 Bertrand Russell Quotes 366 |
It is a commonplace that happiness is not best achieved by those who seek it directly; and it would seem that the same is true of the good. In thought, at any rate, those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.
Source: Bertrand Russell: Our Knowledge of the External World, 1914, chap. 1
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Proverbs such as "Haste makes waste", "There is no royal road in geometry (mathematics)" and "Every coin has two sides" express some aspects of truth, even if they do not state absolute truths. Both the attainment of happiness and the search for truth are matters of degree, and even the same degree can be satisfying or unsatisfying for different people. In any case,both are unlikely to come to those who pursue their own happiness at the expense of others, or who view the world through the mirror of their own desires.
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