My research offers impressive evidence that we feel better when we attempt to make our world better...to have a purpose beyond one's self lends to existence a meaning and direction - the most important characteristic of high well-being.

When men reach their sixties and retire, they go to pieces. Women go right on cooking.

The source of continuing aliveness was to find your passion and pursue it, with whole heart and single mind.

Whether one has natural talent or not, any learning period requires the willingness to suffer uncertainty and embarrassment.

In the many times I have seen Hillary [Clinton] speak, she never fails to dazzle audiences by speaking in paragraphs, without notes.

We must be willing to change chairs if we want to grow. There is no permanent compatibility between a chair and a person. And there is no one right chair. What is right at one stage may be restricting at another or too soft. During the passage from one stage to another, we will be between two chairs. Wobbling no doubt, but developing.

According to the prevailing mythology, to be younger is to be better; therefore, we should expect to find young people in the majority of those who reflect high well-being... In fact, the one finding that registered more consistently and emphatically than any other in the course of my research was this: Older is better.