“The eighth mistake consists in the astounding, yet in our day widely prevalent, denial of human nature.”
Mortimer J. Adler, Ten Philosophical Mistakes
“Happiness is a hard master – particularly other people’s happiness. A much harder master, if one isn’t conditioned to accept it unquestioningly, than truth.”
Mustapha Mond in Aldous Huxley Brave New World
“‘What fun it would be,’ he [Mustapha Mond, Resident World Controller of Western Europe] thought, ‘if one didn’t have to think about happiness.’”
Aldous Huxley Brave New World
“The pagan set out, with admirable sense, to enjoy himself. By the end of his civilization he had discovered that a man cannot enjoy himself and continue to enjoy anything else.”
G.K. Chesterton Heretics
“What is a human life worth unless it is incorporated into the lives of one’s ancestors and set in a historical context?"
Cicero, quoted in Andrew Nikiforuk School's Out
“Saul Gorn once told me his theory of asceticism: ‘It is well known that the longer one postpones a pleasure, the greater the pleasure is when one finally gets it. Therefore, if one postpones it for ever, the pleasure should be infinite.'”
Raymond Smullyan 5000 B.C. and Other Philosophical Fantasies
“Some surviving literary works from this period [Egypt’s First Intermediate Period 2200-2050 BC] betray blank despair; others proclaim a crass hedonism; and still others seek a basis for restoration of social order by insisting upon the necessity of personal righteousness.”
William McNeill The Rise of the West
“A man’s judgement that whisky is bad for him is not invalidated by the fact that when the bottle is at hand he finds desire stronger than reason and succumbs…. Life, in other words, is as habit-forming as cocaine. What then? If I still held creation to be ‘a great injustice’ I should hold that this impulse to retain life aggravates the injustice.”
C.S. Lewis Surprised by Joy (explicitly rejecting G.K. Chesterton's Manalive test that someone who claims to believe life is pointless will object vehemently if you offer to shoot them)