Quote Origin: Every Minute You Are Angry, You Lose Sixty Seconds of Happiness

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Ralph Waldo Emerson? Mary Pickford? Irving Hoffman? Office Cat? Junius? Anonymous?

Clock Illustration from Gerd Altmann at Pixabay

Question for Quote Investigator: A constant stream of social media and news updates is available to each of us. It is easy to seek out material which induces anger, yet the value of continuously inflicting aggravation and anguish upon oneself is unclear. Here are two versions of a pertinent adage:

(1) Every minute you are angry, you lose 60 seconds of happiness.
(2) Every moment you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of joy.

The influential transcendentalist thinker Ralph Waldo Emerson has received credit for this saying, but I have never seen a solid citation. Would you please explore this topic?

Reply from Quote Investigator: The earliest match located by QI appeared in “The Placer Herald” of Auburn, California on February 3, 1934. The text below occurred as a short filler item. Boldface added to excerpts by QI:1

Every minute you are angry, you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
Selected.

The term “selected” meant that the statement had been reprinted from an unnamed book or periodical. None of the early instances found by QI provided an ascription. Thus, the originator remains anonymous.

Ralph Waldo Emerson who died in 1882 received credit by 1955. The long delay and the lack of a contemporary source means that the supporting evidence for the attribution to Emerson is not substantive at this time.

Below are additional selected citations in chronological order.

On February 22, 1934 the statement appeared in a box in the upper left corner of the front page of “The Amite Progress” of Louisiana. No attribution was specified:2

Every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.

In February 1935 the saying above also appeared without attribution in the “Saffron Walden Weekly News” of England under the title “The Week’s Quotation”. Thus, the adage achieved circulation on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.3

In 1936 the saying appeared in the syndicated column “Office Cat” by the pseudonymous Junius. This instance of the adage used the number “60” instead of the word “sixty”. “Office Cat” often reprinted anonymous sayings:4

Every minute you are angry you lose 60 seconds of happiness.

In 1937 “The Evening News” of Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan printed the following variant:5

Every minute you are sad or angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.

In 1949 a columnist in the “Waterville Morning Sentinel” of Maine published a variant using the words “moment” and “joy” instead of “minute” and “happiness”:6

For every moment you are angry you lose sixty seconds of joy. Anger adds fuel to the flame of hate but good will soothes and calms the spirit when sorely troubled.

In 1951 columnist Irving Hoffman of “The Hollywood Reporter” in California ascribed the saying to a famous film actress:7

Every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness. (Mary Pickford)

In 1952 an advertisement for a motor company in the “The Idaho Sunday Statesman” of Boise, Idaho contained a variant using “moment” instead of “minute”:8

DON’T forget, every moment you are angry . . . you lose 60 seconds of HAPPINESS.

In 1953 an item in “The Cincinnati Enquirer” of Ohio credited Irving Hoffman. QI hypothesizes that this incorrect attribution was based on a misreading of Hoffman’s 1951 column:9

DAILY THOUGHT:
Every minute you are angry you lose 60 seconds of happiness.
— Irving Hoffman.

In 1955 Jacob M. Braude published the compilation “Speaker’s Encyclopedia of Stories, Quotations, and Anecdotes”. Braude implausibly ascribed the saying to Emerson without a citation:10

For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
— RALPH WALDO EMERSON

In 1957 Emerson received credit for a variant of the saying using “moment” which appeared in a furniture store advertisement published in the “Garrett Clipper” of Indiana:11

Ralph Waldo Emerson said that for every moment you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.

Jacob M. Braude published many reference works over a period of decades. The 1965 book “Remarks of Famous People” included the following item:12

Happiness
For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Also, in 1965 an advertisement for “Zandol’s Same Day Cleaners” in Shamokin, Pennsylvania contained the following concise variant without attribution:13

An Angry Minute is Sixty Seconds of Joy Lost.

