“There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.”
Bertrand Russell8 likes
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“To be able to concentrate for a considerable time is essential to difficult achievement.”
“Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.”
“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.”
“I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy.”
“Love is wise; hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don't like. We can only live together in that way. But if we are to live together, and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance, which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.”
“Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.”
“We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.”
“Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.”
“The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.”
“Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?”
“All movements go too far.”
“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.”
“I have been accused of a habit of changing my opinions. I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions. What physicist who was already active in 1900 would dream of boasting that his opinions had not changed during the last half century? In science men change their opinions when new knowledge becomes available; but philosophy in the minds of many is assimilated rather to theology than to science. The kind of philosophy that I value and have endeavoured to pursue is scientific, in the sense that there is some definite knowledge to be obtained and that new discoveries can make the admission of former error inevitable to any candid mind. For what I have said, whether early or late, I do not claim the kind of truth which theologians claim for their creeds. I claim only, at best, that the opinion expressed was a sensible one to hold at the time when it was expressed. I should be much surprised if subsequent research did not show that it needed to be modified. I hope, therefore, that whoever uses this dictionary will not suppose the remarks which it quotes to be intended as pontifical pronouncements, but only as the best I could do at the time towards the promotion of clear and accurate thinking. Clarity, above all, has been my aim.”
“To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”
“The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.”
“It is not what the man of science believes that distinguishes him, but how and why he believes it. His beliefs are tentative, not dogmatic; they are based on evidence, not on authority or intuition.”
“Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself.”
“If any philosopher had been asked for a definition of infinity, he might have produced some unintelligible rigmarole, but he would certainly not have been able to give a definition that had any meaning at all.”
“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.”
“The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.”
“The most savage controversies are about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.”
“Right discipline consists, not in external compulsion, but in the habits of mind which lead spontaneously to desirable rather than undesirable activities.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Real life is, to most men ... a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible.”
“The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.”
“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.”
“To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.”
“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.”
“It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.”
“There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge and wisdom. Shall we instead choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? I appeal as a human being to human beings; remember your humanity, and forget the rest.”
“It is essential to happiness that our way of living should spring from our own deep impulses and not from the accidental tastes and desires of those who happen to be our neighbors, or even our relations.”
“To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.”
“I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe - because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return.”
“The central problem of our age is how to act decisively in the absence of certainty.”
“Admiration of the proletariat, like that of dams, power stations, and aeroplanes, is part of the ideology of the machine age.”
“No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?”
“Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.”
“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.”
“Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile.”