Saturday, September 1, 2007

Quotations/Quotes by Bertrand Russell (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970)

A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell, Conquest of Happiness (1930) ch. 10

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Admiration of the proletariat, like that of dams, power stations, and aeroplanes, is part of the ideology of the machine age.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Against my will, in the course of my travels, the belief that everything worth knowing was known at Cambridge gradually wore off. In this respect my travels were very useful to me.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

All movements go too far.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attributable to science, which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Anything you're good at contributes to happiness.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell, Impact of Science on Society (1952) ch. 1

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Awareness of universals is called conceiving, and a universal of which we are aware is called a concept.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Boredom is... a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people's happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who'll get the blame.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Drunkenness is temporary suicide.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and justification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays (1928), "Dreams and Facts"

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays (1950), "Outline of Intellectual Rubbish"

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Government can easily exist without laws, but law cannot exist without government.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

I believe in using words, not fists. I believe in my outrage knowing people are living in boxes on the street. I believe in honesty. I believe in a good time. I believe in good food. I believe in sex.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

I do not pretend to start with precise questions. I do not think you can start with anything precise. You have to achieve such precision as you can, as you go along.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe - because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its Churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

I've made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

If any philosopher had been asked for a definition of infinity, he might have produced some unintelligible rigmarole, but he would certainly not have been able to give a definition that had any meaning at all.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

In the part of this universe that we know there is great injustice, and often the good suffer, and often the wicked prosper, and one hardly knows which of those is the more annoying.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word experience have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won't go.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

It is obvious that 'obscenity' is not a term capable of exact legal definition; in the practice of the Courts, it means 'anything that shocks the magistrate.'

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays (1928), "Recrudescence of Puritanism"

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it is true.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays (1928), "On the Value of Scepticism"

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Italy, and the spring and first love all together should suffice to make the gloomiest person happy.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Liberty is the right to do what I like; license, the right to do what you like.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Machines are worshipped because they are beautiful and valued because they confer power; they are hated because they are hideous and loathed because they impose slavery.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays (1950), "Outline of Intellectual Rubbish"

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Many people when they fall in love look for a little haven of refuge from the world, where they can be sure of being admired when they are not admirable, and praised when they are not praiseworthy.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Marriage is for women the commonest mode of livelihood, and the total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic (1917) ch. 4

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Mathematics takes us into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual word, but every possible word, must conform.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty - a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin -- more even than death.... Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell, Conquest of Happiness (1930) ch. 1

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

No one gossips about other people's secret virtues.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell, "Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?", 1947

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell, Conquest of Happiness (1930) ch. 12

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell, Conquest of Happiness (1930) ch. 5

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell, Conquest of Happiness (1930) ch. 9

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Order, unity, and continuity are human inventions, just as truly as catalogues and encyclopedias.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Passive acceptance of the teacher's wisdom is easy to most boys and girls. It involves no effort of independent thought, and seems rational because the teacher knows more than his pupils; it is moreover the way to win the favour of the teacher unless he is a very exceptional man. Yet the habit of passive acceptance is a disastrous one in later life. It causes man to seek and to accept a leader, and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that position.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Religions that teach brotherly love have been used as an excuse for persecution, and our profoundest scientific insight is made into a means of mass destruction.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Right discipline consists, not in external compulsion, but in the habits of mind which lead spontaneously to desirable rather than undesirable activities.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Sin is geographical.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The coward wretch whose hand and heart Can bear to torture aught below, Is ever first to quail and start From the slightest pain or equal foe.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals (1929) ch. 5

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and not merely as means to other things, are knowledge, art, instinctive happiness, and relations of friendship or affection.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The most savage controversies are about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

This is one of those views which are so absolutely absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

This is patently absurd; but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Too little liberty brings stagnation and too much brings chaos.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell, Conquest of Happiness (1930) ch. 14

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals (1929) ch. 19

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice, and another which we practice but seldom preach.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays (1928), "Eastern and Western Ideals of Happiness"

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell, "Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?", 1947

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others. It is much more nearly certain that we are assembled here tonight than it is that this or that political party is in the right. Certainly there are degrees of certainty, and one should be very careful to emphasize that fact, because otherwise one is landed in an utter skepticism, and complete skepticism would, of course, be totally barren and completely useless.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell, "Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?", 1947

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief which he finds in himself.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

With the introduction of agriculture mankind entered upon a long period of meanness, misery, and madness, from which they are only now being freed by the beneficent operation of the machine.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do so.

Quotations/Quotes:- Bertrand Russell

Source:- http://amazing-quotes-quotations.blogspot.com/

No comments:

Post a Comment