Overview
It is often said that we fail to attain pleasures if we deliberately seek them. This has been described variously, by many:
- John Stuart Mill, the utilitarian philosopher, in his autobiography:
But I now thought that this end was only to be attained by not making it the direct end. Those only are happy (I thought) who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness along the way Ask yourself whether you are happy, and you cease to be so.
- Viktor Frankl in Man's Search for Meaning:
Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue, and it only does so as the unintended side effect of one's personal dedication to a cause greater than oneself or as the by-product of one's surrender to a person other than oneself.
The more a man tries to demonstrate his sexual potency or a woman her ability to experience orgasm, the less they are able to succeed. Pleasure is, and must remain, a side-effect or by-product, and is destroyed and spoiled to the degree to which it is made a goal in itself.
- Philosopher Søren Kierkegaard in Either/Or:
Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that they hurry past it.
- Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche in The Antichrist (1895) and The Will to Power (1901):
What is good? Everything that heightens the feeling of power in man, the will to power, power itself.
What is bad? Everything that is born of weakness.
What is happiness? The feeling that power increases — that a resistance is overcome.
it is significantly enlightening to substitute for the individual 'happiness' (for which every living being is supposed to strive) power joy is only a symptom of the feeling of attained power (one does not strive for joy joy accompanies; joy does not move)
- Psychologist Alfred Adler in The Neurotic Constitution (1912):
Nietzsche's "will to power" and "will to seem" embrace many of our views, which again resemble in some respects the views of Féré and the older writers, according to whom the sensation of pleasure originates in a feeling of power, that of pain in a feeling of feebleness.
- Poet and satirist Edward Young:
The love of praise, howe'er concealed by art,
Reigns more or less supreme in every heart;
The Proud to gain it, toils on toils endure;
The modest shun it, but to make it sure!
- Politician William Bennett:
Happiness is like a cat, If you try to coax it or call it, it will avoid you; it will never come. But if you pay no attention to it and go about your business, you'll find it rubbing against your legs and jumping into your lap.
- Novelist João Guimarães Rosa:
Happiness is found only in little moments of inattention.
Read more about this topic: Paradox Of Hedonism