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The self is a simplification of the notion of soul, created to serve the purposes of the modern sciences of psychology and economics, both of which want you to be happy in a simple, straightforward way they can count.

— Harvey Mansfield How to Understand Politics: What the Humanities Can Say to Science (2007)

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Happiness

More quotes by Harvey Mansfield

Sociobiology reduces the human to the animal instead of observing how the animal becomes human.

How to Understand Politics: What the Humanities Can Say to Science (2007)

The demand for more civility in politics today should be directed toward improving the quality of our insults, seeking civility in wit rather than blandness.

How to Understand Politics: What the Humanities Can Say to Science (2007)

The simplified notion of self-interest used by our political and social science cannot tolerate the tension between one’s own and the good, for that tension leaves human behavior unpredictable.

How to Understand Politics: What the Humanities Can Say to Science (2007)

To overcome the resistance to truth, literature makes use of fictions that are images of truth.

How to Understand Politics: What the Humanities Can Say to Science (2007)

People want to stand for something, which means opposing those who stand for something else.

How to Understand Politics: What the Humanities Can Say to Science (2007)

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The Puritan hated bear-baiting, not because it gave pain to the bear, but because it gave pleasure to the spectators.

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The key to self-generated happiness (the only reliable kind) is the refusal to take oneself too seriously.

Tom Robbins High Times interview (2002)

It is the law of life that if you are kind to someone you feel happy. If you are cruel you are unhappy. And if you hurt someone, you will be hurt back.

Cary Grant Love – That’s All Cary Grant Ever Thinks About (1964)

Shared pain is lessened; shared joy, increased — thus do we refute entropy.

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Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Harvey Mansfield (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.