Where Is the Harm in Puritanism?

Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power. Consequently, those who live under the dominion of Puritanism become exceedingly desirous of power. Now, love of power does far more harm than love of drink or any of the other vices against which Puritans protest.

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) was a great British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and public intellectual. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950.