Ikigai Quotes

“It’s not what happens to you, but how you react that matters.”
― Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Hygge / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living

“Stop regretting the past and fearing the future. Today is all you have. Make the most of it. Make it worth remembering.”
― Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Hygge / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living

“In the West, ikigai is often used as a career-finding diagram. In Japan, ikigai is a way of life.”
― Roger Spitz, The Definitive Guide to Thriving on Disruption: Volume II - Essential Frameworks for Disruption and Uncertainty

“a happy man is too satisfied with the present to dwell on the future.”
― Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Hygge / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living

“appreciate the beauty of imperfection as an opportunity for growth.”
― Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Hygge / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living

“God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other."

- Reinhold Niebuhr”
― Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Hygge / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living

“Instead of worrying about the past or the future, we should appreciate things just as they are in the moment, in the now.”
― Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Hygge / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living

“Instead of searching for beauty in perfection, we should look for it in things that are flawed, incomplete.”
― Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Hygge / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living

“七転び八起き
Fall seven times, rise eight.

— Japanese proverb”
― Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Hygge / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living

“Only things that are imperfect, incomplete, and ephemeral can truly be beautiful, because only those things resemble the natural world.”
― Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Hygge / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living

“when you have a clear purpose, no one can stop you.”
― Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Hygge / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living

“Life is pure imperfection, as the philosophy of wabi-sabi teaches us, and the passage of time shows us that everything is fleeting, but if you have a clear sense of your ikigai, each moment will hold so many possibilities that it will seem almost like an eternity.”
― Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Hygge / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living

“Keep going; don’t change your path.”
そのままでいいがな”
― Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Hygge / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living

“ikigai brings you focus and direction, and serves as an anchor in your life. With ikigai in mind, you will not have to think twice about what matters to you, and hence you will know what to prioritize. We are bombarded with endless decisions to be made day after day, but knowing your ikigai will eliminate your insecurities about your decisions and allow you to make better ones. Your will find that simple decisions, like how you spend your time, will automatically be made for you when you know your ikigai.”
― Yukari Mitsuhashi, Ikigai: Giving every day meaning and joy

“Can someone really retire if he is passionate about what he does?”
― Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Hygge / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living

“the things we love are like the leaves of a tree: They can fall at any moment with a gust of wind. He also said that changes in the world around us are not accidental but rather form part of the essence of the universe”
― Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Hygge / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living

“Happiness is always determined by your heart.”
しあわせはいつも自分の心がきめる.”
― Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Hygge / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living

“My ikigai is to live, or aspire to live, in a beautiful world. 'Beautiful' can mean many things, including comfort and harmony, as well as something looking or feeling beautiful.”
― Yukari Mitsuhashi, Ikigai: Giving every day meaning and joy

“In an increasingly unpredictable world moving ever more quickly, a detailed map may lead you deep into the woods at an unnecessarily high cost. A good compass, though, will always take you where you need to go. It doesn’t mean that you should start your journey without any idea where you’re going. What it does mean is understanding that while the path to your goal may not be straight, you’ll finish faster and more efficiently than you would have if you had trudged along a preplanned route.”
― Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Hygge / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living

“The key is to accept that there are certain things over which we have no control, like the passage of time and the ephemeral nature of the world around us.”
― Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Hygge / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living

“Taking a hit or two can be viewed as either a misfortune or an experience that we can apply to all areas of our lives, as we continually make corrections and set new and better goals.”
― Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Hygge / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living

“The Japanese word ikigai is formed of two Japanese characters, or kanji: 'iki' meaning life, and 'gai' meaning came or worth. Ikigai, then, is the value of life, or happiness in life. Put simply, it's the reason you get up in the morning.”
― Yukari Mitsuhashi, Ikigai: Giving every day meaning and joy

“One thing that everyone with a clearly defined ikigai has in common is that they pursue their passion no matter what. They never give up, even when the cards seem stacked against them or they face one hurdle after another.”
― Hector Garcia Puigcerver, Ikigai: The Japanese Secret to a Long and Happy Life / The Little Book of Hygge / Lagom: The Swedish Art of Balanced Living

“Di sebuah dunia tempat nilai kita sebagai seorang manusia dan harga-diri kita utamanya ditentukan oleh kesuksesan kita, banyak orang meng­alami tekanan yang tidak diperlukan. Anda mungkin merasa bahwa sistem nilai apa pun yang Anda anut hanya akan bernilai dan dikukuhkan jika ia terwujud menjadi prestasi-prestasi konkret—sebuah promosi, contohnya, atau investasi yang menguntungkan.”
― Ken Mogi, Awakening Your Ikigai: How the Japanese Wake Up to Joy and Purpose Every Day

“What motivates a person is a sense of meaning. A clearly defined, even uniquely determined role in life brings about life satisfaction.”
― Steve M. Beauchamp

“It's very easy to find happiness. Just grab a bottle of your favorite drink, devour foods that give you so much comfort and stress-relief, go for a run (happy hormones), or watch an NBA championship game at ringside! It's as instant as microwaveable foods! But joy is a different thing. Joy takes time to build, but it's worth the time. And one of the best ways to find joy in life is by discovering and living out our purpose - the reason why we've been put on this Earth! There's something about being in one's purpose and living it out.”
― Alan Daron, Ikigai: The Japanese Life Philosophy

“The main thing that resonated with me was that while all our companies might evolve to offer different services over time, the overall vision that took us there, and that we were trying to attain, wouldn’t change. That really stuck with me. And the same applies to your ikigai as well: Just because you know what drives you doesn’t mean you should stay in your comfort zone and focus on that solely.
It’s something you can come back to, and you need to be challenged and push the boundaries. But having a goal and a key driver is important. Think of ikigai as the fuel to your motor – you need to make the engine run.”
― Erin Niimi Longhurst, A Little Book of Japanese Contentments: Ikigai, Forest Bathing, Wabi-sabi, and More

“They practice zazen-put simply, seated meditation-but also to all aspects of their daily lives.”
― Albert Liebermann, Ganbatte!: The Japanese Art of Always Moving Forward

“Only staying active will make you want to live a hundred years.”
― Héctor García, Ikigai: Los secretos de Japón para una vida larga y feliz

“We all carry a spa with us everywhere we go. t’s just a matter of knowing how to get in.”
― Héctor García, Francesc Miralles