This is the best book that I read during August 2020.
At points it might feel like the stories are meandering… but it always delivers.
Russell is someone that published more than one book per year for over seventy years… he must have learned something about thinking and sharing his thoughts. Thus, it’s a great idea to read this book if you want to learn from him and conquer happiness.
Flow: 4/5, not an easy read but it always flows.
Actionability: 3/5, not filled with how-tos but the knowledge can definitely be applied to our lives.
Mindset: 5/5, will likely change the way you think about what needs to be done to be happy.
Some Of My Highlights:
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“Education in cruelty and fear is bad, but no other kind can be given by those who are themselves the slaves of these passions.”
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“External discipline is the only road to happiness for those unfortunates whose self-absorption is too profound to be cured in any other way.”
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“Alexander the Great was psychologically of the same type as the lunatic, though he possessed the talent to achieve the lunatic’s dream.”
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“The man who acquires easily things for which he feels only a very moderate desire concludes that the attainment of desire does not bring happiness.”
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“He forgets that to be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”
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“What people mean, therefore, by the struggle for life is really the struggle for success. What people fear when they engage in the struggle is not that they will fail to get their breakfast next morning, but that they will fail to outshine their neighbors.”
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“Unless a man has been taught what to do with success after getting it, the achievement of it must inevitably leave him a prey to boredom.”
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“The trouble arises from the generally received philosophy of life, according to which life is a contest, a competition, in which respect is to be accorded to the victor.”
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“The cure for this lies in admitting the part of sane and quiet enjoyment in a balanced ideal of life.:
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“We are less bored than our ancestors were, but we are more afraid of boredom.”
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“For all these reasons a generation that cannot endure boredom will be a generation of little men, of men unduly divorced from the slow processes of nature, of men in whom every vital impulse slowly withers, as though they were cut flowers in a vase.”
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“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.”
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“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.”
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“It is amazing how much both happiness and efficiency can be increased by the cultivation of an orderly mind, which thinks about a matter adequately at the right time rather than inadequately at all times.”
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“A great many worries can be diminished by realizing the importance of the matter with is causing the anxiety.”
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“Our doings are not so important as we naturally suppose; our successes and failures do not after all matter very much.”
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“The man who can center his thoughts and hopes upon something transcending self can find a certain peace in the ordinary troubles of life which is impossible to the pure egoist.”