Men have physical needs, and they have emotions. While physical needs are unsatisfied, they take first place; but when they are satisfied, emotions unconnected with them become important in deciding whether a man is to be happy or unhappy.
Interpretation
Physical needs are primary until met, after which emotions significantly influence happiness.
In this quote, Bertrand Russell highlights the intertwined relationship between physical needs and emotional well-being. He suggests that when basic physical requirements are not met, they dominate a person's focus; however, once these needs are fulfilled, emotional matters become crucial in determining a person's overall happiness. This indicates that while survival is essential, the deeper aspects of our emotional lives subsequently play a significant role in our contentment.
In practice
In a speech about mental health, this quote can illustrate the importance of addressing both physical and emotional needs.
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.
It has been said that beauty is a promise of happiness. Conversely, the possibility of pleasure can be a beginning of beauty.
I don't feel like my money or my success defines me. I've always been very happy just bein' me.
I always have a football handy at home, and I'll play with it. Sometimes it'll get on my wife's nerves. But the moment I've got a ball at my feet, I'm happy.
Bodily labor alleviates the pains of the mind and from this arises the happiness of the poor
The desire for total happiness and for ultimate freedom lies dormant in everyone. It is in the form of a seed. It is like a seed that contains a tree within it. In the same way, the fulfillment of man's ultimate desire is hidden in his very nature. In its perfectly developed state, it is our nature to be happy, to be free. Our real nature is the only thing that is true, and only perfecting it can bring complete satisfaction.
Genuine happiness can only be achieved when we transform our way of life from the unthinking pursuit of pleasure to one committed to enriching our inner lives, when we focus on 'being more' rather than simply having more.
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