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Most Men Do Not Feel In Themselves The Competence Required For Leading Their Group To Victory, And Therefore Seek Out A Captain Who Appears To Possess The Courage And Sagacity Necessary For The Achievement Of Supremacy. Even In Religion This Impulse Appears. Nietzsche Accused Christianity Of Inculcating A Slave-morality, But Ultimate Triumph Was Always The Goal. "blessed Are The Meek, For They Shall Inherit The Earth.

-Bertrand Russell

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Most Men Do Not

Bertrand Russell

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Most Men Do Not Feel In Themselves The Competence Required For Leading Their Group To Victory, And Therefore Seek Out A Captain Who Appears To Possess The Courage And Sagacity Necessary For The Achievement Of Supremacy. Even In Religion This Impulse Appears. Nietzsche Accused Christianity Of Inculcating A Slave-morality, But Ultimate Triumph Was Always The Goal. "blessed Are The Meek, For They Shall Inherit The Earth.

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There Are Certain Things That Our Age Needs. It Needs, Above All, Courageous Hope And The Impulse To Creativeness.

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

Mathematics, Rightly Viewed, Possesses Not Only Truth, But Supreme Beauty A Beauty Cold And Austere, Like That Of Sculpture, Without Appeal To Any Part Of Our Weaker Nature, Without The Georgeous Trappings Of Painting Or Music, Yet Sublimely Pure, And Capable Of A Stern Perfection Such As Only The Greatest Art Can Show. The True Spirit Of Delight, The Exaltation, The Sense Of Being More Than Man, Which Is The Touchstone Of The Highest Excellence, Is To Be Found In Mathematics As Surely As In Poetry.

There Are Two Motives For Reading A Book; One, That You Enjoy It; The Other, That You Can Boast About It.

All Movements Go Too Far.

Have No Respect For The Authority Of Others, For There Are Always Contrary Authorities To Be Found

Love Is A Slippery Eel That Bites Like Hell

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

There Are Still Many People In America Who Regard Depressions As Acts Of God. I Think Keynes Proved That The Responsibility For These Occurrences Does Not Rest With Providence.

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

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.

I Am Aware That Many Divines Are Far More Marvelous Than I Am, And That I Cannot Wholly Appreciate Merits So Far Transcending My Own. Nevertheless, Even After Making Allowances Under This Head, I Cannot But Think That Omnipotence Operating Through All Eternity Might Have Produced Something Better.

It Is Clear That Thought Is Not Free If The Profession Of Certain Opinions Makes It Impossible To Earn A Living.

In Considering Irregular Appearances, There Are Certain Very Natural Mistakes Which Must Be Avoided.

What Men Really Want Is Not Knowledge But Certainty.

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.

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

The Fundamental Principle In The Analysis Of Propositions Containing Descriptions Is This: Every Proposition Which We Can Understand Must Be Composed Wholly Of Constituents With Which We Are Acquainted.

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.

War Doesn't Determine Who's Right, It Determines Who's Left

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.

Almost Everything That Distinguishes The Modern World From Earlier Centuries Is Attributable To Science, Which Achieved Its Most Spectacular Triumphs In The Seventeenth Century.

A Great Many Worries Can Be Diminished By Realizing The Unimportance Of The Matter Which Is Causing Anxiety.

The Free Intellect Is The Chief Engine Of Human Progress.

Socrates Was The Chief Saint Of The Stoics Throughout Their History ; His Attitude At The Time Of His Trial, His Refusal To Escape, His Calmness In The Face Of Death , And His Contention That The Perpetrator Of Injustice Injures Himself More Than His Victim, All Fitted In Perfectly With Stoic Teaching. So Did His Indifference To Heat And Cold, His Plainness In Matters Of Food And Dress, And His Complete Independence Of All Bodily Comforts.

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.

It's Not What You Have Lost, But What You Have Left That Counts.

Literature Is Inexhaustible, With Every Book A Homage To Infinity

Civilized People Cannot Fully Satisfy Their Sexual Instinct Without Love.

The Observer, When He Seems To Himself To Be Observing A Stone, Is Really, If Physics Is To Be Believed, Observing The Effects Of The Stone Upon Himself.

I Do Not Pretend That Birth Control Is The Only Way In Which Population Can Be Kept From Increasing. There Are Others, Which, One Must Suppose, Opponents Of Birth Control Would Prefer.

In A Just World, There Would Be No Possibility Of 'charity'.

It Has Become A Commonplace That Aggressiveness Also Often Has Its Roots In Fear. I Am Inclined To Think That This Theory Has Been Pushed Too Far. [...] The Type Of Aggressiveness That Is The Outcome Of Timidity Is Not, I Think, That Which Inspires Great Leaders; The Great Leaders, I Should Say, Have An Exceptional Self-confidence Which Is Not Only On The Surface, But Penetrates Deep Into The Subconscious.

Self Confidence

The Infliction Of Cruelty With A Good Conscience Is A Delight To Moralists - That Is Why They Invented Hell.

A World Without Delight And Without Affection Is A World Destitute Of Value.

From That Awful Encounter Of The Soul With The Outer World, Enunciation, Wisdom, And Charity Are Born; And With Their Birth A New Life Begins. To Take Into The Inmost Shrine Of The Soul The Irresistible Forces Whose Puppets We Seem To Be - Death And Change, The Irrevocableness Of The Past, And The Powerlessness Of Man Before The Blind Hurry Of The Universe From Vanity To Vanity - To Feel These Things And Know Them Is To Conquer Them.

