“I might
be wrong”
(Bertrand Russell should
be right!)
“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.”
“A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never
be accurate, because he unconciously translates what he hears into something he
can understand.”
"The secret of happiness is to face the fact
that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible...."
"Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always
distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the
human spirit is capable."
"I don't believe in meekness."
"... since one never knows what will be the line of
advance, it is always most rash to condemn what is not quite in the fashion of
the moment."
"I found one day in school a boy of medium
size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: 'The bigs hit
me, so I hit the babies; that's fair.' In these words he epitomized the history
of the human race."
“All movements go too far.”
“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.”
“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 paradise in a few years.”
“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.”
“No one gossips about other people's secret virtues.”
“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.”
“Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid
man is more likely to be honest than a clever man.”
“It has been said that man is a rational animal.
All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.”
“It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is
no ground whatsoever for supposing it is true.”
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and
fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of
doubts.”
“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.”
“Mathematics, rightly viewed, posses not only truth, but
supreme beauty - a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture.”
“Many people would sooner die than think; In fact,
they do so.”
“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.”
“Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be
killed for trivial reasons.”
“So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the
Gospels in praise of intelligence.”
“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 frendship or affection.”
“Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always
proud of the fact.”
“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.”
“The place of the father in the modern suburban family is
a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.”
“There is much pleasure to be gained from useless
knowledge.”
“There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be
made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.”
“This is one of those views which are so absolutely absurd
that only very learned men could possibly adopt them.”
“The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”
“To be without some of the things you want is an
indispensable part of happiness.”
“A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in
personal relations. People wish to be liked, not be endured with patient
resignation.”
“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is
perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.”
“To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last
product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this
level.”
“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the
main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”
“One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown
is the belief that one's work is terribly important.”
“Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than
men; although he was twice married, it never occured to him to verify this
statement by examining his wives' mouths.”
“To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear
life are already three parts dead.”
“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.”
“Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of
comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in
the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.”
“I would never die for my beliefs because I might
be wrong.”
Bertrand
Russell
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