Jelisava

"A Friendly Interest in Things" / Sv. Vid, Croatia / May 2005

“A friendly interest in persons is a form of affectionateness, but not the form which is grasping and possessive and seeking always an emphatic response. This latter form is very frequently a source of unhappiness. The kind that makes for happiness is the kind that likes to observe people and finds pleasure in their individual traits, that wishes to afford scope for the interests and pleasures of those with whom it is brought into contact without desiring to acquire power over them or to secure their enthusiastic admiration. The person whose attitude towards others is genuinely of this kind will be a source of happiness and a recipient of reciprocal kindness. His relations with others, whether slight or serious, will satisfy both his interests and his affections; ... To like many people spontaneously and without effort is perhaps the greatest of all sources of personal happiness.”

~ Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness, 1930