Hugh Mackay > Quotes

“I actually attack the concept of happiness. The idea that - I don’t mind people being happy - but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. It’s a really odd thing that we’re now seeing people saying “write down 3 things that made you happy today before you go to sleep”, and “cheer up” and “happiness is our birthright” and so on. We’re kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position - it’s rubbish. Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. Happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don’t teach us much. Everyone says we grow through pain and then as soon as they experience pain they say “Quick! Move on! Cheer up!” I’d like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word “happiness” and to replace it with the word “wholeness”. Ask yourself “is this contributing to my wholeness?” and if you’re having a bad day, it is.”
― Hugh Mackay

“I actually attack the concept of happiness. The idea that—I don't mind people being happy—but the idea that everything we do is part of the pursuit of happiness seems to me a really dangerous idea and has led to a contemporary disease in Western society, which is fear of sadness. It's a really odd thing that we're now seeing people saying "write down three things that made you happy today before you go to sleep" and "cheer up" and "happiness is our birthright" and so on. We're kind of teaching our kids that happiness is the default position. It's rubbish. Wholeness is what we ought to be striving for and part of that is sadness, disappointment, frustration, failure; all of those things which make us who we are. Happiness and victory and fulfillment are nice little things that also happen to us, but they don't teach us much. Everyone says we grow through pain and then as soon as they experience pain they say, "Quick! Move on! Cheer up!" I'd like just for a year to have a moratorium on the word "happiness" and to replace it with the word "wholeness." Ask yourself, "Is this contributing to my wholeness?" and if you're having a bad day, it is.”
― Hugh Mackay, The Good Life

“You have five hundred Facebook 'friends'? That simply means you've redefined 'friend' to make it something like 'a contact I exchange data with'.”
― Hugh Mackay, The Art of Belonging

“Our own brand of democracy has reached a point in its evolution where we expect ruthless, self-protective pragmatism from our politicians, rather than idealism; where noble sentiments are likely to be dismissed as the 'vision thing'; where winning is everything, civility is in short supply, and the lack of respect between political opponents - sometimes amounting almost to loathing - only serves to reinforce voters' cynicism about all of them (a cynicism deepened when voters occasionally learn that some of these combatants are actually quite friendly with each other offstage).”
― Hugh Mackay, Australia Reimagined: Towards a More Compassionate, Less Anxious Society

“You don’t have to be rich to leave a positive legacy; you don’t have to be intelligent, famous, powerful or even particularly well organised, let alone happy. You need only to treat people with kindness, compassion and respect, knowing they will have been enriched by their encounters with you.”
― Hugh Mackay, The Good Life

“All catastrophes have the same effect: they sharpen our understanding of our interconnectedness and mutual dependency, they clarify our values, they enourage us to rethink our priorities, they expose our prejudices, and they build our resilience. [p45[”
― Hugh Mackay

“Only those who have been on the receiving end of poverty, unemployment, homelessess, mental illness, domestic violence, racism, sexism or ageism can fully identify with others' reactions to those distressing experiences. Only those who have been members of marginalised minority can fully appreciate how that feels. [p50]”
― Hugh Mackay, The Kindness Revolution: How we can restore hope, rebuild trust and inspire optimism

“It's inevitable that people who are trying to manipulate, persuade or deceive us in their own interests would try to pretend that they are driven by...the finest expressions of our common humanity - altruism, compassion and kindness. [p63]”
― Hugh Mackay, The Kindness Revolution: How we can restore hope, rebuild trust and inspire optimism

“The deepest sense of life's meaning and purpose arises from our interdependence and, in turn, our willingness to relate to others and respond to their needs. [p49]”
― Hugh Mackay, The Kindness Revolution: How we can restore hope, rebuild trust and inspire optimism

“...faced with so much mystery, most of us find it hard to settle for simple awe.”
― Hugh Mackay

“Here's the cardinal rule of the good listener: receive before you respond. [p97]”
― Hugh Mackay, The Kindness Revolution: How we can restore hope, rebuild trust and inspire optimism

“We do the right things because it's the right thing to do. We respond to others' needs because they have those needs. Our survival depends on cooperation. [p61, paraphrased]”
― Hugh Mackay, The Kindness Revolution: How we can restore hope, rebuild trust and inspire optimism

“When books sweep the world with characters and plots that seem unutterably grim...you have to ask whether we willingly incorperate such material into our lives because we need more shadows, clouds, drama, or perhaps because vicarious exposure to such material equips us, psychologically, for potential exposure to the real thing. [p35, Chapter 1 Taking the rough with the smooth]”
― Hugh Mackay, The Kindness Revolution: How we can restore hope, rebuild trust and inspire optimism

