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

and, in so far as these activities succeed, the young
are happy. They feel that they have an important
part to play in the national life, and aims to pursue
which, though difficult, are not impossible to
realise. Cynicism such as one finds very frequently
among the most highly educated young men and
women of the West results from the combination of
comfort with powerlessness. Powerlessness makes
people feel that nothing is worth doing, and
comfort makes the painfulness of this feeling just
endurable. Throughout the East the university
student can hope for more influence upon public
opinion than he can have in the modem West, but
he has much less opportunity than in the West of
securing a substantial income. Being neither
powerless nor comfortable, he becomes a reformer
or a revolutionary, not a cynic. The happiness of
the reformer or revolutionary depends upon the
course of public affairs, but probably even while
he is being executed he enjoys more real happiness
than is possible for the comfortable cynic. I
remember a young Chinese visitor to my school
who was going home to found a similar school in a