« A large study of five thousand people followed for twenty years has just confirmed this. What a happy news! It shows that happiness is gently contagious, and is transmitted through our social network: a happy person contaminates others even in the third circle of his knowledge. That is, your happiness will benefit your friends, friends of your friends, and that its influence will still be noticeable among friends of your friends. Beyond that, of course, there is not much left: happiness does not obey the laws of homeopathy. Warning: for this effect of induction to be tangible, the person you touch must live near you (one to two kilometers) and you meet it regularly: your happiness will not do good to those who live too far from you, or do not see you often enough. »

« Loving Simplicity In most traditions, wisdom comes through simplicity. For a reason that Paul Valéry perfectly grasped: "What is simple is always false. What is not is unusable. For there are two kinds of simplicity: one is poor, the other is rich; one is laziness, the other deepening; one stayed below complexity, the other went beyond. The first form of simplicity did not take the time to reflect: it is only platitudes and assertions free or all-round, based on almost nothing. It can also hide behind a scholarly jargon, behind the "false depth" that the same Paul Valéry mocked. The second form of simplicity is that which comes from a quest, a reflection, and a repeated, shared practice. It was from this simplicity that Leonardo da Vinci called it "supreme refinement." And in the face of simple wisdom, intelligence is not to say "It's too simple" and to stick to the arguments of principle, but to have the honesty to try: "I did it or not?" and to conclude on the facts, not to stick to judgments. »

« We change to change the world. One last argument to encourage us to practice wisdom. Etty Hillesum's remark: "I don't think we can correct anything in the outside world that we didn't correct in ourselves at first." If we want the world to be wiser... »