Humans are the outcome of blind evolutionary processes that operate without goal or purpose

As far as we can tell, from a purely scientific viewpoint, human life has absolutely no meaning

As Nietzsche put it, if you have a why to live, you can bear almost any how

Human happiness conditioning systems also differ from person to person

The generally accepted definition of happiness is ‘subjective well-being’. Happiness, according to this view, is something I feel inside myself, a sense of either immediate pleasure or long-term contentment with the way my life is going

Given the proven human propensity for misusing power, it seems naïve to believe that the more clout people have, the happier they will be

There is a positive feedback loop between all these four factors. The threat of nuclear holocaust fosters pacifism; when pacifism spreads, war recedes and trade flourishes; and trade increases both the profits of peace and the costs of war

It is not coincidental that the few full-scale international wars that still take place in the world, such as the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, occur in places where wealth is old-fashioned material wealth

Yet from a historical perspective, our very naïvety is fascinating. Never before has peace been so prevalent that people could not even imagine war

For real peace is not the mere absence of war. Real peace is the implausibility of war