ovary.”

— Gretchen Rubin

103. “Forbearance is a form of generosity.”

— Gretchen Rubin

104. “If I give more to myself, I can ask more from myself. Self-regard isn’t selfish.”

— Gretchen Rubin

105. “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

106. “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 disproportionat e boost to happiness.”

— Gretchen Rubin

107. “A blog is something that, everyday there’s a new thing and that’s part of the fun of it, you’re just constantly moving forward. A book really gives you more time to reflect and think hard on things very, very deep.”

— Gretchen Rubin

108. “In general, religious people seem to be happier than non-religious people – under various definitions of “religiosity,” such as church attendance or professed spiritual beliefs.”

— Gretchen Rubin

109. “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

110. “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

111. “I have a lucky perfume. I love beautiful smells, but I save one of my favorite perfumes to wear only when I feel like I need some extra luck.”

— Gretchen Rubin

112. “There’s a kind of magical thinking about these kinds of things. Throw away those bad photos before the “magic” attaches to them, so the good ones stand out.”

— Gretchen Rubin

113. “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

114. “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

115. “Comedian Jerry Seinfeld advised aspiring comedian Brad Isaac that, because daily writing was the key to writing better jokes, Isaac should buy a calendar with a box for every day of the year, and every day, after writing, cross off the day with a big red X. “After a few days you’ll have a chain,” Seinfeld explained. “You’ll like seeing that chain, especially when you get a few weeks under your belt. Your only job next is to not break the chain.”

— Gretchen Rubin

116. “By doing a little bit each day, you can get a lot accomplished. We tend to overestimate how much we can accomplish in an hour or a week and underestimate how much we can accomplish in a month or a year, by doing just a little bit each day.”

— Gretchen Rubin

117. “There’s no magic formula – not for ourselves, and not for the people around us. We won’t make ourselves more creative and productive by copying other people’s habits, even the habits of geniuses; we must know our own nature, and what habits serve us best.”

— Gretchen Rubin

118. “According to Aristotle, “Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.”

— Gretchen Rubin

119. “The absence of feeling bad isn’t enough to make you happy; you must strive to find sources of feeling good.”

— Gretchen Rubin

120. “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. Nothing is more exhausting than the task that’s never started, and strangely, starting is often far harder than continuing.”

— Gretchen Rubin

121. “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

122. “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

123. “There’s also something about your bed; it’s sort of a symbol of yourself and of your marriage, if you’re married. Making your bed doesn’t seem to be an important thing in a happy life, and yet it can be that tiny foothold into a more orderly life that sometimes people need.”

— Gretchen Rubin

124. “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

125. “People in religions that teach that believers in other faiths are condemned, for example, tend to have lower life satisfaction. People who believe in heaven and hell tend to be less happy than those believe only in heaven.”

— Gretchen Rubin

126. “No one regrets having changed a lightbulb.”

— Gretchen Rubin

127. “One of the things that you see ancient philosophers and contemporary scientists agree on is that strong relationships are a key to happiness, maybe the key to happiness. People who have more strong relationships in their lives just feel happier.”

— Gretchen Rubin

128. “I’m a person who’s fine saying ‘No.’ I like saying to myself, “no gossiping,” “no nagging.””

— Gretchen Rubin

129. “Keep a sense of humor. Over and over, I see that levity helps diffuse practically any difficult situation – which.”

— Gretchen Rubin

130. “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

131. “No leader did more for his country than Winston Churchill. Brave, magnanimous, traditional, he was like a king-general from Britain’s heroic past. His gigantic qualities set him apart from ordinary humanity; there seemed no danger he feared, no effort too great for his limitless energies.”

— Gretchen Rubin

132. “I always say you can self-medicate through closet cleaning. Everyone knows that feeling of a clear surface, and how it makes you feel you can really focus and start your work.”

— Gretchen Rubin

133. “Guard your children’s free time – from you.”

— Gretchen Rubin

134. “One of the most important lessons of childhood is discovering what you like to do.”

— Gretchen Rubin

135. “The conduct of our lives is the true reflection of our thoughts. – MICHEL DE MONTAIGNE.”

— Gretchen Rubin

136. “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

137. “In fact, for both men and women – and this finding struck me as highly significant – 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

138. “Nietzsche wrote, “All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking,” and his observation is backed up by science; exercise-induced brain chemicals help people think clearly. In fact, just stepping outside clarifies thinking and boosts energy. Light deprivation is one reason that people feel tired, and even five minutes of daylight stimulates production of serotonin and dopamine, brain chemicals that improve mood.”

— Gretchen Rubin

139. “A sense of growth is so important to happiness that it’s often preferable to be progressing to the summit rather than to be at the summit. Neither a scientist nor a philosopher but a novelist, Lisa Grunwald, came up with the most brilliant summation of this happiness principle: “Best is good, better is best.”

— Gretchen Rubin

140. “It’s true that people do assume that people who are critical are smarter than people who are uncritical.”

— Gretchen Rubin

141. “The happiest, healthiest, most productive people aren’t those from a particular Tendency, but rather they’re the people who have figured out how to harness the strengths of their Tendency, counteract the weaknesses, and build the lives that work for them.”

— Gretchen Rubin

142. “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

143. “It is only when you meet someone of a different culture from yourself that you begin to realise what your own beliefs really are. – GEORGE ORWELL, The Road to Wigan Pier.”

— Gretchen Rubin

144. “There is no love; there are only proofs of love.” Whatever love I might feel in my heart, others will see only my actions.”

— Gretchen Rubin

145. “In the chaos of everyday life, it’s easy to lose sight of what really matters, and I can use my habits to make sure that my life reflects my values.”

— Gretchen Rubin

146. “Whatever liberates our spirit without giving us mastery over ourselves is destructive.” And whatever liberates our spirit while giving us mastery over ourselves is constructive.”

— Gretchen Rubin

147. “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

148. “Because money permits a constant stream of luxuries and indulgences, it can take away their savor, and by permitting instant gratification, money shortcuts the happiness of anticipation. Scrimping, saving, imagining, planning, hoping – these stages enlarge the happiness we feel.”

— Gretchen Rubin

149. “One of my most helpful Secrets of Adulthood is “What I do every day matters more than what I do once in a while.”

— Gretchen Rubin

150. “Also, accomplishing small tasks boosts our sense of “self-efficacy.” The more we trust ourselves to follow through on our own commitments, the more likely we are to believe that we can keep an important habit.”

— Gretchen Rubin