Bertrand Russell

“Extreme hopes are born of extreme misery.”

“There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.”

“In all affairs, love, religion, politics or business, it's a healthy idea, now and then, to hang a question mark on things you have long taken for granted.”

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

“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.”

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

“The fundamental defect of fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them.”

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

“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.”

“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.”

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

“Unless a man has been taught what to do with success after getting it, the achievement of it must inevitably leave him a prey to boredom.”

“All movements go too far.”

“Whenever one finds oneself inclined to bitterness, it is a sign of emotional failure.”

“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 unconvinc...”

“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...”

“A great many worries can be diminished by realizing the unimportance of the matter which is causing anxiety.”

“To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already 3-parts dead.”

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

“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. These passions, lik...”