Quotation by Malcolm Muggeridge

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"Any Questions?""Down with Sex" Tread Softly for You Tread on My Jokes (1966)"I Like Dwight" Tread Softly for You Tread on My Jokes (1966)"Me and Myself" Jesus Rediscovered (1979)quoted in "An Eighth Deadly Sin" Muggeridge through the Microphone (1967)

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There is something ridiculous and even quite indecent in an individual claiming to be happy. Still more a people or a nation making such a claim. The pursuit of happiness ... is without any question the most fatuous which could possibly be undertaken. This lamentable phrase "the pursuit of happiness" is responsible for a good part of the ills and miseries of the modern world.

Malcolm Muggeridge

Malcolm Muggeridge (1903–1990), British broadcaster. "Woman's Hour," radio broadcast, October 5, 1965. Quoted in Muggeridge Through the Microphone (1967).

Muggeridge continued: "The pursuit of happiness in any case soon resolved itself into the pursuit of pleasure—something quite different. Pleasure is but a mirage of happiness—a false vision of shade and refreshment seen across parched sand."

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