Q0098

Bertrand Russell

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

To abandon the struggle for private happiness…to burn with passion for eternal things — this is emancipation.
Thinker Bertrand Russell
School Analytic Philosophy
Source A Free Man's Worship
Theme Philosophy
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with A Free Man's Worship, within the tradition of Analytic Philosophy. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of philosophy, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Bertrand Russell's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Bertrand Russell. (n.d.). To abandon the struggle for private happiness…to burn with passion for eternal things — this is emancipation. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0098

MLA: Bertrand Russell. “To abandon the struggle for private happiness…to burn….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0098.

Chicago: Bertrand Russell. “To abandon the struggle for private happiness…to burn….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0098.

Same thinker

More from Bertrand Russell

  1. The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions…be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.
  2. Next to worry, probably one of the most potent causes of unhappiness is envy.
  3. Envy is itself a terrible obstacle to happiness.
  4. Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
  5. Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty.

All quotations by Bertrand Russell

Same theme

More on philosophy

  1. It is through wonder that people both now begin and first began to philosophize.
  2. A person's character is their destiny.
  3. What is opposed brings together; from what differs comes the finest harmony.
  4. Death is nothing to us: for what has been dissolved has no sensation, and what has no sensation is nothing to us.
  5. Pleasure is the beginning and end of the happy life — not the pleasures of profligates, but freedom from pain in the body and from disturbance in the soul.

Browse the philosophy theme