The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.
Bertrand Russel
Related The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to en... 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 My desire and wish is that the things I start with should be so obvious that you wonder why I spend ... BERTRAND RUSSELL The point of religion seems to be to start with something as simple as thou shall not kill and end u... BOBBY W. MILLER I'm asking God to bless you with something that unsettles you, disturbs you, and upsets you. CRAIG GROESCHEL What is it that makes you so angry, bothers you so deeply, that you're compelled to act? CRAIG GROESCHEL Friendship is a double-edged sword one side it can be great and true but the other side it spells be... GARY F EVANS... Do no look for that ideal person to be with, be that ideal person. JEFFREY FRY Anyone can learn how to communicate with animals if they are open to the process and willing to prac... KAREN A. ANDERSON When you have too many people and you're trying to satisfy everybody's input, you usually en... ROB ZOMBIE In video you are starting with nothing but a black screen. There's no game there. With pinball y... EUGENE JARVIS If someone says something unkind about me, I must live so that no one will believe it. UNKNOWN Then you've made the only choice. But there's a penalty attached, as there is to most things you wan... MARGARET MITCHELL Paradoxical as it may seem, to believe in youth is to look backward; to look forward we must believe... DOROTHY L. SAYERS I always thought the point of life was something richer than that. Something full of great tragedy o... JONATHAN RAYMOND We may claim to believe in God, but we don't want to believe so much that it makes us different. CRAIG GROESCHEL The market is still waiting for HSBC results, which will have a big impact on the direction of the m... ANDREW TO Property shares had a technical rebound, but interest rate concerns will still affect properties unt... ANDREW TO Bank of China's results were quite good; double-digit growth can be taken as good results for a bank... ANDREW TO The index tried to challenge 18,000 but failed, so that triggered profit taking. Tokyo's slide also ... ANDREW TO Trading seems to be focusing on selective counters because investors are cautious amid interest rate... ANDREW TO We're seeing a minor technical rebound after Wall Street rebounded from two days of losses. The key ... ANDREW TO Some investors have returned to pick up the stock at bargain prices. ANDREW TO I think the take-up for the placement is not too good and other property developers may be discourag... ANDREW TO We are afraid that our freedoms and liberties will be infringed in the future. ANDREW TO I think there was some minor selling pressure on telecom stocks as the market continued to see a wea... ANDREW TO Life is so transient, finite, and fragile that there is no time to hate anyone. DEBASISH MRIDHA To start something you need to set a starting point first. This way, you will know how much you have... EPHDAN I'm asking God to give you a Popeye moment. A moment when God blesses you with a divine burden: some... CRAIG GROESCHEL The world is governed more by appearances than realities, so that it is fully as necessary to seem t... DANIEL WEBSTER The world is governed more by appearance than realities so that it is fully as necessary to seem to ... DANIEL WEBSTER Why be an ostrich? MARGARET MITCHELL Everyone kept telling me not to worry someone will do something. No one did so I became someone and ... MARK A. COOPER The trouble with deep belief is that it costs something And there is something inside me, some selfi... DONALD MILLER I did that so we could end the day with something no one would forget. Four bluegrass legends saluti... JOE MULLINS In order to honor God with your wealth, you first have to admit that you are rich. Most people won't... CRAIG GROESCHEL It's inexplicable that he can't do something so simple as to not get involved in criminal activity. SCOTT DAVIS It is a positive starting point for philosophy when Aristotle says that philosophy begins with wonde... SøREN KIERKEGAARD Miracle is not so far away but easy to fade away. MAZ NO PARADISE The world is governed more by appearances than by realities, so that it is fully as necessary to see... DANIEL WEBSTER I have a dream, I have a vision, I have a mission, I have to do something, I will do this at this ti... ERNEST AGYEMANG YEBOAH War is no solution to peace. BEN OAK My religious philosophy is kindness. Try to be kind. That's something worth achieving. PIERCE BROSNAN Why bother with a cunning plan when a simple one will do? TERRY PRATCHETT if it doesn't come bursting out of you in spite of everything, don't do it. unless it... CHARLES BUKOWSKI I'm not exactly sure what I'd do, you know, but something interesting - something that's all mine. S... NATALIE BABBITT How do we rebuild a city that is so complicated, and interestingly so? ... There will be an impulse ... KRISTINA FORD Would it please you if I said your eyes were twin gold-fish bowls filled to the brim with the cleare... MARGARET MITCHELL Communication is something so simple and difficult that we can never put it in simple words. Nothing is quite so beautiful as when you share it with it with someone else. There is no purpose in... LOUIS L'AMOUR You are already choosing, in every moment of every day, what to give a fuck about, so change is as s... MARK MANSON If something becomes old-fashioned, it was no good to start with. Think about it. Michelangelo is no... DAVID BAILEY It takes only one other person to say it's so- one other point of reality to make something real. MAL PANCOAST It takes only one other person to say it's so-one other point of reality to make something real. MAL PANCOAST It takes only one other person to say it's so—one other point of
reality—to make something real. MAL PANCOAST It turned out this man worked for the Dalai Lama. And she said gently-that they believe when a lot o... ANNE LAMOTT Writing a book is very personal. It's a very personal relationship. A book will start with somet... RON CARLSON Many first-time novelists end up rewriting their first two or three chapters, trying to get them ... MATT HUGHES A child is beset with long traditions. And his infancy is so old, so old, that the mere adding of ye... ALICE MEYNELL The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, every... ALAN W. WATTS All I ever did to that apartment was hang fifty yards of yellow theatrical silk across the bedroom w... JOAN DIDION We can never make proper goodbyes. It was your last ride in a Checker cab and you had no warning. It... COLSON WHITEHEAD Where I used to think that this life would be good. And I would do things that I thought that I shou... SOMETHING CORPORATE Nothing is ever as good or as bad as it appears to be. JEFFREY FRY Sometimes shit's gotta be done and I just fuckin' do it! MANUEL MONGRAIN The idea is to believe me... but as far as I see the world... to believe is a sin... to trust me one... DEYTH BANGER 23. With God, even when nothing is happening...something is happening. JAMES C. DOBSON No one is so brave that he is not disturbed by something unexpected. JULIUS CAESAR And when someone grows up knowing so little of what real love feels like, whether from family, or fr... J.A. REDMERSKI We are ready to sacrifice our souls, our children and our families so as not to give up Iraq. We say... SADDAM HUSSEIN Here is one fact 1 minute to finish the class, 1 day to die, one day behind that fact, one day in th... DEYTH BANGER Can I buy you a drink when you get off?" "I don't drink. Alcohol is bad for my legs." ERIC JEROME DICKEY Focus on faith and grow your roots strong and deep so no one can make you believe in something that ... MOLLY FRIEDENFELD It is hard to believe that something that seems so permanent was once so different. Change. I guess ... ELLEN HOPKINS 'Fox News' will one day come to an end. Led Zeppelin will not. It's as simple as that. HENRY ROLLINS When BEE in life not desirable , how can FREEBIES be. ANUJ SOMANY In the religious life it is possible to commit an analogous error, and to prize so unwisely peaceful... ALEXANDER MACLAREN Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it SARA SHEPARD It is the end of something simple and the beginning of everything else. JENNIFER BAKER (WRITER) [The win] feels really good. I won it as a freshman, so it feels good to start and end with a win. BRETT STEGMAIER If it's going to be windy, put some rocks around it. Something simple, just throw on a blanket, a sh... BRIAN JERVIS But human experience is usually paradoxical, that means incongruous with the phrases of current talk... GEORGE ELIOT We seem to have lost our contact with the primordial: the idea of - call it divine revelation as opp... JOHN TAVENER I think it is a big deal. It's not something we're pleased with. It's disconcerting, extremely so. T... SKIP PROSSER People who pretend to be your friend lead you up a garden path by saying everything that you want to... GARY F EVANS... If you stick with a vision, it might not all work, but some of it will be absolute genius. To me, 15... KIM CATTRALL The simple fact is that not enough people want to watch my program, and I owe it to myself and to CN... CAMPBELL BROWN The sea is the vast reservoir of Nature. The globe began with sea, so to speak; and who knows if it ... JULES VERNE There's a cliff at the end point of a person's life; most us of peer over the edge of it, hanging on... JODI PICOULT The only thing I can think of is that if you start with something, it progresses to something else. ... CARROLL PADGETT One of the problems with episodic television of any color is that everything has got to be okay at t... PETER CAPALDI What they're facing with their daughter's cancer is something that no family should have to go throu... KATHY WALT It is always a blow to lose a person like Dwayne Smith who can strike the ball so well and is also w... HENDY SPRINGER It's so simple to be wise. Just think of something stupid to say and say the opposite. SAM LEVENSON With our pace of growth it is very difficult for us to rely on our in-house financing, money from ou... BILLY CHIU I believe that everything we think and feel and do produces a result and that we have to deal with t... SHYAM SELVADURAI Our overall philosophy was to invest in permanent facilities rather than temporary facilities. We st... BILL MILLER 37. It is better to be single and unhappy than unhappily married. JAMES C. DOBSON Some things needed to end so that something new, something great can begin. ANN MARIE AGUILAR She is so free with herself and so certain of her path, something I now cynically believe only comes... THOMM QUACKENBUSH
More Bertrand Russel
Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed. BERTRAND RUSSEL 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 RUSSEL The thing that I should wish to obtain from money would be leisure with security. BERTRAND RUSSEL Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power. BERTRAND RUSSEL Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown a... BERTRAND RUSSEL Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the s... BERTRAND RUSSEL One should respect public opinion in so far as it is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of p... BERTRAND RUSSEL No one gossips about other people's secret virtues. BERTRAND RUSSEL To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead. BERTRAND RUSSEL 'Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the ... BERTRAND RUSSEL Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it. RUSSEL LYNES People need to be cautious because anything built by man can be destroyed by Mother Nature. RUSSEL HONORE When you form a team, why do you try to form a team? Because teamwork builds trust and trust builds ... RUSSEL HONORE Leadership is working with goals and vision; management is working with objectives. RUSSEL HONORE By-and-large, these are families that are just waiting to get out of here. They are frustrated; I wo... RUSSEL HONORE They never loved the way you were, Then be the one they can never have. MUNCHKIN RUSSEL You dint loved me the way I was, You don't deserve me the way I am. MUNCHKIN RUSSEL The National Guard has served America as both a wartime force and the first military responders in t... RUSSEL HONORE Leadership means forming a team and working toward common objectives that are tied to time, metrics,... RUSSEL HONORE You know, we lose more homes every year to flooding than we do any other event in America. RUSSEL HONORE Fidelity bases its IPO allocation policy entirely on asset size and that's the way it should be, RUSSEL KINNEL Fidelity bases its IPO allocation policy entirely on asset size and that's the way it should be. RUSSEL KINNEL Long distance kill touch & Arguments kill love.
Strike one out & your the most loving couple ever MUNCHKIN RUSSEL Last year people got panicky about corporate debt because of Enron and WorldCom. The spread (between... RUSSEL KINNEL They went into stores to get food to stay alive. Looting isn't the right word. I call it surviva... RUSSEL HONORE During the aftermath of Katrina, National Guard troops were positioned on every block to establish a... RUSSEL HONORE I know 8 know nothing BERNARD RUSSEL It's a good strategy, a good manager, just not a very appealing wrapper. RUSSEL KINNEL In an age when the fashion is to be in love with yourself, confessing to being in love with somebody... RUSSEL BAKER Happiness is a small and unworthy goal for something as big and fancy as a
whole lifetime, and shoul... RUSSEL BAKER A wife encourages her husband's egoism in order to encourage her own. RUSSEL GREEN The preparations are what they are. We're here. The storm is coming. We are as best prepared as ... RUSSEL HONORE Generally you go with a manager who has a meaningful track record somewhere. It doesn't guarantee th... RUSSEL KINNEL Before Katrina, it was a longstanding tradition in our country for political officials to wait until... RUSSEL HONORE Hurricane Sandy was one of the most vicious storm systems to hit the New York City area in nearly tw... RUSSEL HONORE Most active managers are investing in what they think is a sure thing rather than their best specula... RUSSEL KINNEL We got the capacity, and it seemed like the right thing to do. RUSSEL HONORE Every journalist has a novel in him, which is an excellent place for it. J. RUSSEL LYNES When a man has done all he can do, still there is a mighty, mysterious agency over which he needs in... RUSSEL H. CONWELL Let every man or woman here, if you never hear me again, remember this, that if you wish to be great... RUSSEL H. CONWELL No matter what you do, do it to your utmost. I always attribute my success to always requiring mysel... RUSSEL H. CONWELL Cynicism is the intellectual cripple's substitute for intelligence. J. RUSSEL LYNES Modification of form is admitted to be a matter of time. ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE In all works on Natural History, we constantly find details of the marvellous adaptation of animals ... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE I spent, as you know, a year and a half in a clergyman's family and heard almost every Tuesday t... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE I then walk off into the swamp along the path of logs and tree-trunks, picking my way cautiously, no... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE I spent, as you know, a year and a half in a clergyman's family and heard almost every Tuesday the v... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE I hold with Henry George, that at the back of every great social evil will be found a great politica... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE I have since wandered among men of many races and many religions. ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE I am thankful I can see much to admire in all religions. ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE I am decidedly of the opinion that in very many instances we can trace such a necessary connexion, e... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE Civilisation has ever accompanied emigration and conquest - the conflict of opinion, of religion, or... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE But I think that a little consideration will show you that belief is quite independent of our will, ... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE As well might it be said that, because we are ignorant of the laws by which metals are produced and ... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE But naturalists are now beginning to look beyond this, and to see that there must be some other prin... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE The only gracious way to accept an insult is to ignore it; if you can't ignore it, top it; if you c... J. RUSSEL LYNES The life of wild animals is a struggle for existence. The full exertion of all their faculties and a... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE There is a tendency in nature to the continued progression of certain classes of varieties further a... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE If this is not done, future ages will certainly look back upon us as a people so immersed in the pur... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE The foregoing considerations lead us to the very important conclusion, that matter is essentially fo... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE In my solitude I have pondered much on the incomprehensible subjects of space, eternity, life and de... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE To say that mind is a product or function of protoplasm, or of its molecular changes, is to use word... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE Many of us spend our lives searching for success when it is usually so close that we can reach out a... RUSSEL H. CONWELL It has been generally the custom of writers on natural history to take the habits and instincts of a... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE To expect the world to receive a new truth, or even an old truth, without challenging it, is to look... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE What we need are not prohibitory marriage laws, but a reformed society, an educated public opinion w... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE Truth is born into this world only with pangs and tribulations, and every fresh truth is received un... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE What birds can have their bills more peculiarly formed than the ibis, the spoonbill, and the heron? ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE To the mass of mankind religion of some kind is a necessity. ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE There is, I conceive, no contradiction in believing that mind is at once the cause of matter and of ... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE On the spiritual theory, man consists essentially of a spiritual nature or mind intimately associate... ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE The Allied governments, for example, with the British as executors, maintained in place the food blo... RUSSEL H.S. STOLFI We didn't want another Kent State. They weren't trained for crowd control. RUSSEL L. HONORE 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