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.”

“Real life is, to most men ... a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible.”

“The central problem of our age is how to act decisively in the absence of certainty.”

“It is only in marriage with the world that our ideals can bear fruit; divorced from it, they remain barren.”

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

“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 praise...”

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

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

“Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile.”

“What hunger is in relation to food, zest is in relation to life.”

“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.”

“All forms of fear produce fatigue.”

“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty.”

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

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

“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.”

“Continuity of purpose is one of the most essential ingredients of happiness in the long run, and for most men this comes chiefly through their work.”

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