Most stern moralists are in the habit of thinking of pleasure as only of the senses, and, when they eschew the pleasures of sense, they do not notice that the pleasures of power, which to men of their temperament are far more attractive, have not been brought within the ban of their ascetic self-denial. It is the prevalence of this type of psychology in forceful men which has made the notion of sin so popular, since it combines so perfectly humility towards heaven with self-assertion here on earth.
Source: Bertrand Russell: Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1954, part II: The Conflict of Passions, chapter 4: Myth and Magic, n.11
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"Bernard Shaw expresses a similar idea as follows:
'Self-sacrifice enables us to sacrifice other people without blushing.
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