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I Believe That When I Die I Shall Rot, And Nothing Of My Ego Will Survive. I Am Not Young, And I Love Life. But I Should Scorn To Shiver With Terror At The Thought Of Annihilation. Happiness Is Nonetheless True Happiness Because It Must Come To An End, Nor Do Thought And Love Lose Their Value Because They Are Not Everlasting.

-Bertrand Russell

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I Believe That When

Bertrand Russell

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I Believe That When I Die I Shall Rot, And Nothing Of My Ego Will Survive. I Am Not Young, And I Love Life. But I Should Scorn To Shiver With Terror At The Thought Of Annihilation. Happiness Is Nonetheless True Happiness Because It Must Come To An End, Nor Do Thought And Love Lose Their Value Because They Are Not Everlasting.

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A Priori Logical Propositions Are Such As Can Be Known A Priori Without Study Of The Actual World.

It Is Because Modern Education Is So Seldom Inspired By A Great Hope That It So Seldom Achieves Great Results. The Wish To Preserve The Past Rather That The Hope Of Creatingfuture Dominates The Minds Of Those Who Control The Teaching Of The Young.

Self-respect Will Keep A Man From Being Abject When He Is In The Power Of Enemies, And Will Enable Him To Feel That He May Be In The Right When The World Is Against Him.

Most Human Beings, Though In Varying Degrees, Desire To Control, Not Only Their Own Lives But Also The Lives Of Others

Lives Of Others

I Am Myself A Dissenter From All Known Religions, And I Hope That Every Kind Of Religious Belief Will Die Out.

As Soon As We Abandon Our Own Reason, And Are Content To Rely Upon Authority, There Is No End To Our Troubles.

Even If It Is Indifferent To Human Desires, As It Seems To Be; If Human Life Is A Passing Episode, Hardly Noticeable In The Vastness Of Cosmic Processes; If There Is No Superhuman Purpose, And No Hope Of Ultimate Salvation, It Is Better To Know And Acknowledge This Truth Than To Endeavor, In Futile Self-assertion, To Order The Universe To Be What We Find Comfortable.

If You Had The Power To Destroy The World, Would You Do So?

The Fundamental Defect Of Fathers, In Our Competitive Society, Is That They Want Their Children To Be A Credit To Them. We All Feel Instinctively, That Our Children's Success Reflect Glory Upon Ourselves, While Their Failures Make Us Feel Shame. Unfortunately, The Successes Which Cause Us To Swell With Pride Are Often Of An Undesirable Kind.... Neither Happiness Nor Virtue, But Worldly Success, Is What The Average Father Desires For His Children.

There Is... In Our Day, A Powerful Antidote To Nonsense, Which Hardly Existed In Earlier Times - I Mean Science. Science Cannot Be Ignored Or Rejected, Because It Is Bound Up With Modern Technique; It Is Essential Alike To Prosperity In Peace And To Victory In War. That Is, Perhaps From An Intellectual Point Of View, The Most Hopeful Feature Of Our Age, And The One Which Makes It Most Likely That We Shall Escape Complete Submersion In Some New Or Old Superstition.

In All The Creative Work That I Have Done, What Has Come First Is A Problem, A Puzzle Involving Discomfort.

Man Can Be Stimulated By Hope Or Driven By Fear, But The Hope And The Fear Must Be Vivid And Immediate If They Are To Be Effective Without Producing Weariness.

If One Lived For Ever The Joys Of Life Would Inevitably In The End Lose Their Savour. As It Is, They Remain Perennially Fresh.

On The One Hand, Philosophy Is To Keep Us Thinking About Things That We May Come To Know, And On The Other Hand To Keep Us Modestly Aware Of How Much That Seems Like Knowledge Isn't Knowledge

Obviousness Is Always The Enemy Of Correctness.

This Is One Of Those Views Which Are So Absolutely Absurd That Only Very Learned Men Could Possibly Adopt Them.

Religions That Teach Brotherly Love Have Been Used As An Excuse For Persecution, And Our Profoundest Scientific Insight Is Made Into A Means Of Mass Destruction.

Mass Destruction

Religion Is Something Left Over From The Infancy Of Our Intelligence, It Will Fade Away As We Adopt Reason And Science As Our Guidelines.

Democracy Is The Process By Which People Choose The Man Who'll Get The Blame.

No Satisfaction Based Upon Self-deception Is Solid.

Man Needs, For His Happiness, Not Only The Enjoyment Of This Or That, But Hope And Enterprise And Change.

When The Journey From Means To End Is Not Too Long, The Means Themselves Are Enjoyed If The End Is Ardently Desired.

I Often Long To . . . Give Up My Life To Love Of My Neighbour. This Is Really A Temptation.

[there Has Been] Every Kind Of Cruelty Practiced Upon All Sorts Of People In The Name Of Religion.

Beggars Do Not Envy Millionaires, Though Of Course They Will Envy Other Beggars Who Are More Successful.

Good Nature Is, Of All Moral Qualities, The One That The World Needs Most, And Good Nature Is The Result Of Ease And Security, Not Of A Life Of Arduous Struggle.

These Illustrations Suggest Four General Maxims[...]. The First Is: Remember That Your Motives Are Not Always As Altruistic As They Seem To Yourself. The Second Is: Don't Over-estimate Your Own Merits. The Third Is: Don't Expect Others To Take As Much Interest In You As You Do Yourself. And The Fourth Is: Don't Imagine That Most People Give Enough Thought To You To Have Any Special Desire To Persecute You.

Mystery Is Delightful, But Unscientific, Since It Depends Upon Ignorance.

I Do Not Pretend To Be Able To Prove That There Is No God. I Equally Cannot Prove That Satan Is A Fiction. The Christian God May Exist; So May The Gods Of Olympus, Or Of Ancient Egypt, Or Of Babylon. But No One Of These Hypotheses Is More Probable Than Any Other: They Lie Outside The Region Of Even Probable Knowledge, And Therefore There Is No Reason To Consider Any Of Them.

Change Is Scientific; Progress Is Ethical; Change Is Indubitable, Whereas Progress Is A Matter Of Controversy.

One Eminently Orthodox Catholic Divine Laid It Down That A Confessor May Fondle A Nun's Breasts, Provided He Does It Without Evil Intent.

Your Writing Is Never As Good As You Hoped; But Never As Bad As You Feared.

Africans Had To Be Taught That Nudity Is Wicked; This Was Done Very Cheaply By Missionaries.

One Is Always A Little Afraid Of Love, But Above All, One Is Afraid Of Pain Or Causing Pain.

Advocates Of Capitalism Are Very Apt To Appeal To The Sacred Principles Of Liberty, Which Are Embodied In One Maxim: The Fortunate Must Not Be Restrained In The Exercise Of Tyranny Over The Unfortunate.

St. Paul Introduced An Entirely Novel View Of Marriage, That It Existed Primarily To Prevent The Sin Of Fornication. It Is Just As If One Were To Maintain That The Sole Reason For Baking Bread Is To Prevent People From Stealing Cake.

The Teacher, Like The Artist, The Philosopher, And The Man Of Letters, Can Only Perform His Work Adequately If He Feels Himself To Be An Individual Directed By An Inner Creative Impulse, Not Dominated And Fettered By An Outside Authority.

I Must, Before I Die, Find Some Way To Say The Essential Thing That Is In Me, That I Have Never Said Yet -- A Thing That Is Not Love Or Hate Or Pity Or Scorn, But The Very Breath Of Life, Fierce And Coming From Far Away, Bringing Into Human Life The Vastness And The Fearful Passionless Force Of Non-human Things.

I Think It Would Be Just To Say The Most Essential Characteristic Of Mind Is Memory, Using This Word In Its Broadest Sense To Include Every Influence Of Past Experience On Present Reactions.

Every Isolated Passion, Is, In Isolation, Insane; Sanity May Be Defined As Synthesis Of Insanities. Every Dominant Passion Generates A Dominant Fear, The Fear Of Its Non-fulfillment. Every Dominant Fear Generates A Nightmare, Sometimes In Form Of Explicit And Conscious Fanaticism, Sometimes In Paralyzing Timidity, Sometimes In An Unconscious Or Subconscious Terror Which Finds Expression Only In Dreams. The Man Who Wishes To Preserve Sanity In A Dangerous World Should Summon In His Own Mind A Parliament Of Fears, In Which Each In Turn Is Voted Absurd By All The Others.

I Do Wish I Believed In The Life Eternal, For It Makes Me Quite Miserable To Think Man Is Merely A Kind Of Machine Endowed, Unhappily For Himself, With Consciousness.

One Of The Chief Triumphs Of Modern Mathematics Consists In Having Discovered What Mathematics Really Is.

When We Look At A Rock What We Are Seeing Is Not The Rock, But The Effect Of The Rock Upon Us.

My Sad Conviction Is That People Can Only Agree About What They're Not Really Interested In.

For A Good Notation Has A Subtlety And Suggestiveness Which At Times Make It Seem Almost Like A Live Teacher.

To Speak Seriously: The Standards Of "goodness" Which Are Generally Recognized By Public Opinion Are Not Those Which Are Calculated To Make The World A Happier Place. This Is Due To A Variety Of Causes, Of Which The Chief Is Tradition, And The Next Most Powerful Is The Unjust Power Of Dominant Classes.

Throughout The Long Period Of Religious Doubt, I Had Been Rendered Very Unhappy By The Gradual Loss Of Belief, But When The Process Was Completed, I Found To My Surprise That I Was Quite Glad To Be Done With The Whole Subject.

There Are Infinite Possibilities Of Error, And More Cranks Take Up Fashionable Untruths Than Unfashionable Truths.

The Time You Enjoy Wasting Is Not Wasted Time.

Love As A Relation Between Men And Women Was Ruined By The Desire To Make Sure Of The Legitimacy Of Children.

Stupidity And Unconscious Bias Often Work More Damage Than Venality.

Education Ought To Foster The Wish For Truth, Not The Conviction That Some Particular Creed Is The Truth.

A World Full Of Happiness Is Not Beyond Human Power To Create; The Obstacles Imposed By Inanimate Nature Are Not Insuperable. The Real Obstacles Lie In The Heart Of Man, And The Cure For These Is A Firm Hope, Informed And Fortified By Thought.

The Whiter My Hair Becomes, The More Ready People Are To Believe What I Say.

I Am Allowed To Use Plain English Because Everybody Knows That I Could Use Mathematical Logic If I Chose.

Mathematical Logic

Collective Fear Stimulates Herd Instinct, And Tends To Produce Ferocity Toward Those Who Are Not Regarded As Members Of The Herd.

To Like Many People Spontaneously And Without Effort Is Perhaps The Greatest Of All Sources Of Personal Happiness.

For My Part, The Thing I Would Wish To Obtain From Money Would Be Leisure With Security. But What The Typical Modern Man Desires To Get With It Is More Money, With A View To Ostentation, Splendour, And The Outshining Of Those Who Have Hitherto Been His Equals.

The Wise Use Of Leisure, It Must Be Conceded, Is A Product Of Civilization And Education.

What's The Difference Between A Bright, Inquisitive Five-year-old, And A Dull, Stupid Nineteen-year-old? Fourteen Years Of The British Educational System.

Measures Of Sterilization Should, In My Opinion, Be Very Definitely Confined To Persons Who Are Mentally Defective

A Democrat Need Not Believe That The Majority Will Always Reach A Wise Decision. He Should However Believe In The Necessity Of Accepting The Decision Of The Majority, Be It Wise Or Unwise, Until Such A Time That The Majority Reaches Another Decision.

You Must Believe That You Can Help Bring About A Better World.

Speaking Psycho-analytically, It May Be Laid Down That Any "great Ideal" Which People Mention With Awe Is Really An Excuse For Inflicting Pain On Their Enemies. Good Wine Needs No Bush, And Good Morals Need No Bated Breath.

The Man Who Only Loves Beautiful Things Is Dreaming, Whereas The Man Who Knows Absolute Beauty Is Wide Awake.

Nothing Of Importance Is Ever Achieved Without Discipline. I Feel Myself Sometimes Not Wholly In Sympathy With Some Modern Educational Theorists, Because I Think That They Underestimate The Part That Discipline Plays. But The Discipline You Have In Your Life Should Be One Determined By Your Own Desires And Your Own Needs, Not Put Upon You By Society Or Authority.

Whether Science-and Indeed Civilization In General-can Long Survive Depends Upon Psychology, That Is To Say, It Depends Upon What Human Beings Desire.

Many Orthodox People Speak As Though It Were The Business Of Sceptics To Disprove Received Dogmas Rather Than Of Dogmatists To Prove Them. This Is, Of Course, A Mistake.

Continuity Of Purpose Is One Of The Most Essential Ingredients Of Happiness In The Long Run, And For Most Men That Comes Chiefly Through Their Work.

With The Introduction Of Agriculture Mankind Entered Upon A Long Period Of Meanness, Misery, And Madness, From Which They Are Only Now Being Freed By The Beneficent Operation Of The Machine.

European Travellers Find The Japanese A Smiling Race.

It Is Permissible With Certain Precautions To Speak In Print Of Coitus, But It Is Not Permissible To Employ The Monosyllabic Synonym For This Word.

The Time Has Come, Or Is About To Come, When Only Large-scale Civil Disobedience, Which Should Be Nonviolent, Can Save The Populations From The Universal Death Which Their Governments Are Preparing For Them.

Bertrand Russell, The Philosophy Of Logical Atomism We've Associated That Word Philosophy With Academic Study That In Its Own Way Has Gotten So Far Beyond The Layman That If You Read Contemporary Philosophy You've No Clue, Because It's Almost Become Math. And It's Odd That If You Don't Do That And You Call Yourself A Philosopher That You Always Get 'homespun' Attached To It.

To Create A Healthy Philosophy You Should Renounce Metaphysics But Be A Good Mathematician.

There Is A Possibility In Human Minds Of Something Mysterious As The Night-wind, Deep As The Sea, Calm As The Stars, And Strong As Death, A Mystic Contemplation, The “intellectual Love Of God.” Those Who Have Known It Cannot Believe In Wars Any Longer, Or In Any Kind Of Hot Struggle. If I Could Give To Others What Has Come To Me In This Way, I Could Make Them Too Feel The Futility Of Fighting. But I Do Not Know How To Communicate It: When I Speak, They Stare, Applaud, Or Smile, But Do Not Understand.

Belief In A Divine Mission Is One Of The Many Forms Of Certainty That Have Afflicted The Human Race.

I Find It So Difficult Not To Hate, When I Do Not Hate I Feel We Few Are So Lonely In The World

Philosophy Bakes No Bread

You, Your Families, Your Friends And Your Countries Are To Be Exterminated By The Common Decision Of A Few Brutal But Powerful Men. To Please These Men, All The Private Affections, All The Public Hopes, All That Has Been Achieved In Art, And Knowledge And Thought And All That Might Be Achieved Hereafter Is To Be Wiped Out Forever. Our Ruined Lifeless Planet Will Continue For Countless Ages To Circle Aimlessly Round The Sun Unredeemed By The Joys And Loves, The Occasional Wisdom And The Power To Create Beauty Which Have Given Value To Human Life.

Against The Vast Majority Of My Countrymen, Even At This Moment, In The Name Of Humanity And Civilization, I Protest Against Our Share In The Destruction Of Germany. A Month Ago Europe Was A Peaceful Comity Of Nations; If An Englishman Killed A German, He Was Hanged. Now, If An Englishman Kills A German, Or If A German Kills An Englishman, He Is A Patriot, Who Has Deserved Well Of His Country.

Men Fear Thought As They Fear Nothing Else On Earth - More Than Ruin, More Even Than Death.

I Do Not Think That The Real Reason Why People Accept Religion Has Anything To Do With Argumentation. They Accept Religion On Emotional Grounds.

The Slave Is Doomed To Worship Time And Fate And Death, Because They Are Greater Than Anything He Finds In Himself, And Because All His Thoughts Are Of Things Which They Devour.

Thought Is Great And Swift And Free, The Light Of The World, The Chief Glory Of Man.

Philosophy, From The Earliest Times, Has Made Greater Claims, And Achieved Fewer Results, Than Any Other Branch Of Learning.

Awareness Of Universals Is Called Conceiving, And A Universal Of Which We Are Aware Is Called A Concept.

Philosophy Seems To Me On The Whole A Rather Hopeless Business.

Against My Will, In The Course Of My Travels, The Belief That Everything Worth Knowing Was Known At Cambridge Gradually Wore Off. In This Respect My Travels Were Very Useful To Me.

Almost All Education Has A Political Motive: It Aims At Strengthening Some Group, National Or Religious Or Even Social, In The Competition With Other Groups. It Is This Motive, In The Main, Which Determines The Subjects Taught, The Knowledge Offered And The Knowledge Withheld, And Also Decides What Mental Habits The Pupils Are Expected To Acquire. Hardly Anything Is Done To Foster The Inward Growth Of Mind And Spirit; In Fact, Those Who Have Had The Most Education Are Very Often Atrophied In Their Mental And Spiritual Life.

When People Begin To Philosophize They Seem To Think It Necessary To Make Themselves Artificially Stupid.

Aristotle's Metaphysics, Roughly Speaking, May Be Described As Plato Diluted By Common Sense. He Is Difficult Because Plato And Common Sense Do Not Mix Easily.

The More Things A Man Is Interested In, The More Opportunities Of Happiness He Has And The Less He Is At The Mercy Of Fate, Since If He Loses One Thing He Can Fall Back Upon Another.

Mathematics May Be Defined As The Subject In Which We Never Know What We Are Talking About, Nor Whether What We Are Saying Is True.

I Am Paid By The Word, So I Always Write The Shortest Words Possible.

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.

People Seem Good While They Are Oppressed, But They Only Wish To Become Oppressors In Their Turn: Life Is Nothing But A Competition To Be The Criminal Rather Than The Victim.

If Everything Has A Cause, Then God Must Have A Cause. If There Can Be Anything Without A Cause, It May Just Be The World As God.

We Are All Prone To The Malady Of The Introvert Who With The Manifold Spectacle Of The World Spread Out Before Him, Turns Away And Gazes Only Upon The Emptiness Within.

The First Effect Of Emancipation From The Church Was Not To Make Men Think Rationally, But To Open Their Minds To Every Sort Of Antique Nonsense

In The Higher Walks Of Politics The Same Sort Of Thing Occurs. The Statesman Who Has Gradually Concentrated All Power Within Himself ... May Have Had Anything But A Public Motive... The Phrases Which Are Customary On The Platform And In The Party Press Have Gradually Come To Him To Seem To Express Truths, And He Mistakes The Rhetoric Of Partisanship For A Genuine Analysis Of Motives... He Retires From The World After The World Has Retired From Him.

If We Were All Given By Magic The Power To Read Each Other's Thoughts, I Suppose The First Effect Would Be To Dissolve All Friendships.

Friendship Love

A Truer Image Of The World, I Think, Is Obtained By Picturing Things As Entering Into The Stream Of Time From An Eternal World Outside, Than From A View Which Regards Time As The Devouring Tyrant Of All That Is.

Even If The Open Windows Of Science At First Make Us Shiver After The Cozy Indoor Warmth Of Traditional Humanizing Myths, In The End The Fresh Air Brings Vigor, And The Great Spaces Have A Splendor Of Their Own.

The Reformative Effect Of Punishment Is A Belief That Dies Hard, Chiefly I Think, Because It Is So Satisfying To Our Sadistic Impulses.

Descartes, The Father Of Modern Philosophy ... Would Never-so He Assures Us-have Been Led To Construct His Philosophy If He Had Had Only One Teacher, For Then He Would Have Believed What He Had Been Told; But, Finding That His Professors Disagreed With Each Other, He Was Forced To Conclude That No Existing Doctrine Was Certain.

We Know Very Little, And Yet It Is Astonishing That We Know So Much, And Still More Astonishing That So Little Knowledge Can Give Us So Much Power.

If An Opinion Contrary To Your Own Makes You Angry, That Is A Sign That You Are Subsciously Aware Of Having No Good Reason For Thinking As You Do. [...] The Most Savage Controversies Are Those About Matters As To Which There Is No Good Evidence Either Way. Persecution Is Used In Theology, Not In Arithmetic, Because In Arithmetic There Is Knowledge, But In Theology There Is Only Opinion. So Whenever You Find Yourself Getting Angry About A Difference Of Opinion, Be On Your Guard; You Will Probably Find, On Examination, That Your Belief Is Going Beyond What The Evidence Warrants.

Finding Yourself

No Man Treats A Motorcar As Foolishly As He Treats Another Human Being. When The Car Will Not Go, He Does Not Attribute Its Annoying Behavior To Sin; He Does Not Say, 'you Are A Wicked Motorcar, And I Shall Not Give You Any More Petrol Until You Go.' He Attempts To Find Out What Is Wrong And To Set It Right.

Dogma Demands Authority, Rather Than Intelligent Thought, As The Source Of Opinion; It Requires Persecution Of Heretics And Hostility To Unbelievers; It Asks Of Its Disciples That They Should Inhibit Natural Kindliness In Favor Of Systematic Hatred.

Philosophers, For The Most Part, Are Constitutionally Timid, And Dislike The Unexpected. Few Of Them Would Be Genuinely Happy As Pirates Or Burglars. Accordingly They Invent Systems Which Make The Future Calculable, At Least In Its Main Outlines.

Every Man, Wherever He Goes, Is Encompassed By A Cloud Of Comforting Convictions, Which Move With Him Like Flies On A Summer Day.

Punctuality Is A Quality The Need Of Which Is Bound Up With Social Co-operation.

That Which Exists Through Itself Is Called The Eternal. The Eternal Has Neither Name Nor Shape. It Is The One Essence, The One Primal Spirit. Essence And Life Cannot Be Seen. They Are Contained In The Light Of Heaven. The Light Of Heaven Cannot Be Seen. It Is Contained In The Two Eyes.

Organic Life, We Are Told, Has Developed Gradually From The Protozoon To The Philosopher, And This Development, We Are Assured, Is Indubitably An Advance. Unfortunately It Is The Philosopher, Not The Protozoon, Who Gives Us This Assurance.

I Do Not Believe That Science Per Se Is An Adequate Source Of Happiness, Nor Do I Think That My Own Scientific Outlook Has Contributed Very Greatly To My Own Happiness, Which I Attribute To Defecating Twice A Day With Unfailing Regularity.

While Economics Is About How People Make Choice, Sociology Is About How They Don't Have Any Choice To Make.

Remember Your Humanity, And Forget The Rest.

Arithmetic Must Be Discovered In Just The Same Sense In Which Columbus Discovered The West Indies, And We No More Create Numbers Than He Created The Indians.

To The Young I Should Offer Two Maxims: Don't Accept Superficial Solutions Of Difficult Problems. It Is Better To Do A Little Good Than Much Harm. I Should Not Offer Anything More Specific; Every Young Person Should Decide On His Or Her Own Credo.

I Am Compelled To Fear That Science Will Be Used To Promote The Power Of Dominant Groups Rather Than To Make Men Happy.

We May Often Do As We Please - But We Cannot Please As We Please.

Well, There Are Many Religions, But I Suppose They All Worship The Same God.

When A Man Tells You That He Knows The Exact Truth About Anything You Are Safe In Inferring That He Is An Inexact Man.

You Are A Wicked Motorcar, And I Shall Not Give You Any More Petrol Until You Go.

It Is Only In Marriage With The World That Our Ideals Can Bear Fruit; Divorced From It, They Remain Barren.

Joy Of Life... Depends Upon A Certain Spontaneity In Regard To Sex. Where Sex Is Repressed, Only Work Remains, And A Gospel Of Work For Work's Sake Never Produced Any Work Worth Doing.

I Was Told That The Chinese Said They Would Bury Me By The Western Lake And Build A Shrine To My Memory. I Have Some Slight Regret That This Did Not Happen, As I Might Have Become A God, Which Would Have Been Very Chic For An Atheist.

The Main Thing Needed To Make Men Happy Is Intelligence.

Meantime, The World In Which We Exist Has Other Aims. But It Will Pass Away, Burnt Up In The Fire Of Its Own Hot Passions; And From Its Ashes Will Spring A New And Younger World, Full Of Fresh Hope, Woth The Light Of Morning In Its Eyes.

The Human Race May Well Become Extinct Before The End Of The Century.

More Important Than The Curriculum Is The Question Of The Methods Of Teaching And The Spirit In Which The Teaching Is Given

Shakespeare . . . If He Does Not Give You Delight, You Had Better Ignore Him [if You Can].

Sir Arthur Eddington Deduces Religion From The Fact That Atoms Do Not Obey The Laws Of Mathematics. Sir James Jeans Deduces It From The Fact That They Do.

To Understand A Name You Must Be Acquainted With The Particular Of Which It Is A Name.

Mankind Has Become So Much One Family That We Cannot Insure Our Own Prosperity Except By Insuring That Of Everyone Else.

In View Of The Fact That In Any Future World War Nuclear Weapons Will Certainly Be Employed, And That Such Weapons Threaten The Continued Existence Of Mankind, We Urge The Governments Of The World To Realize, And To Acknowledge Publicly, That Their Purpose Cannot Be Furthered By A World War, And We Urge Them, Consequently, To Find Peaceful Means For The Settlement Of All Matters Of Dispute Between Them.

In Science The Successors Stand Upon The Shoulders Of Their Predecessors; Where One Man Of Supreme Genius Has Invented A Method, A Thousand Lesser Men Can Apply It. ... In Art Nothing Worth Doing Can Be Done Without Genius; In Science Even A Very Moderate Capacity Can Contribute To A Supreme Achievement.

Are You Never Afraid Of God's Judgement In Denying Him? Most Certainly Not. I Also Deny Zeus And Jupiter And Odin And Brahma, But This Causes Me No Qualms. I Observe That A Very Large Portion Of The Human Race Does Not Believe In God And Suffers No Visible Punishment In Consequence. And If There Were A God, I Think It Very Unlikely That He Would Have Such An Uneasy Vanity As To Be Offended By Those Who Doubt His Existence.

In Spite Of Death, The Mark And Seal Of The Parental Control, Man Is Yet Free, During His Brief Years, To Examine, To Criticise, To Know, And In Imagination To Create. To Him Alone, In The World With Which He Is Acquainted, This Freedom Belongs; And In This Lies His Superiority To The Resistless Forces That Control His Outward Life.

Our Instinctive Emotions Are Those That We Have Inherited From A Much More Dangerous World, And Contain, Therefore, A Larger Portion Of Fear Than They Should.

Dangerous World

I Do Not Myself Feel That Any Person Who Is Really Profoundly Humane Can Believe In Everlasting Punishment.

Undoubtedly The Desire For Food Has Been And Still Is One Of The Main Causes Of Political Events.

When You Meet With Opposition, Even If It Should Be From Your Husband Or Your Children, Endeavor To Overcome It By Argument And Not By Authority, For A Victory Dependent Upon Authority Is Unreal And Illusory.

Collective Wisdom, Alas, Is No Adequate Substitute For The Intelligence Of Individuals. Individuals Who Opposed Received Opinions Have Been The Source Of All Progress, Both Moral And Intellectual. They Have Been Unpopular, As Was Natural.

A Million Million Years Gives Us Some Time To Prepare For The End . . . Let Us Make The Best Of It.

Without Effort And Change, Human Life Cannot Remain Good. It Is Not A Finished Utopia That We Ought To Desire, But A World Where Imagination And Hope Are Alive And Active.

It Is One Of The Defects Of Modern Higher Education That It Has Become Too Much A Training In The Acquisition Of Certain Kinds Of Skill, And Too Little An Enlargement Of The Mind And Heart By An Impartial Survey Of The World.

In Obedience To The Feeling Of Reality, We Shall Insist That, In The Analysis Of Propositions, Nothing "unreal" Is To Be Admitted. But, After All, If There Is Nothing Unreal, How, It May Be Asked, Could We Admit Anything Unreal? The Reply Is That, In Dealing With Propositions, We Are Dealing In The First Instance With Symbols, And If We Attribute Significance To Groups Of Symbols Which Have No Significance, We Shall Fall Into The Error Of Admitting Unrealities, In The Only Sense In Which This Is Possible, Namely, As Objects Described.

Only In Thought Is Man A God; In Action And Desire We Are The Slaves Of Circumstance.

When You Are Studying Any Matter Or Considering Any Philosophy, Ask Yourself Only: What Are The Facts, And What Is The Truth That The Facts Bear Out. Never Let Yourself Be Diverted By What You Wish To Believe, But Look Only And Surely At What Are The Facts.

You Could Take Up The Line That Some Of The Gnostics Took Up - A Line Which I Often Thought Was A Very Plausible One - That As A Matter Of Fact This World That We Know Was Made By The Devil At A Moment When God Was Not Looking. There Is A Good Deal To Be Said For That, And I Am Not Concerned To Refute It.

No Man Is Liberated From Fear Who Dare Not See His Place In The World As It Is; No Man Can Achieve The Greatness Of Which He Is Capable Until He Has Allowed Himself To See His Own Littleness.

Those Whose Lives Are Fruitful To Themselves, To Their Friends, Or To The World Are Inspired By Hope And Sustained By Joy: They See In Imagination The Things That Might Be And The Way In Which They Are To Be Brought Into Existence.

As A Philosopher, If I Were Speaking To A Purely Philosophic Audience I Should Say That I Ought To Describe Myself As An Agnostic, Because I Do Not Think That There Is A Conclusive Argument By Which One Can Prove That There Is Not A God. On The Other Hand, If I Am To Convey The Right Impression To The Ordinary Man In The Street I Think That I Ought To Say That I Am An Atheist, Because, When I Say That I Cannot Prove That There Is Not A God, I Ought To Add Equally That I Cannot Prove That There Are Not The Homeric Gods.

The Use Of Self Control Is Like The Use Of Brakes On Train. It Is Useful When You Find Yourself In Wrong Direction But Merely Harmful When The Direction Is Right

As For Earthquakes, Though They Were Still Formidable, They Were So Interesting That Men Of Science Could Hardly Regret Them.

The Commonest Objection To Birth Control Is That It Is Against Nature.

The Pleasure Of Work Is Open To Anyone Who Can Develop Some Specialised Skill, Provided That He Can Get Satisfaction From The Exercise Of His Skill Without Demanding Universal Applause.

Dread Of Disaster Makes Everybody Act In The Very Way That Increases The Disaster. Psychologically The Situation Is Analogous To That Of People Trampled To Death When There Is A Panic In A Theatre Caused By A Cry Of `fire!'.

It Is False To Suggest That Men Must Turn Away From His Desires In The Interest Of A Higher Duty. Men Only Responds To Duty If He Desires To Do So. To Understand Men, You Must Understand Their Desires And The Relative Strength Of Those Desires.

Machines Have Altered Our Way Of Life, But Not Our Instincts. Consequently, There Is Maladjustment.

We Love Our Habits More Than Our Income, Often More Than Our Life.

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.

Aristotle Could Have Avoided The Mistake Of Thinking That Women Have Fewer Teeth Than Men, By The Simple Device Of Asking Mrs. Aristotle To Keep Her Mouth Open While He Counted.

One Who Believes, As I Do, That The Free Intellect Is The Chief Engine Of Human Progress, Cannot But Be Fundamentally Opposed To Bolshevism, As Much As To The Church Of Rome.

I Believe That The Abolition Of Private Ownership Of Land And Capital Is A Necessary Step Toward Any World In Which The Nations Are To Live At Peace With One Another.

Humanistic Ethics Is Based On The Principle That Only Humans Themselves Can Determine The Criterion For Virtue And Not An Authority Transcending Us.

There Is Much Pleasure To Be Gained From Useless Knowledge.

Facts Have To Be Discovered By Observation, Not By Reasoning

Our Great Democracies Still Tend To Think That A Stupid Man Is More Likely To Be Honest Than A Clever Man, And Our Politicians Take Advantage Of This Prejudice By Pretending To Be Even More Stupid Than Nature Has Made Them.

My Conclusion Is That There Is No Reason To Believe Any Of The Dogmas Of Traditional Theology And, Further, That There Is No Reason To Wish That They Were True. Man, In So Far As He Is Not Subject To Natural Forces, Is Free To Work Out His Own Destiny. The Responsibility Is His, And So Is The Opportunity.

But If Thought Is To Become The Possession Of Many, Not The Privilege Of The Few, We Must Have Done With Fear. It Is Fear That Holds Men Back - Fear Lest Their Cherished Beliefs Should Prove Delusions, Fear Lest The Institutions By Which They Live Should Prove Harmful, Fear Lest They Themselves Should Prove Less Worthy Of Respect Than They Have Supposed Themselves To Be.

It Is For This Reason That Rationality Is Of Supreme Importance To The Well-being Of The Human Species...even More, In Those Less Fortunate Times In Which It Is Despised And Rejected As The Vain Dream Of Men Who Lack The Virility To Kill Where They Cannot Agree.

Science, In Its Ultimate Ideal, Consists Of A Set Of Propositions Arranged In A Hierarchy, The Lowest Level Of The Hierarchy Being Concerned With Particular Facts, And The Highest With Some General Law, Governing Everything In The Universe. The Various Levels In The Hierarchy Have A Two-fold Logical Connection, Travelling One Up, One Down; The Upward Connection Proceeds By Induction, The Downward By Deduction.

I Am Looking Forward Very Much To Getting Back To Cambridge, And Being Able To Say What I Think And Not To Mean What I Say: Two Things Which At Home Are Impossible. Cambridge Is One Of The Few Places Where One Can Talk Unlimited Nonsense And Generalities Without Anyone Pulling One Up Or Confronting One With Them When One Says Just The Opposite The Next Day.

To Discover A System For The Avoidance Of War Is A Vital Need Of Our Civilisation.

Nine-tenths Of The Activities Of A Modern Government Are Harmful; Therefore The Worse They Are Performed, The Better.

The World Is Full Of Magical Things Patiently Waiting For Our Wits To Grow Sharper.

Animal Rights, Taken To Their Logical Conclusion, Mean Votes For Oysters.

The Desire To Understand The World And The Desire To Reform It Are The Two Great Engines Of Progress, Without Which Human Society Would Stand Still Or Retrogress.

I Had Supposed Until That Time That It Was Quite Common For Parents To Love Their Children, But The War Persuaded Me That It Is A Rare Exception. I Had Supposed That Most People Liked Money Better Than Almost Anything Else, But I Discovered That They Liked Destruction Even Better. I Had Supposed That Intellectuals Frequently Loved Truth, But I Found Here Again That Not Ten Per Cent Of Them Prefer Truth To Popularity.

Memory Demands An Image.

It Is, Of Course, Clear That A Country With A Large Foreign Population Must Endeavour, Through Its Schools, To Assimilate The Children Of Immigrants. It Is, However, Unfortunate That A Large Part Of This Process Should Be Effected By Means Of A Somewhat Blatant Nationalism.

There Have Been Poverty, Pestilence, And Famine, Which Were Due To Man's Inadequate Mastery Of Nature. There Have Been Wars, Oppressions And Tortures Which Have Been Due To Men's Hostility To Their Fellow Men.

A Life Devoted To Science Is Therefore A Happy Life, And Its Happiness Is Derived From The Very Best Sources That Are Open To Dwellers On This Troubled And Passionate Planet.

Altogether It Will Be Found That A Quiet Life Is Characteristic Of Great Men, And That Their Pleasures Have Not Been Of The Sort That Would Look Exciting To The Outward Eye.

Cruel Men Believe In A Cruel God And Use Their Belief To Excuse Their Cruelty. Only Kindly Men Believe In A Kindly God, And They Would Be Kindly In Any Case.

I Cannot Escape From The Conclusion That The Great Ages Of Progress Have Depended Upon A Small Number Of Individuals Of Transcendent Ability.

There Is A Further Advantage [to Hydrogen Bombs]: The Supply Of Uranium In The Planet Is Very Limited, And It Might Be Feared That It Would Be Used Up Before The Human Race Was Exterminated, But Now That The Practically Unlimited Supply Of Hydrogen Can Be Utilized, There Is Considerable Reason To Hope That Homo Sapiens May Put An End To Himself, To The Great Advantage Of Such Less Ferocious Animals As May Survive. But It Is Time To Return To Less Cheerful Topics.

There Is Something Feeble, And A Little Contemptible, About A Man Who Cannot Face The Perils Of Life Without The Help Of Comfortable Myths. Almost Inevitably Some Part Of Him Is Aware That They Are Myths And That He Believes Them Only Because They Are Comforting. But He Dare Not Face This Thought, And He Therefore Cannot Carry His Own Reflection To Any Logical Conclusion.

Modern Technique Has Made It Possible For Leisure, Within Limits, To Be Not The Prerogative Of Small Privileged Classes, But A Right Evenly Distributed Throughout The Community. The Morality Of Work Is The Morality Of Slaves, And The Modern World Has No Need Of Slavery.

We Are Faced With The Paradoxical Fact That Education Has Become One Of The Chief Obstacles To Intelligence And Freedom Of Thought.

Choose Your Parents Wisely.

I Mean By Intellectual Integrity The Habit Of Deciding Vexed Questions In Accordance With The Evidence, Or Of Leaving Them Undecided Where The Evidence Is Inconclusive. This Virtue, Though It Is Underestimated By Almost All Adherents Of Any System Of Dogma, Is To My Mind Of The Very Greatest Social Importance And Far More Likely To Benefit The World Than Christianity Or Any Other System Of Organized Beliefs.

Americans Need Rest, But Do Not Know It.

Beware The Man Of The Single Book

Grasshopper Always Wrong In Argument With Chicken.

The Sentiments Of An Adult Are Compounded Of A Kernel Of Instinct Surrounded By A Vast Husk Of Education.

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.

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