Customer Reviews
Drag yourself out of that pit of misery - By: Sally Wilton, 21 Jul 2008 
Bertrand Russell, mathematician, philosopher & Nobel prize winner,appears to have lived a full & interesting life for 97 years so his philosophy to achieve happiness should be well worth a look. I like the easy to read format, chapters that may be read at your leisure one at a time or even read the whole bookin one sitting.
BR looks at the reasons for unhappiness ie Boredom, envy, being a victim, having a persecution complex etc & gives very good advice, often hilariously funny, to change your way of thinking, if that is your problem. So, if something really upsets you keep thinking about it, force yourself to think about it until it becomes so tiresome & boring that you never want to think about it again, he says. This is of course contrary to the usual advice of putting things to the back of your mind, but a good idea I think.
I love his thoughts on women & envy, the women on a train with their jealous looks when a well dressed lady steps on. Women on the whole dont much like other women, whereas men are only jealous of someonein the same field as themselves, an interesting idea. Envy & conforming to society ie 'keeping up with the Jones' causes no end of dissatisfaction & this needs knocking very firmly on the head to avoid lifelong misery.
Then BR gives some good advice for long term happiness & it can be summed up by saying 'Zest'. Having an interestin everything around you is the key to not falling into the misery trap. So take my advice, get this book, it is better than most modern self help books on the shelf.
An Excellent Read and Practical - By: Lark, 04 Dec 2006 
I have to say that when I bought this book I was pretty skeptical & even cynical about the topic matter, having read Russell's History of Western Philosophy & some of the other titlesin the Routledge Classics & expecting something similar.
I was very pleasantly surprised & intend to re-read this book annually, Russell wrote this book for a mass audience, combining philosophy, psychology & common sense Russell first surveys what he believes to be the main causes of unhappiness, byronic unhappiness, competition, boredom & excitment, fatigue, envy, the sense of sin, persecution mania & fears of public opinion, & then proceeds to consider the possible sources of happiness Zest, affection, the family, work, impersonal interests & effort or resignation.
Some of it can appear dated & the work of the agein which it was written, for instance I think that he wrote about a sense of sin at a time where this could be a great deal more troubling to the conscience than present day, then again I remind myself that there are probably people & places where this remains very much the case today.
I cant fault Russellin his ultimate conclusion that to be happy one should live objectively, have a wide range of interests & be as sincerely & genuinely interestedin & warm towards others, engaging with the world instead of retreating from it where possible. The book is full of great advice about how living after this fashion can permit you to cope with the sources of unhappiness which Russell perceives.
Russell also,in his wisdom, does not pretend to have all the answers & when he does touch upon the topic of psychology does say that it is possible that on occasion more professional advice & assistance could be called for, something that I think is very much lackingin other self-help genres or treatise.
I would also recommend this book as very readable, its jargon free, the pace is excellent & I enjoyed it as much as any book of its kind or more light reading like genre fiction.
Very enjoyable book if you suffer from unhappiness sometimes - By: the great amphibian, 07 Jun 2005 When searchingin an online library with the keyword 'happiness' yesterday I was surprised to find a book by Bertrand Russell. The scope of his output was amazing, & it seems all to be very high quality. I was searching for a book that might cheer me up because I was feeling down, & this book really did cheer me up. It isn't mindless optimism but is good common sense on how to avoid a lot of the main causes of unhappiness. Russell was a brilliant scholar & suffered from unhappiness himself at timesin his life, & he was even suicidal through most of his youth, & here he shares his own solutionsin order to help others. Russell was a great altruist & I'm grateful for him to have shared these bits of common sense. There are chapters on the various causes of unhappinessin practice, (this is a practical book), including competition, boredom & excitement, fatigue, envy, the sense of sin, & persecution mania etc. From reading most of the book yesterday I have extracted more useful common sense thanin any similar book. It reminds me of the good common sense from Plutarch's Moralia. This really is a gem for someone who feels unhappy, perhaps suffers from depression, & wants to feel better. If you don't have any such problems & you are just trying to read Russell's entire oevre to be a completest, then by skim reading this you might indeed not find it as interesting as a challenging philosophical work, but this is a useful practical book for anyone that needs it. As with any other practical books, they are probably not as interesting as theoretical books for general reading, but if they cover something that effects your life they can be a great help, & this is a very pleasant book. It definitely cheered me up just like it did a previous reviewer. Overall I'd recommend this to anyone who is feeling unhappyin general & doesn't really know why, as this will probably make you realise a lot of the reasons for feeling unhappy, & will also provide you with some valuable common sense.
A Do-it-yourself guide to happiness - By: , 08 Jan 2004 Half DIY happiness guide & half philosophy of human behaviour. On the whole a complete must read. Russell manages to condense into a short & enjoyable book his personal views on why we are happy or unhappy. He identifies causes of unhappiness & gives practical remedies for them. He shows us the sources of happiness & helps us profit from them. A deeply penetrating book I found most of it very relevant & practical both for understanding yourself & others, & for being happier. Read it, it gives us the education for life we should get at school. And remember enthusiasm is one of the most important source of happiness, live with enthusiasm & you will enjoy
He never intended this as a "philosophical masterpiece" - By: , 03 Feb 2002 One of the reviewers complained that this was not a "philosophical masterpiece". Of course it isn't. It's an excellent work of popular psychology aimed at the layman. As Russell himself commented:
"Unsophisticated readers, for whom it was intended, liked it... Highbrows, on the contrary regarded it as a contemptible pot-boiler..."
These words are from Russell's autobiography.
The contention of the same reviewer that Russell was a deeply unhappy man is a plump over-simplification of the truth that anyone who is brilliant & intellectually rigorous as Russell was will never -in Russell's own words - find consolationin philosophy. Never satisfied by anything less then what could be backed up by fact he suffered from the corresponding lack of assurance that certainty brings. This does not mean his life was without joy or he was generally unhappy. Read & enjoy, & if you are a highbrow unable to go beyond Principia Mathemetica, at least try to recall that you are a human being for whom cerebration is a part time job & that there is morein Russell then is dreamt ofin your philosophy.
