To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
Interpretation
True happiness often comes from appreciating what you have rather than just focusing on what you desire.
Bertrand Russell's quote suggests that longing for certain desires can lead to discontent, but learning to find joy in what you already possess is essential for achieving true happiness. It emphasizes the importance of acceptance and gratitude in our lives, indicating that a sense of fulfillment can be found even when we lack certain things we wish for.
In practice
Using this quote in a speech about finding joy in the present moment.
St. Paul introduced an entirely novel view of marriage, that it existed primarily to prevent the sin of fornication. It is just as if one were to maintain that the sole reason for baking bread is to prevent people from stealing cake.
Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.
Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, more than elsewhere, the love of truth may find encouragement for waning faith. Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of mind; and this purpose should be kept always in view throughout the teaching and learning of mathematics.
At all times, except when a monarch could enforce his will, war has been facilitated by the fact that vigorous males, confident of victory, enjoyed it, while their females admired them for their prowess.
Moreover, the attitude that one ought to believe such and such a proposition, independently of the question whether there is evidence in its favor, is an attitude which produces hostility to evidence and causes us to close our minds to every fact that does not suit our prejudices.
Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.
The rights essential to happiness. . . . We claim them from a higher source - from the King of kings and Lord of all the earth.
Heaven on Earth is a choice you must make, not a place you must find.
I am still determined to be cheerful and happy in whatever situation I may be.
A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.
Authentic happiness is always independent of external conditions.
Yes, there is a burden of financial insecurity. I don't think you find it in mood. Income is correlated with life satisfaction, so maybe you do find it in life satisfaction. You don't find it in mood, and I think it is very important.
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