~ Bertrand Russell Quotes ~

[MysteRy]

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.

[MysteRy]

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

[MysteRy]

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.

[MysteRy]

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.

[MysteRy]

I do not believe that any peacock envies another peacock his tail because every peacock is persuaded that his own tail is the finest in the world. The consequence of this is that peacocks are peaceable birds.

[MysteRy]

The habit of looking into the future and thinking that the whole meaning of the present lies in what it will bring forth is a pernicious one. There can be no value in the whole unless there is value in the parts.

[MysteRy]

Work is of two kinds: first altering a position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other such matter; second telling other people to do so. The first kind is unpleasant and ill-paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.

[MysteRy]

Philosophers for the most part are constitutionally timid and dislike the unexpected. Few of them would be genuinely happy as pirates or burglars. Accordingly they invent systems which make the future calculable at least in its main outlines.

[MysteRy]

Simpson succeeded in proving that there was no harm in giving anaesthetics to men because God put Adam into a deep sleep when He extracted his rib. But male ecclesiastics remained unconvinced as regards the sufferings of women at any rate in childbirth.

[MysteRy]

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.

[MysteRy]

I do not think that the real reason why people accept religion is anything to do with argumentation. They accept religion on emotional grounds. One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it.