The Conquest of Happiness

by Bertrand Russell

Education in cruelty and fear is bad, but no other kind can be given by those who are themselves the slaves of these passions.

External discipline is the only road to happiness for those unfortunates whose self-absorption is too profound to be cured in any other way.

Since no man can be omnipotent, a life dominated wholly by love of power can hardly fail, sooner or later, to meet with obstacles that cannot be overcome.

Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.

The wise man will be as happy as circumstances permit, and if he finds the contemplation of the universe painful beyond a point, he will contemplate something else instead.

the truth is that they are unhappy for some reason of which they are not aware, and this unhappiness leads them to dwell upon the less agreeable characteristics of the world in which they live.

There is no arguing with a mood; it can be changed by some fortunate event, or by a change in our bodily condition, but it cannot be changed by argument.

The human animal, like others, is adapted to a certain amount of struggle for life, and when by means of great wealth homo sapiens can gratify all his whims without effort, the mere absence of effort from his life removes an essential ingredient of happiness.

The habit of looking to the future and thinking that the whole meaning of the present lies in what it will bring forth is a pernicious one.

A man who has never enjoyed beautiful things in the company of a woman whom he loved has not experienced to the full the magic power of which such things are capable.

parental feeling at its best is the result of love between the parents.

What people mean, therefore, by the struggle for life is really the struggle for success. What people fear when they engage in the struggle is not that they will fail to get their breakfast next morning, but that they will fail to outshine their neighbors.

If the American business man is to be made happier, he must first change his religion.

The root of the trouble springs from too much emphasis upon competitive success as the main source of happiness.

A man would not feel bored while he was being executed, unless he had almost superhuman courage.

A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.

If public opinion allowed men to marry at twenty-one without incurring the financial burdens at present involved in matrimony, many men would never get into the way of demanding pleasures as fatiguing as their work.

Envy is the basis of democracy.

Why should a medical man go to see his patients in a car when the laborer has to walk to his work?

Whoever wishes to increase human happiness must wish to increase admiration and to diminish envy.

Another misfortune in childhood which has the same result is to have parents without much parental feeling. Without having an unduly favored brother

sister, a child may perceive that the children in other families are more loved by their mother and father than he is. This will cause him to hate the other children and his own parents, and when he grows up he will feel himself an Ishmael.

The habit of thinking in terms of comparison is a fatal one.

When anything pleasant occurs it should be enjoyed to the full, without stopping to think that it is not so pleasant as something else that may possibly be happening to some one else.

If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon. But Napoleon envied Cæsar, Cæsar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I dare say, envied Hercules, who never existed.

You can get away from envy by enjoying the pleasures that come your way, by doing the work that you have to do, and by avoiding comparisons with those whom you imagine, perhaps quite falsely, to be more fortunate than yourself.

Unnecessary modesty has a great deal to do with envy.

Imagine how unhappy the life of a peacock would be if he had been taught that it is wicked to have a good opinion of oneself.

Beggars do not envy millionaires, though of course they will envy other beggars who are more successful.

fatigue is a very frequent cause of envy.

One of the ways of diminishing envy, therefore, is to diminish fatigue.

civilized man must enlarge his heart as he has enlarged his mind.

Our nominal morality has been formulated by priests and mentally enslaved women.

If a man is a genius whom the age will not recognize, he is quite right to persist in his course in spite of lack of recognition.