A lifetime of happiness! No man alive could bear it: it would be hell on earth.

The line is spoken in George Bernard Shaw’s play *Man and Superman* (1903), during the famous “Don Juan in Hell” dream sequence. In this extended philosophical interlude, Shaw stages a debate among Don Juan, the Devil, and other figures about human desire, morality, and the purpose of life. The remark comes as part of Shaw’s satirical challenge to conventional notions of “happiness” as an unqualified good: the characters argue that perpetual pleasure would become intolerable, and that struggle, change, and striving are integral to what makes life meaningful. The play’s context is Shaw’s broader critique of complacent bourgeois ideals and his interest in evolutionary and ethical progress.

The remark turns the conventional ideal of “a lifetime of happiness” on its head. Shaw suggests that perpetual happiness would not be a paradise but a torment: without contrast, struggle, or change, pleasure becomes monotonous and even unbearable. The line implies that human beings are made for variety, challenge, and growth; meaning often arises from tension, desire, and the pursuit of goals rather than from a static state of contentment. It also satirizes simplistic moral formulas that equate the good life with uninterrupted comfort, proposing instead that an existence without difficulty could feel empty—“hell on earth” precisely because nothing is at stake.