You cannot discuss whether one people has succeeded more in being miserable than another succeeded in being happy.
 G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (1908). copy citation

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Author G. K. Chesterton
Source Orthodoxy
Topic
Date 1908
Language English
Reference
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/130/pg130-images.html

Context

“Nietzsche started a nonsensical idea that men had once sought as good what we now call evil; if it were so, we could not talk of surpassing or even falling short of them. How can you overtake Jones if you walk in the other direction? You cannot discuss whether one people has succeeded more in being miserable than another succeeded in being happy. It would be like discussing whether Milton was more puritanical than a pig is fat. It is true that a man (a silly man) might make change itself his object or ideal. But as an ideal, change itself becomes unchangeable.” source