Russell, Bertrand -- Conquest of Happiness, Part 2, ch. 17 “The Happy Man” (1930)

Dave — Wed, 04 Feb 2026 16:32:17 +0000

The happy life is to an extraordinary extent the same as the good life. Professional moralists have made too much of self-denial, and in so doing have put the emphasis in the wrong place. Conscious self-denial leaves a man self-absorbed and vividly aware of what he has sacrificed; in consequence it fails often of its immediate object and almost always of its ultimate purpose. What is needed is not self-denial, but that kind of direction of interest outward which will lead spontaneously and naturally to the same acts that a person absorbed in the pursuit of his own virtue could only perform by means of conscious self-denial.

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, Part 2, ch. 17 “The Happy Man” (1930)
(Source)

WIST Quotations

Russell, Bertrand -- Conquest of Happiness, Part 2, ch. 17 “The Happy Man” (1930)