The 1977 collection “Quote Unquote” compiled by Lloyd Cory contained this item:14

For every minute you are angry you lose 60 seconds of happiness.
(RALPH EMERSON)

The 1988 collection “The Speaker’s Sourcebook: Quotes, Stories, and Anecdotes for Every Occasion” compiled by Glenn Van Ekeren included a variant using the phrase “peace of mind”:15

For every minute you remain angry, you give up sixty seconds of peace of mind.
RALPH WALDO EMERSON

In conclusion, the earliest citations in 1934 provided no attribution; hence, the saying remains anonymous. The credit to Ralph Waldo Emerson appeared decades after his death. Ascriptions to Mary Pickford and Irving Hoffman emerged after the adage was in circulation. None of these linkages were substantive.

Image Notes: Illustration of a clock with waves symbolizing intense activity from Gerd Altmann at Pixabay. Image has been cropped and resized.

Acknowledgement: Great thanks to Nick Prudent and Z Zoccolante whose twitter thread in 2016 led QI to formulate this question and perform this exploration.

Update History: On April 12, 2024 the format of the bibliographical notes was updated. Also, the full article was placed on this website.

  1. 1934 February 3, The Placer Herald, (Untitled filler item), Quote Page 1, Column 6, Auburn, Placer County, California. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  2. 1934 February 22, The Amite Progress, (Quotation in a box in upper left corner of front page), Quote Page 1, Column 1, Amite City, Louisiana. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  3. 1935 February 15, Saffron Walden Weekly News, The Week’s Quotation, Quote Page 24, Column 5, Saffron Walden, Essex, England. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  4. 1936 December 30, The Kingston Daily Freeman, Office Cat by Junius (Moss Feature Syndicate), Quote Page 6, Column 1, Kingston, New York. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  5. 1937 February 6, The Evening News, After Dinner Mints, Quote Page 4, Column 2, Sault Sainte Marie, Michigan. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  6. 1949 June 18, Waterville Morning Sentinel, Seeing And Believing by Ima Wanderer: Little Things To Talk About by Nelson Miles Heikes), Quote Page 4, Column 2, Waterville, Maine. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  7. 1951 March 16, The Hollywood Reporter, Tales of Hoffman: Hollywood Sound Track by Irving Hoffman, Quote Page 3, Column 4, Hollywood, California. (ProQuest) ↩︎
  8. 1952 February 10, The Idaho Sunday Statesman, Dick Logsdon’s Smile Section: Assisted by Taylor Robertson, (Advertisement for Logsdon Motor Company), Quote Page 11, Column 5, Boise, Idaho. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  9. 1953 August 6, The Cincinnati Enquirer, Kentucky Edition, Daily Thought, Quote Page 4, Column 1, Cincinnati, Ohio. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  10. 1955, Speaker’s Encyclopedia of Stories, Quotations, and Anecdotes, edited by Jacob M. Braude, Section: happiness — joy — grief, Quote Page 175, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. (Verified on paper in third Printing of May 1956) ↩︎
  11. 1957 July 25, Garrett Clipper, In This Corner by Charles Ort, (Advertisement for Ort’s Furniture and Jewelry) of Garrett, Indiana), Quote Page 4, Column 5, Garrett, Indiana. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  12. 1965, Remarks of Famous People, Edited by Jacob M. Braude, Series: Complete Speaker’s and Toastmaster’s Library, Topic: Happiness, Quote Page 43, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. (Verified with scans) ↩︎
  13. 1965 December 6, Shamokin News-Dispatch, (Advertisement for Zandol’s Same Day Cleaners), Quote Page 8, Column 2, Shamokin, Pennsylvania. (Newspapers_com) ↩︎
  14. 1977, Quote Unquote, Compiled by Lloyd Cory, Section: Anger, Quote Page 19, Published by Victor Books: A Division of SP Publications, Wheaton, Illinois. (Verified on paper) ↩︎
  15. 1988, The Speaker’s Sourcebook: Quotes, Stories, and Anecdotes for Every Occasion, Compiled by Glenn Van Ekeren, Chapter 7: Anger, Quote Page 53, Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey. (Verified with hardcopy) ↩︎