"Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one."
Bertrand RussellTiny Panda Quotes
Quotes by Bertrand Russell
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"To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead."
Bertrand Russell"Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd."
Bertrand Russell"To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom."
Bertrand Russell"Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom."
Bertrand Russell"Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure."
Bertrand Russell"I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong."
Bertrand Russell"The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge."
Bertrand Russell"To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness."
Bertrand Russell"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."
Bertrand Russell"A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live."
Bertrand Russell"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."
Bertrand Russell"Anything you're good at contributes to happiness."
Bertrand Russell"The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible."
Bertrand Russell"Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery."
Bertrand Russell"Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change."
Bertrand Russell"The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper."
Bertrand Russell"We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought."
Bertrand Russell"Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines."
Bertrand Russell"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence."
Bertrand Russell"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge."
Bertrand Russell"The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts."
Bertrand Russell"Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance."
Bertrand Russell"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."
Bertrand Russell"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."
Bertrand Russell"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."
Bertrand Russell"Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education."
Bertrand Russell"Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons."
Bertrand Russell"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."
Bertrand Russell"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."
Bertrand Russell"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."
Bertrand Russell"Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know."
Bertrand Russell"The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics."
Bertrand Russell"The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."
Bertrand Russell"War does not determine who is right - only who is left."
Bertrand Russell"Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country."
Bertrand Russell"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important."
Bertrand Russell"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."
Bertrand Russell"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."
Bertrand Russell"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."
Bertrand Russell