“Certainty is the enemy of reason and of reasonableness.”
― Hugh Mackay, The Good Life

“There's no such thing as a boring subject, only a bored listener who hasn't bothered to search for the relevance of the message to them.”
― Hugh Mackay, The Good Life

“Forgiveness calls on deep reserves of moral courage: the courage to break out of the spiral of self-pity; the courage to set aside resentment; the courage to rise above biterness; the courage to act well, when all our instincts call on us to act badly. p112”
― Hugh Mackay, The Kindness Revolution: How we can restore hope, rebuild trust and inspire optimism

“The truth is that we will learn nothing from our sadness, our suffering, our disappointments or our failures unless we give ourselves time to experience them to the full, reflect on them, learn from them or, in modern parlance, process them.”
― Hugh Mackay, The Good Life

“To listen to someone means devoting time to the process, putting your own concerns on hold, remaining silent even when you’re dying to say something. Patient listening also involves a willingness to postpone judgement about what is being said. Mostly, we want to rush in to agree, to disagree, to object, to correct; but listening demands the patience to let all that wait until the other person has finished saying to us what they want to say to us.”
― Hugh Mackay, The Good Life

“Words are, of themselves, meaningless. We invest them with meaning, and, over time, come to feel as if certain words mean certain things. We construct dictionaries and then think they tell us what words mean, but dictionaries are mere historical documents, museums of meaning...”
― Hugh Mackay, The Good Life

“Homo sapiens. That's a label we invented for ourselves, of course: Latin for 'wise man'. It may be hoped that we will eventually either evolve into something worthier of that appellation or aspire to an even better one. How about Gens unanima - 'harmonious race' or ' a people of one spirit'?”
― Hugh Mackay, The Kindness Revolution: How we can restore hope, rebuild trust and inspire optimism

“The integrity of any theory, Kuhn argued, lies in its falsifiability - that is, its openness to the possibility of repudiation in the light of more evidence, fresh insights or a more creative interpretation of data whose significance was not previously understood.”
― Hugh Mackay, The Good Life

“If things just keep going along as smoothly as if we're on a railway track, reassured by the regularity and predictability of that clickety-clack, clickety clack, why would we bother with introspection about the meaning and purpose of it all, let alone the direction we're taking? p37”
― Hugh Mackay, The Kindness Revolution: How we can restore hope, rebuild trust and inspire optimism

“People with passionate convictions tend to see the world through the lens of their passion - whether psychological, spiritual, or economic - and interpret everything they hear according to whether or not it harmonises with their own one-note samba”
― Hugh Mackay, The Kindness Revolution: How we can restore hope, rebuild trust and inspire optimism

“If you want to reinforce someone's existing beliefs, attack them.”
― Hugh Mackay, The Kindness Revolution: How we can restore hope, rebuild trust and inspire optimism

“Stories abound... of governments' heavy reliance on focus groups and other forms of research to pre-test the likely political effect of policies. Not to test the integrity or efficacy of the polices; not to see whether it fits within a particular philosophical framework, merely to test its palatability or, to be brutally frank, its likely contribution to a government's prospects of re-election.”
― Hugh Mackay, The Kindness Revolution: How we can restore hope, rebuild trust and inspire optimism

“we might do well to accept that a noble, courageous, well-lived life is one in which we are equipped to experience and negotiate the full range of emotions: neither seduced by the lure of happiness nor obsessed by the grim and gritty aspects of life, but open to whatever comes and ready to learn from it all.”
― Hugh Mackay, The Good Life

“...Signs of the purest form of human love: the love that has nothing to do with emotion or affection; the love that say we will treat each other kindly and respectfully, regardless of how we happen to feel about each other, because we know that's the only way a human community can thrive. p19 [Prologue: A Loving Country?]”
― Hugh Mackay, The Kindness Revolution: How we can restore hope, rebuild trust and inspire optimism

“Accept that you can't control many of the things that happen to you. Stop wishing for things to stay the same, or to to be different. Above all, remember that your own struggles are part of the human struggle, shared by everyone you meet.
[p53. Chapter 1 summary]”
― Hugh Mackay, The Kindness Revolution: How we can restore hope, rebuild trust and inspire optimism

“How we respond in the face of a challenge tells us more about who we really are than all the pious rhetoric about our alleged attitudes, values or aspirations. [p37]”
― Hugh Mackay, The Kindness Revolution: How we can restore hope, rebuild trust and inspire optimism

“multiculturalism is the art of creating harmony out of diversity. [p58 Chapter 2: We were born to cooperate, not compete]”
― Hugh Mackay, The Kindness Revolution: How we can restore hope, rebuild trust and inspire optimism