Heather H

“Danes do have a good work-life balance on the whole. ‘And if we don’t, we usually do something about it. You ask yourself, “are you happy where you are?” If the answer’s “yes” then you stay. If it’s “no”, you leave. We recognise that how you choose to spend the majority of your time is important. For me, it’s the simple life – spending more time in nature and with family. If you work too hard, you get stressed, then you get sick, and then you can’t work at all.”
― Helen Russell, The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World's Happiest Country

“When a society faces reorganization along radical lines, the first storm-signals will always come from the deserters from the party yielding ground.  It has never been slaves who have begun successful struggles against slavery; the deserters from the feudal state were the individuals who a hundred and fifty years ago, laid the ideological foundation for the middle-class revolt.”
― Aksel Sandemose, A Fugitive Covers His Tracks

“The Worldwatch Institute’s 2011 State of Consumption report also found that wealth won’t help you on your way to having a satisfying life and new research shows that there’s even a cut-off point for the amount of income we need to be content. A combined study from the Universities of Warwick and Minnesota found that there was a basic threshold beyond which any extra money added nothing to levels of well-being. The figure is around 197,000 DKK a year (£22,000 or $36,000), after which we apparently get wealthier but less contented.”
― Helen Russell, The Year of Living Danishly: Uncovering the Secrets of the World's Happiest Country

“By means of the Jante Law’s ten commandments, Jante holds Jante down.  And now you must hear them all: 1.  Thou shalt not believe thou art something.  2.  Thou shalt not believe thou art as good as we.  3.  Thou shalt not believe thou art more wise than we.  4.  Thou shalt not fancy thyself better than we.  5.  Thou shalt not believe thou knowest more than we.  6.  Thou shalt not believe thou art greater than we.  7.  Thou shalt not believe thou amountest to anything, 8.  Thou shalt not laugh at us.  9.  Thou shalt not believe that anyone is concerned with thee.  10. Thou shalt not believe thou canst teach us anything.  Some of these commandments may perhaps be quite all right as they sound.  But he who has lived under the Law of Jante during the fifteen years it took him to develop, who has come to realize its bloody emphasis and its hysterical thirst for power, regards these commandments very differently.”
― Aksel Sandemose, A Fugitive Covers His Tracks