Reader

“Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling? The reason is clearly that the human heart as modern civilisation has made it is more prone to hatred than to friendship. And it is prone to hatred because it is dissatisfied, because it feels deply, perhaps even unconsciously, that it has somehow missed the meaning of life, that perhaps others, but not we ourselves, have secured the good things which nature offers man's enjoyment.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“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.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“A life too full of excitement is an exhausting life, in which continually stronger stimuli are needed to give the thrill that has come to be thought an essential part of pleasure.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“Almost every American would sooner get 8 per cent from a risks investment than 4 per cent from a safe one. The consequence is that there are frequent losses of money and continual worry and fret. For my
part, the thing that I would wish to obtain from money would be leisure with security. But what the typical modern man desires to get with it is more money, with a view to ostentation, splendour, and the outshining of those who have hitherto been his
equals.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness