Şi, vorbind mai general, oricare ţi-ar fi linia în viaţă, dacă constaţi că alţii nu-ţi preţuiesc aptitudinile la fel de mult ca tine, nu fi prea sigur că greşeala e de partea lor. Altminteri poţi aluneca lesne în credinţa că există o conspiraţie care urmăreşte să împiedice recunoaşterea meritelor tale, iar această credinţă va fi aproape sigur pentru tine o sursă de nefericire. Recunoaşterea că nu eşti înzestrat cu calităţi atât de eminente cum ai sperat poate fi pe moment mai dureroasă, dar va fi o durere care are un sfârşit, după care o viaţă fericită devine din nou posibilă.


Bertrand Russell, În căutarea fericirii

  Email Quote to Friends   Link to Quote   Create Short URL  Publish Text About This Quote   Share on Facebook, Twitter, and more
  See Recommended Quotes For You

Related

O, știu cum m-aș putea apăra: că toți suntem inculpați! Chiar și cei mai cuminți. Dacă nu e...
OCTAVIAN PALER
De ce crezi că nu-i iubim pe evrei? Pentru că, în orice împrejurare, ei sînt evrei. Uite, cîte...
ANDREI BITOV
-Se vede că n-ai trăit până acum decât în mijlocul ţăranilor care sunt duri cu animalele şi...
HECTOR MALOT, SINGUR PE LUME
-Ăsta e numărul meu privat, nu cel de serviciu. Îmi dai un telefon?
-Sigur. Probabil că pe...
NORA ROBERTS
Mi-am spus: ceea ce mă atrăgea la el era impresia pe care mi-o dădea că e singur, nenorocit, că...
CELLA SERGHI
Atunci am înțeles că nimic nu durează în suflet, că cea mai verificată încredere poate fi an...
MIRCEA ELIADE
Dacă omul va uita cu desăvârşire că există moarte, că există un sfârşit, riscăm s�...
MIRCEA ELIADE
De citit, citeam la întîmplare, pe apucate, şi n-am studiat nimic serios. Singura mea specialitat...
OCTAVIAN PALER
Deși faptul că izbutești să te căsătorești nu garantează că ai măcar o iotă habar despre ...
KAREN KARBO
Iubirea adevărată e o experienţă a bucuriei împărtăşite şi ea iradiază, ca atare, în înt...
ANDREI PLEșU
Singurătatea absolută? O concep cîteodată aşa: în tren, pe un culoar ticsit, stînd pe geamant...
CONSTANTIN NOICA
Te miri cum frumuseţea ne dă iluzia deplină a binelui. Când o femeie frumoasă îndrugă prostii...
LEO TOLSTOY
Ne întrebați cum arată Dumnezeu. Eu vă întreb: de unde a apărut această curiozitate? Răspuns...
DAN BROWN
Tristețea persista, dar durerea aproape că dispăruse, ca și cum s-ar fi evaporat. Atinsese acel ...
CLAUDE ROY
Tatăl meu mi-a povestit odată de un tovarăş de detenţie emaciat, din lagărul de concentrare de...
LEONARD MLODINOW
Dragostea nu este mereu frumoasă, Tate. Uneori îți petreci timpul cu speranța că, în cele din ...
COLLEEN HOOVER "UGLY LOVE"
Niciodată nu te voi trăda de tot, deşi te-am trădat şi te voi trăda la fiecare pas; Când te-a...
EMIL M. CIORAN
Ce soartă va avea condiția omenească dacă marile mistere ale vieții vor fi în sfârșit elucid...
DAN BROWN
În drumul înapoi spre singularitate ai grijă să nu pierzi nestematele acumulate cu atâta trudă...
CRISTIAN RăDUță
Aș fi vrut să-l rog: povestește-mi ceva despre tine. Nu lua în seamă limbuția mea nefastă! Mi...
ANNE FRANK
Era uimită că mai trăia. Constată că se simțea ciudat de indiferentă și că, de fapt, nu-i p...
STIEG LARSSON
... acolo unde nu există aparat de stat și supramuncă, nu există nici model-Muncă. Există doar...
GILLES DELEUZE
Întotdeauna va exista un el căruia să vrem a-i oferi lumea, un el al cărui zâmbet va fi antidot...
ANDRES
Cine este acest dumnezeu al științei? Cine este dumnezeul care le oferă copiilor săi putere, dar...
DAN BROWN
Credeai că eşti stăpânul lumii, ţinând globul în palmă, cu muşchii abia tresărind? Te-ai �...
MIHAIL DRUMEş
Pretutindeni există o pădure în care se pierde o linie ferată.Pentru că există un orizont dinc...
OCTAVIAN PALER
Într-o aşa serioasă măsură mi se pare de negîndită viaţa, încît dacă m-aş gîndi efectiv...
CONSTANTIN NOICA
Cînd eşti pe un drum cu sens unic şi când nu mai există cale de întoarcere, nu-ţi mai permiţ...
CHRIS SIMION
Se obișnuiește a considera aristocrația ca fiind fragilă, nepractică, neadaptată vieții, nepu...
ANDREI BITOV
În viaţă trebuie să înveţi să citeşti printre rânduri şi în oameni. Să citeşti printre ...
ILEANA VULPESCU
Până atunci nu ştiusem ce înseamnă să alergi după un fluture, să mângâi o lăcustă verde,...
PANAIT ISTRATI
În ziua în care m-am iubit cu adevărat, am înțeles că în toate împrejurările, mă aflam la ...
CHARLIE CHAPLIN
Rămase câteva minute pe pod, privind o barcă ce se îndepărta încet. Un cuplu se lăsa purtat d...
ANDRES
În fiecare primă zi a lunii primeam de la tine o floare, jocul nostru în care ne construiam buche...
CHRIS SIMION
Băi fraierilor!Nu înţelegeţi că e vorba de iubire?!Nu înţelegeţi băi că ne aşteaptă unde...
TUDOR CHIRILă
Ştiu că mărturisirile prea sincere par scandaloase. Mulţi s-au învăţat cu o anumită pudoare ...
OCTAVIAN PALER
-Vă bateţi joc de mine?
-Nu, niciodată, dragul meu; batjocura poate fi folositoare pentru a ...
HECTOR MALOT, SINGUR PE LUME
Şi a găsit-o printre miile de oameni indiferenţi. I-a zărit mai întâi ochii verzi cu luminile ...
LIVIU REBREANU
Lumea trebuie s-o pătrunzi cu mintea, nu să o baţi cu picioarele! Prostul poate să meargă şi-n...
MARIN SORESCU
— De ce să nu avem dreptul să criticăm, să-i
considerăm pe unii tîmpiţi şi săraci c...
MARTIN PAGE
Îmi dau foarte bine seama că o femeie poate gusta un dans cu un partener imperfect, dacă acesta n...
MIRCEA ELIADE
De ce naiba se interpune între viață și literatură un soi de zid al rușinii? În momentul în ...
JULIO CORTáZAR
Luați femeia cea mai cuminte, cea mai înțeleaptă, cea mai puțin stăpânită de simțuri; crima...
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU
Un lucru a săpat rădăcini adânci în sufletul meu: credinţa că morala stă la baza tuturor luc...
MAHATMA GANDHI
Poveste sentimentală

Pe urmă ne vedeam din ce în ce mai des.
Eu stăteam la o mar...
NICHITA STăNESCU
De fiecare dată când respiri sau când păşeşti, o faci pentru a împinge înainte vieţile amâ...
MEREDITH WILD
Chipul lui mi-a revenit așa de limpede în memorie, încât acum știu că nimeni altcineva nu va p...
ANNE FRANK
Motivul pentru care moartea se ţine atât de aproape de viaţă nu e necesitatea biologică - e inv...
YANN MARTEL
Nimic nu-i mai rău pentru caracterul omului decât să fi mândru de faptele tale bune. Fie că te ...
LLOYD C. DOUGLAS
Sînt niște... compozițiuni de fetișcană care e cam tristă în fond, cam nebună și care vrea ...
VASILE REBREANU
De fiecare dată când respiri sau când păşeşti, o
faci pentru a împinge înainte vieţile...
MEREDITH WILD
Când ai de facut o lucrare, nu te gândi mereu la întregimea ei; executa fragmentul pe care-l ai �...
GEORG CHRISTOPH LICHTENBERG
Viața noastră e ca o călătorie pe pământ: prea ușoară și monotonă de-a lungul întinselor ...
LLOYD C. DOUGLAS
Cascada părea ruptă dintr-o poveste, uşor ascunsă de desişul pădurii. În spatele ei se ascund...
ANDRES
Ar fi înspăimântător să crezi că din tot acest cosmos atât de armonios, desăvârşit şi ega...
MIRCEA ELIADE
Ea nu e în mobile,nu e în lucruri,nu e în atmosferă,nici măcar în străinătate.Ea e în mine,...
MIHAIL DRUMEş
Au trecut patruzeci de ani si pastrez inca vie in mintea mea ziua aceea. Se poate sa fiu mai batran ...
NICHOLAS SPARKS
Știința a ușurat, într-adevăr, suferințele cauzate de boli și de mizerie, și ne-a oferit o s...
DAN BROWN
Adevărul are putere. Iar dacă gravităm cu toții în jurul acelorași idei, o facem poate, întru...
DAN BROWN
Poate că fericirea până la adânci bătrâneţi era o prostie, dar acum ştia că voia să facă ...
NORA ROBERTS
Să îmbrățișezi trăsăturile definitorii ale regiunii în care te-ai născut este o formă de a...
KAREN KARBO
... supraoamenilor nu trebuie să li se explice nimic, ei n-au nevoie de permisiunea noastră, smulg...
GABRIEL OSMONDE
Asta n-o vor înțelege ei niciodată: că nu ești dator să ajungi ceva, că nu trebuie să parvii...
MIRCEA ELIADE
...în general cu oamenii, cel mai înțelept era să te aștepți întotdeauna la răutate, la răc...
PETER ROSEI
Animalele par să știe că progenitura le perpetuează specia și respectă o anumită lege în ace...
LEO TOLSTOY
Există diverse moduri de a trăi şi diferite feluri de a muri, dar nu asta
contează, ci fapt...
HARUKI MURAKAMI
Şi în iubire nu există reguli. Putem încerca să ne ţinem de manuale, să ne controlăm inima, ...
PAULO COELHO
Oamenii! Traiau intr-o lume in care iarba continua sa fie verde, soarele rasarea in fiecare zi si fl...
TERRY PRATCHETT
Străvechiul conflict dintre religie și știință a luat sfârșit. Ați câștigat. Dar n-ați ju...
DAN BROWN
E greu să-ți imaginezi lumea fără un creator, dar prefer să nu-mi închipui că faptele oamenil...
LLOYD C. DOUGLAS
Întâi te vor înjura. Pe urmă vor râde de tine. Apoi, te vor declara nebun. După aceea vor înc...
MAHATMA GANDHI
Ştii ce înseamnă să vii acasă seara la o femeie care să îţi ofere dragoste, afecţiune şi u...
HENNY YOUNGMAN
Exista un risc al vorbelor frumoase. Sa ne obisnuim cu ele si sa le repetam din rutina. In loc sa iu...
OCTAVIAN PALER
„Mi-am cucerit, puţin câte puţin, teritoriul interior care urma să fie al meu. Mi-am cerut, un...
FERNANDO PESSOA
„Libertatea este sclavie”
”În realitate, nici n-o să mai existe gândire, în sensul î...
GEORGE ORWELL
Știința, spuneți voi, ne va salva. Știința, spun eu, ne-a distrus deja. Încă de pe vremea lui...
DAN BROWN
Dispariţia iubirii e ca o oglindă întoarsă, nu se mai vede nimic, te uiţi zadarnic în ea. Gest...
MARIN PREDA
Suntem creatori, dar jucăm naivi, rolul de „creație”. Ne considerăm biete oi neajutorate, mâ...
DAN BROWN
Mi-a venit foarte greu sa ma afirm alaturi de gandurile mele. Era un demon in mine, iar in cele din ...
C.G. JUNG
În vremuril noastre, dominate de isteria colectivă stârnită de celebritate - și de superputeril...
KAREN KARBO
Îmi dau seama că o etapă din ea s-a încheiat definitiv: perioada fără griji și necazuri a ani...
ANNE FRANK
Sigur, eu sunt un clovn amuzant pentru o după-amiază, după care toți se satură de mine pentru o...
ANNE FRANK
Chiar şi cel mai mic neadevăr îl strică pe om, la fel cum o picătură de otravă poate strica u...
MAHATMA GANDHI
Trăgeam aerul în piept, ne uitam afară și simțeam că era vorba de ceva ce nu trebuia întrerup...
ANNE FRANK
Douăzeci și cinci e prea cinică și sofisticată; treizeci e numai bună pentru paloarea excesulu...
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Schimbarea este iminentă. Ființa omenească se află în pragul unei noi ere, când își va înto...
DAN BROWN
El însuși părea să-și fi luat, față de trecutul lui, distanța pe care o dă indiferența și...
CLAUDE ROY
Nu mai trăim un prezent placid, ci suntem prinși cu toții în efortul de a ne pregăti permanent ...
JEAN-CLAUDE CARRIèRE
De ce te face asta la fel de rau ca oricare vampir? Nu exista gradatii ale raului? E raul cumva o pr...
ANNE RICE
Isaac Asimov ofera o ilustrare dramatica: este ca si cum toata materia din univers ar fi un bob de n...
RICHARD DAWKINS
Cum de inima mea poate - cum mai poate, cum mai poate, repetă, pufăind din havană. Tânjind în s...
VIRGINIA WOOLF
Este incredibil cât de completă este iluzia care ne face să credem că frumuseţea este în gener...
LEO TOLSTOY
…iubirea mea, nu-ți pot spune cât de recunoscătoare sunt pentru mica noastră infinitate. N-aș...
JOHN GREEN
Dacă oamenii ar fi fost ploaie, eu aș fi fost o burniță și ea ar fi fost un uragan.
JOHN GREEN
In definitiv, cu cat vei ridica un zid mai inalt in jurul tau cu atat va fi mai bun cel care-l va sa...
TUDOR CHIRILă
Când toate zilele sunt egale înseamnă că oamenii au încetat să vadă lucrurile bune care au ap...
PAULO COELHO
Să ai timp să gândești și să-ți dai frâu liber imaginației în societatea prezentă, care t...
CRISTIAN RăDUță
Tristetea, ca si suferinta, ne revela existenta, deoarece în ele avem în constiinta separatia noas...
EMIL M. CIORAN
Iata deci cugetarea mea profunda pe ziua de azi: e pentru prima oara cand intalnesc pe cineva care c...
MURIEL BARBERY
Să nu te cerţi cu oamenii mai mult decât cu tine însuţi.
LUCIAN BLAGA

More Bertrand Russell, În căutarea fericirii

One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be belie...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The coward wretch whose hand and heart Can bear to torture aught below, Is ever first to quail and s...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the s...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than c...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
I believe in using words, not fists. I believe in my outrage knowing people are living in boxes on t...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Religions that teach brotherly love have been used as an excuse for persecution, and our profoundest...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Suddenly the ground seemed to give way beneath me,
and I found myself in quite another region. BERTRAND RUSSELL
The root of the matter the thing I mean is love, Christian love, or compassion. If you feel this, yo...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
I am paid by the word, so I always write the shortest words possible.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intel...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Against my will, in the course of my travels, the belief that everything worth knowing was known at ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate gov...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts- the less you know t...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundame...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Food has replaced sex in my life, now I can't even get into my own pants
BERTRAND RUSSELL
What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Every advance in civilization has been denounced as unnatural while it was recent
BERTRAND RUSSELL
For my part I distrust all generalizations about women, favorable and unfavorable, masculine and f...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the si...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Science is what you know, philosophy what you don't know.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
In science men have discovered an activity of the very highest value in which they are no longer, as...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Can a society in which thought and technique are scientific persist for a long period, as, for examp...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Religion and Science are two aspects of social life, of which the former has been important as far b...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth more than ruin more even than death. Thought is ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, the chief glory of man.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Thoughts is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible; thought is merciless to privileg...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
With civilized men..., it is, I think, chiefly love of excitement which makes the populace applaud w...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
I had supposed until that time that it was quite common for parents to love their children, but the ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
To be happy in this world, especially when youth is past, it is necessary to feel oneself not merely...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Anything you're good at contributes to happiness.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be hap...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more tha...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
For my part I distrust all generalizations about women, favorable and unfavorable, masculine and fem...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The good life is one inspired by life and guided by knowledge.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The life of man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by wearine...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
What else is there to make life tolerable? We stand on the shore of an ocean, crying to the night an...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Marriage is for women the commonest mode of livelihood, and the total amount of undesired sex endure...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
There is much pleasure to be gained in useless knowledge.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
There is much pleasure ot be gained from useless knowledge.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The difficulty is old, but none the less real. An omnipotent being who created a world containing ev...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
One should respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of p...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
It will be said that the joy of mental adventure must be rare, that there are few who can appreciate...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Happiness is not best achieved by those who seek it directly.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
All movements go too far, and this is certainly true of the movement toward subjectivity, whi...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will sea...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
What we need is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
What makes a belief true or false I call a fact. The particular fact that makes a given belief true ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously tran...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the i...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Love is wise; hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnecte...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
My desire and wish is that the things I start with should be so obvious that you wonder why I spend ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a cleve...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Mathematics, rightly viewed, posses not only truth, but supreme beauty a beauty cold and austere, li...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whet...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchston...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Mathematics takes us into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual word, but e...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
We have in fact, two kinds of morality, side by side: one that we preach, but do not practice, and a...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Three passions simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life; the longing for love, the se...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to ea...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Do not fear to be excentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd;...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Real life is, to most men, a long second-best, a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the poss...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves a...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Bad philosophers may have a certain influence; good philosophers, never.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to en...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
This idea of weapons of mass exterminations utterly horrible and is something which no one with one ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent full of doubt.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translate...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: ins...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor, but honest.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Drunkenness is temporary suicide.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Why should I allow that same God to tell me how to raise my kids, who had to drown His own?
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either w...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to deman...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
What men want is not knowledge, but certainty.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Unless one is taught what to do with success after getting it, achievement of it must inevitably lea...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by t...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
There will still be things that machines cannot do. They will not produce great art or great literat...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The most valuable things in life are not measured in monetary terms. The really important things are...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
All human activity is prompted by desire.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Although this may seem a paradox, all exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation. When ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. ....
BERTRAND RUSSELL
In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word experience have been perceived, with the...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
One of the signs of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly impor...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Hatred of enemies is easier and more intense than love of friends. But from men who are more anxious...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
In America everybody is of opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
We know too much and feel too little. At least, we feel too little of those creative emotions from w...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
One of the most interesting and harmful delusions to which men and nations can be subjected is that ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
No one gossips about other people's secret virtues.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The fundamental defect with fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Folly is perennial, yet the human race has survived.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
An individual human existence should be like a river
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up frie...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Nine-tenths of the appeal of pornography is due to the indecent feelings concerning sex which morali...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Conventional people are roused to fury by departures from convention, largely because they regard su...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Machines are worshipped because they are beautiful and valued because they confer power; they are ha...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Organic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the philosopher, and this d...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
An extra-terrestrial philosopher, who had watched a single youth up to the age of twenty-one and had...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
If any philosopher had been asked for a definition of infinity, he might have produced some unintell...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
A process which led from the amoebae to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Change is one thing, progress is another. Change is scientific, progress is ethical; change is indub...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either w...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Every advance in civilization has been denounced as unnatural while it was recent.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
One must care about a world one will not see.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Reason is a harmonizing, controlling force rather than a creative one.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he fi...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also add that some things are more nearly...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The commonest objection to birth control is that it is against nature.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Most people would rather die than think: many do.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginar...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Real life is, to most men, a long second-best, a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the poss...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Challenges make you discover things about yourself that you never really knew. They're what make the...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Sin is geographical.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Watch your thoughts, for they become words.Watch your words, for they become actions.Watch your acti...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
I've made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no lon...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Punctuality is a quality the need of which is bound up with social co-operation. It has nothing to d...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very fe...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodi...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Envy consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations. If you desire glory...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The most savage controversies are about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way
BERTRAND RUSSELL
What hunger is in relation to food, zest is in relation to life
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Pleasure of love lasts but a moment, pain of love lasts a lifetime.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life w...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The qualities most needed are charity and tolerance, not some form of fanatical faith such as is off...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
One should respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of p...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd;...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
An educator should think of a child as a garderner thinks of a plant, as something to be made to gro...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The secret of happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Machines are worshipped because they are beautiful, and valued because they confer power; they are ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Law in origin was merely a codification of the power of dominant groups, and did not aim at anything...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
To expect a personality to survive the disintegration of the brain is like expecting a cricket club ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
We are all prone to the malady of the introvert who, with the manifold spectacle of the world spread...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice, and a...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
[T]he infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they inven...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Love can flourish only as long as it is free and spontaneous; it tends to be killed by the thought o...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate gov...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Passive acceptance of the teacher's wisdom is easy to most boys and girls. It involves no effort of ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
This is patently absurd; but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape f...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Many people when they fall in love look for a little haven of refuge from the world, where they can ...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying t...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface rela...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Admiration of the proletariat, like that of dams, power stations, and aeroplanes, is part of the ide...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with o...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the i...
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts.
BERTRAND RUSSELL