As for the painfulness of leaving things to one’s heir, that is a matter that may be looked at from two points of view: from the point of view of the heir it is distinctly less disastrous. This method of escaping censure is, however, impossible to many of those whose tastes and opinions cause them to be out of sympathy with the herd.

Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote

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. In many women, especially rich society women, the capacity for feeling love is completely dried up, and is replaced by a powerful desire that all men should love them. Very few people can resist saying malicious things about their acquaintances, and even on occasion about their friends; yet when people hear that anything against themselves, they are filled with indignant amazement.I am no child psychologist, but it seems at least questionable to me whether we should be raising children who don’t have any sense of their own limitations and who think that they are perfect, without feeling the need for any self-improvement. 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. If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important. Perhaps the best introduction to the philosophy which I wish to advocate will be a few words of autobiography. I think the former sort are more likely to achieve happiness than the latter, since they will gradually build up those circumstances from which they can derive contentment and self-respect, whereas the others will be blown about by the winds of circumstance now this way, now that, without ever arriving at any haven.

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Bertrand Russell’s book ‘The Conquest of Happiness’ (1930) attempts to analyse the conditions for happiness in our modern world, focusing on the different mindsets of the unhappy and the happy person. If we can show that the doctrine of Ecclesiastes is not the only one open to a wise man, we need not trouble ourselves much with the later expressions of the same mood. The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things, or, if it is night, about nothing at all.Such a man feels himself a citizen of the universe, enjoying freely the spectacle that it offers and the joys that it affords, untroubled by the thought of death because he feels himself not really separate from those who will come after him. We and our partners use data for Personalised ads and content, ad and content measurement, audience insights and product development. Partly it is due to having successfully dismissed certain objects of desire - such as the acquisition of indubitable knowledge about something or other — as essentially unattainable. We discuss his life, his ideas and his main works, both in their historical context and how they are still relevant for us today. Instead of focusing only on what goes wrong in our lives, such interests allow us to get away for a while from the things that bother us and find peace and satisfaction in another activity.

THE CONQUEST OF HAPPINESS ACCORDING BERTRAND RUSSELL THE CONQUEST OF HAPPINESS ACCORDING BERTRAND RUSSELL

Human beings, one feels, ought to be, but in the modern world they are not, at least in a great majority of cases. At every moment of life the civilised man is hedged about by restrictions of impulse: if he happens to feel cheerful he must not sing or dance in the street, while if he happens to feel sad he must not sit on the pavement and weep, for fear of obstructing pedestrian traffic. 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. The businessman's religion and glory demand that he should make much money; therefore, like the Hindu widow, he suffers the torment gladly.If he can, he deprives others of their advantages, which to him is as desirable as it would be to secure the same advantages himself. Instead, Russell draws on his own life, his own experiences as an unhappy child and young man, to try and understand what makes us unhappy — and how we could be happier. Work requires the exercise of our skills, and a skill well exercised is a source of pride and happiness for the person exercising that skill.