The Conquest of Happiness Quotes

“for if once you have become filled with hate you will not easily derive from construction the pleasure which another man would derive from it.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“seems that men are at their best between sixty and seventy, the reason being that in such occupations a wide experience of other men is essential.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“Next to worry probably one of the most potent causes of unhappiness is envy.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“For the more skeptical of the Victorians, love performed some of the functions of the God whom they had lost. Faced with it, many of even the most hard-headed turned, for the moment; mystical. They found themselves in the presence of something which awoke in them that sense of reverence which nothing else claimed, and something to which they felt, even in the very depth of their being, that an unquestioning loyalty was due. For them love, like God, demanded all sacrifices; but like Him, also, it rewarded the believer by investing all the phenomena of life with a meaning not yet analysed away. We have grown used - more than they - to a Godless universe, but we are not yet accustomed to one which is loveless as well, and only when we have so become shall we realise what atheism really means.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“proper task of philosophy is to remind ourselves of what we already know to be true:”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained, I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. Walt Whitman”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“Something of the same strain and anguish seems to have entered the soul of ivilised man. He knows there is something better than himself almost within his grasp, yet he does not know where to seek it or how to find it. In despair he rages against his fellow man, who is equally lost and equally unhappy.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“Altogether it will be found that a quiet life is characteristic of great men, and that their pleasures have not been of he sort that would look exciting to the utward eye. No great achievement is ossible without persistent work, so absorbing and so difficult that little energy is left over for the more strenuous kinds of amusement”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“Yo no nací dichoso. De niño, mi himno favorito era: «Cansado del mundo y con el peso de mis pecados». A los cinco años yo pensaba que si había de vivir setenta no había pasado aún más que la catorceava parte de mi vida vital, y me parecía casi insoportable la enorme cantidad de aburrimiento que me aguardaba. En la adolescencia la vida me era odiosa, y estaba continuamente al borde del suicidio, del cual me libré gracias al deseo de saber más matemáticas. Hoy, por el contrario, gusto de la vida, y casi estoy por decir que cada año que pasa la encuentro más gustosa. Esto es debido, en parte, a haber descubierto cuáles eran las cosas que deseaba más y haber adquirido gradualmente muchas de ellas. En parte es debido también a haberme desprendido, felizmente, de ciertos deseos (la adquisición del conocimiento indudable acerca de algo) como esencialmente inasequibles. Pero en la mayor parte se debe a la preocupación, cada día menor, de mí mismo.”
― 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

