Bertrand Russell

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

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

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

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

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

“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.”

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

“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.”

“To be able to concentrate for a considerable time is essential to difficult achievement.”

“To teach how to live with uncertainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy in our age can still do for those who study it.”

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

“Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, Thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought is great and swift and free.”

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

“Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or what you think could have beneficent social effects if it were believed; but look only and solely at what are the facts.”

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

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

“The man who can centre his thoughts and hopes upon something transcending self can find a certain peace in the ordinary troubles of life, which is impossible to the pure egoist.”

“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.”

“Однако существует довод и более общего характера против слепого преклонения перед греками или кем бы то ни было еще. Правильное отношение к изучению того или иного философа состоит не в том, чтобы почитать или презирать его, но прежде всего в некоторого рода предрасположенности, дающей возможность п...”

“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.”

“Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“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.”

“Движение романтизма, в сущности, ставило целью освобождение человеческой личности от пут общественных условностей и общественной морали. В частности, эти путы были лишь бесполезным препятствием к желательным формам деятельности, так как каждая древняя община выработала правила поведения, относительн...”

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

“Бунт индивидуалистических инстинктов против социальных уз является ключом к пониманию философии, политики и чувств – не только того, что обычно называется движением романтизма, но и его последователей вплоть до наших дней. Философия под влиянием немецкого идеализма стала солипсистской, и самоусоверш...”

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

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

“To like many people spontaneously and without effort is perhaps the greatest of all sources of personal happiness.”

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

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

“Это не вина психологии романтиков, это их стандарт ценностей. Они восхищаются сильными страстями, безразлично какого рода и каковы бы ни были их социальные последствия. Романтическая любовь, особенно когда она несчастлива, достаточно сильна, чтобы заслужить их одобрение, но большинство сильнейших ст...”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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

“Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know”

“La Ciencia en ningún momento está totalmente en lo cierto, pero rara vez está completamente equivocada y tiene en general mayores posibilidades de estar en lo cierto que las teorías no científicas.”

“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.”

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

“Drunkenness is temporary suicide.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.”

“The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.”

“Следует признать, что имеется определенный тип христианской этики, к которому осуждающая критика Ницше может быть применена справедливо. Паскаль и Достоевский, которых он сам приводит в качестве примера, – оба имеют что-то жалкое в своей добродетели. Паскаль принес в жертву своему Богу великолепный...”

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

“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.”

“Sin is geographical.”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

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

“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.”

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

“No one gossips about other people's secret virtues.”

“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.”