The Pursuit of Happiness by Jeffrey Rosen
Today I finished listening to The Pursuit of Happiness by Jeffrey Rosen.
I don't remember when or where this book was recommended to me, but after reading David McCullough's excellent biography of John Adams earlier this year, it's another solid read on the founders and the habits that helped form them.
The book explores what the founders meant by "the pursuit of happiness." To them it was much more about the pursuit of virtue and inspired by classical moral philosophers.1
Rosen explores the habits and the virtues that the founders strove for with a chapter-by-chapter structure that focuses on a founder and a virtue they strove for. Those include order, temperance, humility, industry, frugality and sincerity, among others.
It's impressive how strict many of the founders where when it came to their own schedules, personal reading habits and life-long learning pursuits. It's certainly something that was inspiring for me to read about, and makes me want to be even more intentional about my own reading habits and personal growth.
The book also highlighted a few classical writers that I'm excited to read more of, simply based on the amount of influence they've had. Specifically Cicero and Seneca, neither of whom I've read much of yet, but get referenced constantly across all sorts of genres I've been reading in recent years.
Overall, this was a good listen and one I'd encourage if you're at all interested in the history of the country, the founders, or just want to get a lot of good classical works recommended and put on your reading list.
Overall: 55
I use the 20-80 scale to rate things. For nonfiction books I just use one overall rating, while for fiction books I have four different sub-categories.
Highlights
- “If you had to sum it up in one sentence, the classical definition of the pursuit of happiness meant being a lifelong learner. With a commitment of practicing the daily habits that lead to character improvement, self mastery, flourishing and growth.”
- "Franklin found that when he offered his opinions gently they were more likely to be accepted."
- The central theme of John Adams diary: “his struggle to use his powers of reason to overcome his turbulent passions.”
- “For Locke, virtue, and by extension happiness, isn’t about eliminating our passions but about dealing with them realistically by focusing on our long term interests rather than our short term desires.”
- “Self-made men, Douglass said, were men of work. And honest labor faithfully, steadily and persistently pursued, is the best if not the only explanation of their success. Moreover, Douglass emphasized, the capacity for hard work was in everyone’s grasp.”
With tons of mentions of Stoic writers and philosophers, including Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus and Cicero. It's kind of shocking how much of an influence the stoics actually were on the founders. I feel embarrassed to have not known that until now.↩