Happiness is a real, objective phenomenon, scientifically verifiable. That means people and whole societies can now be measured over time and compared accurately with one another. Causes and cures for unhappiness can be quantified. – Polly Toynbee
People want the right to die at a time of their own choosing. Too many families have watched helplessly as a relative dies slowly, longing for death. – Polly Toynbee
Most people come to fear not death itself, but the many terrible ways of dying. – Polly Toynbee
Could a government dare to set out with happiness as its goal? Now that there are accepted scientific proofs, it would be easy to audit the progress of national happiness annually, just as we monitor money and GDP. – Polly Toynbee
All of us have had the experience of a sudden joy that came when nothing in the world had forewarned us of its coming — a joy so thrilling that if it was born of misery we remembered even the misery with tenderness. – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars, 1939, translated from Frenc