The-Conquest-of-Happiness-by-Bertrand-Russell

these are not the things that make him, when he is
ill, regard himself as an outcast who has forfeited
all claim to divine favour. These are not the things
that cause him nightmares to see visions of his
mother bending reproachful glances upon him. Why
is his subconscious morality thus divorced from
reason? Because the ethic believed in by those
who had charge of his infancy was silly; because it
was not derived from any study of the individual’s
duty to the community; because it was made up of
old scraps of irrational taboos; and because it
contained within itself elements of morbidness
derived from the spiritual sickness that troubled
the dying Roman Empire. Our nominal morality has
been formulated by priests and mentally enslaved
women. It is time that men who have to take a
normal part in the normal life of the world learned
to rebel against this sickly nonsense.
But if the rebellion is to be successful in bringing
individual happiness and in enabling a man to live
consistently by one standard, not to vacillate
between two, it is necessary that he should think