Kindle Notes & Highlights
Liberation from the tyranny of early beliefs and affections is the first step towards happiness for these victims of maternal “virtue.”
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.
The Stoics and the early Christians believed that a man could realize the highest good of which human life is capable by means of his own will alone, or at any rate without human aid;
What I do maintain is that success can only be one ingredient in happiness, and is too dearly purchased if all the other ingredients have been sacrificed to obtain it.
yet at the same time the kind of thing that is respected is not just success, but that excellence, whatever that may be, to which success has been due.
Unless a man has been taught what to do with success after getting it, the achievement of it must inevitably leave him a prey to boredom.
A certain power of enduring boredom is therefore essential to a happy life, and is one of the things that ought to be taught to the young.
No great achievement is possible without persistent work, so absorbing and so difficult that little energy is left over for the more strenuous kinds of amusement,
Pleasures which are exciting and at the same time involve no physical exertion, such, for example, as the theater, should occur very rarely.
generation that cannot endure boredom will be a generation of little men, of men unduly divorced from the slow processes of nature,
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.
Instead of deriving pleasure from what he has, he derives pain from what others have.
Whoever wishes to increase human happiness must wish to increase admiration and to diminish envy.
the only cure for envy in the case of ordinary men and women is happiness, and the difficulty is that envy is itself a terrible obstacle to happiness.
The habit of thinking in terms of comparison is a fatal one.
mental discipline, the habit of not thinking profitless thoughts.
After all, what is more enviable than happiness? And if I can cure myself of envy I can acquire happiness and become enviable.
To find the right road out of this despair, civilized man must enlarge his heart as he has enlarged his mind. He must learn to transcend self, and in so doing to acquire the freedom of the Universe.
What are the really harmful acts to which the average man is tempted? Sharp practice in business of the sort not punished by law, harshness towards employees, cruelty towards wife and children, malevolence towards competitors, ferocity in political conflicts—these are the really harmful sins that are common among respectable and respected citizens.
The man divided against himself looks for excitement and distraction; he loves strong passions, not for sound reasons, but because for the moment they take him outside himself and prevent the painful necessity of thought.
malady, the greatest happiness comes with the most complete possession of one’s faculties. It
The first is: remember that your motives are not always as altruistic as they seem to yourself. The second is: don’t overestimate your own merits. The third is: don’t expect others to take as much interest in you as you do yourself. And the fourth is: don’t imagine that most people give enough thought to you to have any desire to persecute you.
No satisfaction based upon self-deception is solid, and however unpleasant the truth may be, it is better to face it once for all, to get used to it, and to proceed to build your life in accordance with it.
Public opinion is always more tyrannical towards those who obviously fear it than towards those who feel indifferent to it.
While it is desirable that the old should treat with respect the wishes of the young, it is not desirable that the young should treat with respect the wishes of the old.
I think that in general, apart from expert opinion, there is too much respect paid to the opinions of others, both in great matters and in small ones.
it is essential to happiness that our way of living should spring from our own deep impulses and not from the accidental tastes and desires of those who happen to be our neighbors, or even our relations.
Pleasures of achievement demand difficulties such that beforehand success seems doubtful although in the end it is usually achieved.
The pleasure of work is open to any one who can develop some specialized skill, provided that he can get satisfaction from the exercise of his skill without demanding universal applause.