“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. I have frequently experienced myself the mood in which I felt that all is vanity; I have emerged from it not by means of any philosophy, but owing to some imperative necessity of action. If your child is ill, you may be unhappy, but you will not feel that all in vanity; you will feel that restoring of the child to health is a matter to be attended to regardless of the question whether there is ultimate value in human life or not.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“I think I could turn and live with animals, they’re so placid and self-contain’d, I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owing things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth. —Walt Whitman”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“But in this latter event the cause probably lies in a lack of self-confidence due to early misfortune. The man who feels himself unloved may take various attitudes as a result. He may make desperate efforts to win affection, probably by means of exceptional acts of kindness. In this, however, he is very likely to be unsuccessful, since the motive of the kindnesses is easily perceived by their beneficiaries, and human nature is so constructed that it gives affection most readily to those who seem least to demand it. The man, therefore, who endeavors to purchase affection by benevolent actions becomes disillusioned by experience of human ingratitude. It never occurs to him that the affection which he is trying to buy is of far more value than the material benefits which he offers as its price, and yet the feeling that this is so is at the basis of his actions.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“Very few men can be genuinely happy in a life involving continual self-assertion against the skepticism of the mass of mankind, unless they can shut themselves up in a coterie and forget the cold outer world.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“To a great extent fatigue in such cases is due to worry, and worry could be prevented by a better philosophy of life and a little more mental discipline. Most men and women are very deficient in control over their thoughts. I mean by this that they cannot cease to think about worrying topics at times when no action can be taken in regard to them.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“Go out into the world; become a pirate, a king in Borneo, a laborer in Soviet Russia; give yourself an existence in which the satisfaction of elementary physical needs will occupy almost all your energies.” I do not recommend this course of action to every one, but only to those who suffer from the disease which Mr. Krutch diagnoses. I believe that after some years of such an existence, the ex-intellectual will find that in spite of his efforts he can no longer refrain from writing, and when this time comes his writing will not seem to him futile.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“Again: love is able to break down the hard shell of the ego, since it is a form of biological coöperation in which the emotions of each are necessary to the fulfillment of the other’s instinctive purposes.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“God be thanked, the meanest of His creatures, Boasts two soul-sides, one to face the world with, One to show a woman when he loves her!”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“External discipline is the only road to happiness for those unfortunates whose self-absorption is too profound to be cured in any other way.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“Education in cruelty and fear is bad, but no other kind can be given by those who are themselves the slaves of these passions.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“Casi nadie es capaz de ser feliz en una cárcel, y las pasiones que nos encierran en nosotros mismos constituyen uno de los peores tipos de cárcel. Las más comunes de estas pasiones son el miedo, la envidia, el sentimiento de pecado, la autocompasión y la autoadmiración. En todas ellas, nuestros deseos se centran en nosotros mismos: no existe auténtico interés por el mundo exterior, solo la preocupación de que pueda hacernos daño o deje de alimentar nuestro ego. El miedo es la principal razón de que la gente se resista a admitir los hechos y esté tan dispuesta a envolverse en un cálido abrigo de mitos. Pero las espinas desgarran el abrigo y por los desgarrones penetran ráfagas de viento frío, y el que se había acostumbrado a estar abrigado sufre mucho más que el que se ha endurecido habituándose al frío.”
― Bertrand Russell, La conquista de la felicidad

“There is no ultimate satisfaction in the cultivation of one element of human nature at the expense of all the others, nor in viewing all the world as raw material for the magnificence of one’s own ego.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“The pleasure of work is open to anyone who can develop some specialized skill, provided that he can get satisfaction from the exercise of his skill without demanding universal applause.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“further into the past the boredom becomes still worse. Imagine the monotony of winter in a mediaeval village. People could not read or write, they had only candles to give them light after dark, the smoke of their one fire filled the only room that was not bitterly cold. Roads were practically impassable, so that one hardly ever saw anybody from another village. It must have been boredom as much as anything that led to the practice of witch-hunts as the sole sport by which winter evenings could be enlivened.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“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. One should respect public opinion in so far as necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways. Take, for example, the matter of expenditure. Very many people spend money in ways quite different from those that their natural tastes would enjoin, merely because they feel that the respect of their neighbours depends upon their possession of a good car and their ability to give good dinners. As a matter of fact, any man who can obviously afford a car but genuinely prefers travel or a good library will in the end be much more respected than if he behaved exactly like every one else. There is of course no point in deliberately flouting public opinion; this is still to be under its domination, though in a topsy-turvy way. But to be genuinely indifferent to it is both a strength and a source of happiness. And a society composed of men and women who do not bow too much to the conventions is a far more interesting society than one in which all behave alike. Where each person’s character is developed individually, differences in type are preserved, and it is worth while to meet new people, because they are not mere replicas of those whom one has met already.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“...untroubled by the thought of death because he fears himself not really separate from those who will come after him. It is in such profound instinctive union with the stream of life the greatest joy is to be found.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“It is in the moments when the mind is most active and the fewest things are forgotten that the most intense joys are experienced.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“To all the talented young men who wander about feeling that there is nothing in the world for them to do, I should say: “Give up trying to write, and, instead, try not to write. Go out into the world; become a pirate, a king in Borneo, a laborer in Soviet Russia; give yourself an existence in which the satisfaction of elementary physical needs will occupy almost all your energies.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“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”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

“The tragedy of one successful politician after another is the gradual substitution of narcissism for an interest in the community and the measures for which he stands.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness