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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

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Polly Toynbee
Age: 77
Born: 1946
Born: December 27
Journalist
Reporter
Wight
Mary Louisa Toynbee
Would
Accepted
National
Audit
Progress
Annually
Goal
Monitor
Happiness
Proofs
Easy
Scientific
Money
Proof
Government
Dare

More quotes by Polly Toynbee

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Thresholds of pain, indignity and incapacity are entirely personal.
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But how odd that in this heathen nation of empty pews, where churches' bare, ruined choirs are converted into luxury loft living, a Labour government - yes, a Labour government - is deliberately creating a huge expansion of faith schools.
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It is now possible to quantify people's levels of happiness pretty accurately by asking them, by observation, and by measuring electrical activity in the brain, in degrees from terrible pain to sublime joy.
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The strongest predictor of unhappiness is anyone who has had a mental illness in the last 10 years. It is an even stronger predictor of unhappiness than poverty - which also ranks highly.
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This is indeed a clash of civilisations, not between Islam and Christendom but between reason and superstition.
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One in six people suffer depression or a chronic anxiety disorder. These are not the worried well but those in severe mental pain with conditions crippling enough to prevent them living normal lives.
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The best care on earth cannot prevent us all dying in the end.
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But instead of standing up for reason, our government is handing education over to the world of faith.
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Working lives are for the state to influence. Unemployment makes people unhappy. So does instability.
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