“Happiness, as is evident, depends partly upon external circumstances and partly upon oneself.”

“Very few people are able to discount the effect of circumstances upon their own characters.”

“The extent to which beliefs are based upon evidence is very much less than believers suppose. Take the kind of action which is most nearly rational: the investment of money by a rich City man. You will often find that his view (say) on the question whether the French franc will go up or down depends upon his political sympathies, and yet is so strongly held that he is prepared to risk money on it.”

“To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”

“We need a morality based upon love of life, upon pleasure in growth and positive achievement, not upon repression and prohibition.”

“For all serious intellectual progress depends upon a certain kind of independence of outside opinion, which cannot exist where the will of the majority is treated with that kind of religious respect which the orthodox give to the will of God.”

“The man who pursues happiness wisely will aim at the possession of a number of subsidiary interests in addition to those central ones upon which his life is built.”