The Conquest of Happiness  (English, Paperback, Russell Bertrand)

The Conquest Of Happiness explains the causes of unhappiness and happiness, and then shows what it takes to live happily.

Summary Of The Book

It is the quest of every person to be happy. Yet, happiness always seems elusive, ephemeral. It vanishes in almost an instant, it is never a constant state. All philosophies explore this basic search, for constant happiness.

The British philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote this book, The Conquest Of Happiness, to show readers the path to achieve this aim. He hoped to explain some common sense ideas that will enable them to find happiness in life.

The book first explores causes for unhappiness. He focuses on normal, everyday kind of discontent and unhappiness, which do not have any real external cause. Instead, he points out, it is the result of the person’s own views and attitudes.

The author goes into many causes like boredom, competition, excitement, fatigue, sense of sin, and fear of public opinion. He says that people often crave excitement as a way to happiness, confusing boredom with a sense of unhappiness. He says excitement is not really a way to happiness.

He points out that many people confuse unhappiness with a state of wisdom. They assume a wise person has learnt from experience that life is shallow and has no meaning and is therefore unhappy. He also says being obsessed with success to the point of sacrificing so many other things of value also leads to unhappiness.

He then goes into the causes of happiness. He says that the ways to happiness are to take an interest in people, in having enthusiasm for life, to find pleasure in work, to show affection, to realize the value of family relationships. While work might not be normally viewed as a cause for happiness, it is one because it helps pass the time, the work itself might be a source pf pleasure, and it also provides an opportunity for success. To be happy, each person should also take an interest in other people, other things, without self-interest.

The Conquest Of Happiness thus tries to show the readers the way to happiness by first showing them the causes of unhappiness and then getting rid of them. It then shows the causes for happiness. It is thus a practical guide to help people learn to be happy whatever their circumstance in life is.

About Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell was a British philosopher.

An Essay on the Foundations of Geometry, The Principles of Mathematics, The Problems of Philosophy, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays, What I Believe, Marriage and Morals, Education and the Social Order, and The Scientific Outlook are a few of his other works.

Bertrand Russell was born in 1872 in Ravenscroft. He studied mathematics at Trinity College. He was a mathematician, logician, philosopher and historian. He was a pacifist and anti-imperialist. He supported nuclear disarmament and opposed the Vietnam War and America's involvement in it. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950.