The Conquest of Happiness (1930)

Their wordsIt is in the belief that many people who are unhappy could become happy by well-directed effort that I have written this book.

Their wordsPower kept within its proper bounds may add greatly to happiness, but as the sole end of life it leads to disaster, inwardly if not outwardly.

Their wordsMan depends upon co-operation, and has been provided by nature, somewhat inadequately, it is true, with the instinctive apparatus out of which the friendliness required for co-operation can spring.

Their wordsCompetition considered as the main thing in life is too grim, too tenacious, too much a matter of taut muscles and intent will, to make a possible basis of life for more than one or two generations at most.

Their wordsA 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.

Their wordsEvery form of courage, whether in men or women, should be admired as much as physical courage is admired in a soldier.

Their wordsThe essentials of human happiness are simple, so simple that sophisticated people cannot bring themselves to admit what it is they really lack.

Their wordsNothing is so dull as to be encased in self, nothing so exhilarating as to have attention and energy directed outwards.

Their wordsThe happiness that requires intoxication of no matter what sort is a spurious and unsatisfying kind. The happiness that is genuinely satisfying is accompanied by the fullest exercise of our faculties, and the fullest realization of the world in which we live.

Their wordsNo person should be expected to distort the main lines of his life for the sake of another individual.

Their wordsI do not mean that people should be intentionally eccentric, which is just as uninteresting as being conventional. I mean only that people should be natural, and should follow their spontaneous tastes in so far as these are not definitely anti-social.

Their wordsA sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.

Their wordsThe secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

Their wordsBetween male and female excellence rightly conceived there is no difference, or at any rate no difference such as tradition inculcates. For women as for men zest is the secret of happiness and well-being.

Their wordsOf all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.

Their wordsA woman who has acquired any kind of professional skill ought, both for her own sake and for that of the community, to be free to continue to exercise this skill in spite of motherhood.

Their wordsI think, however, that, provided work is not excessive in amount, even the dullest work is to most people less painful than idleness.

Their wordsTo bear misfortune well when it comes, it is wise to have cultivated in happier times a certain width of interests, so that the mind may find prepared for it some undisturbed place suggesting other associations and other emotions than those which are making the present difficult to bear.

Their wordsHappiness is not, except in very rare cases, something that drops into the mouth, like a ripe fruit, by the mere operation of fortunate circumstances.

Their wordsAdmit to yourself every day at least one painful truth; you will find this quite as useful as the Boy Scout’s daily kind action.