Prison Is A Severe And Terrible Punishment; But For Me, Thanks To Arthur Balfour, This Was Not So. I Was Much Cheered On My Arrival By The Warder At The Gate, Who Had To Take Particulars About Me. He Asked My Religion, And I Replied 'agnostic.' He Asked How To Spell It, And Remarked With A Sigh: 'well, There Are Many Religions, But I Suppose They All Worship The Same God.' This Remark Kept Me Cheerful For About A Week.

Morally, A Philosopher Who Uses His Professional Competence For Anything Except A Disinterested Search For Truth Is Guilty Of A Kind Of Treachery.

Professional Competence

Among Human Beings, The Subjection Of Women Is Much More Complete At A Certain Level Of Civilization Than It Is Among Savages. And The Subjection Is Always Reinforced By Morality.

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

I Feel Life Is So Small Unless It Has Windows Into Other Worlds.

How Much Longer Is The World Willing To Endure This Spectacle Of Wanton Cruelty?

I Used Often To Go To America During Prohibition, And There Was Far More Drunkenness There Then Than Before; The Prohibition Of Pornography Has Much The Same Effect.

Man Is A Rational Animal – So At Least I Have Been Told. Throughout A Long Life, I Have Looked Diligently For Evidence In Favour Of This Statement, But So Far I Have Not Had The Good Fortune To Come Across It, Though I Have Searched In Many Countries Spread Over Three Continents.

There Is Darkness Without And When I Die There Will Be Darkness Within. There Is No Splendor, Nor Vastness Anywhere; Only Triviality For A Moment And Then Nothing.

Darkness Within

The Good Life Is One Inspired By Love And Guided By Knowledge.

... Mathematical Knowledge ... Is, In Fact, Merely Verbal Knowledge. "3" Means "2+1", And "4" Means "3+1". Hence It Follows (though The Proof Is Long) That "4" Means The Same As "2+2". Thus Mathematical Knowledge Ceases To Be Mysterious.

To Teach How To Live Without Certainty And Yet Without Being Paralysed By Hesitation Is Perhaps The Chief Thing That Philosophy, In Our Age, Can Do For Those Who Study It.

Reason May Be A Small Force, But It Is Constant, And Works Always In One Direction, While The Forces Of Unreason Destroy One Another In Futile Strife.

Science Is No Substitute For Virtue; The Heart Is As Necessary For A Good Life As The Head.

Of Course Not. After All, I May Be Wrong.

I Can Only Say That, While My Own Opinions As To Ethics Do Not Satisfy Me, Other People's Satisfy Me Still Less.

Life Is Nothing But A Competition To Be The Criminal Rather Than The Victim.

For The Learning Of Every Virtue There Is An Appropriate Discipline, And For The Learning Of Suspended Judgment The Best Discipline Is Philosophy.

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

Most People Would Sooner Die Than Think; In Fact, They Do So.

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.

Memory Demands An Image.

Experience Has Taught Me A Technique For Dealing With Such People [...] I Counter The Devotees Of The Great Pyramid By Adoration Of The Sphinx; And The Devotee Of Nuts By Pointing Out That Hazelnuts And Walnuts Are As Deleterious As Other Foods And Only Brazil Nuts Should Be Tolerated. But When I Was Younger I Had Not Yet Acquired This Technique, With The Result That My Contacts With Cranks Were Sometimes Alarming.

Some `advanced Thinkers' Are Of The Opinion That Anyone Who Differs From The Conventional Opinion Must Be In The Right. This Is A Delusion; If It Were Not, Truth Would Be Easier To Come By Than It Is.

The Whole Conception Of A God Is A Conception Derived From The Ancient Oriental Despotisms. It Is A Conception Quite Unworthy Of Free Men. We Ought To Stand Up And Look The World Frankly In The Face. We Ought To Make The Best We Can Of The World, And If It Is Not So Good As We Wish, After All It Will Still Be Better Than What These Others Have Made Of It In All These Ages.

All The Labor Of All The Ages, All The Devotion, All The Inspiration, All The Noonday Brightness Of Human Genius Are Destined To Extinction. So Now, My Friends, If That Is True, And It Is True, What Is The Point?

The Human Animal, Like Others, Is Adapted To A Certain Amount Of Struggle For Life [and] The Mere Absence Of Effort From His Life Removes An Essential Ingredient Of Happiness. [. . .] He Forgets That To Be Without Some Of The Things You Want Is An Indispensable Part Of Happiness.

I Read Zuleika Dobson With Pleasure. It Represents The Oxford That The Two World Wars Have Destroyed With A Charm That Is Not Likely To Be Reproduced Anywhere In The World For The Next Thousand Years.

Education, And The Life Of The Mind Generally, Is A Matter In Which Individual Initiative Is The Chief Thing Needed; The Function Of The State Should Begin And End With Insistence On Some Kind Of Education, And, If Possible, A Kind Which Promotes Mental Individualism, Not A Kind Which Happens To Conform To The Prejudices Of Government Officials.

There May Be No Good Reasons For Very Many Opinions That Are Held With Passion.

... The Whole World Of Loneliness, Poverty, And Pain Make A Mockery Of What Human Life Should Be.

The Key To Happiness Is Accepting One Unpleasant Reality Every Day.

The Coward Wretch Whose Hand And Heart Can Bear To Torture Aught Below, Is Ever First To Quail And Start From The Slightest Pain Or Equal Foe.

Dora And I Are Now Married, But Just As Happy As We Were Before.

No Great Achievement Is Possible Without Persistent Work.

Mathematics Is, I Believe, The Chief Source Of The Belief In Eternal And Exact Truth, As Well As A Sensible Intelligible World.

Is The Set Of All Sets Which Are Not Members Of Themselves A Member Of Itself?

No People Anywhere In The World Would Accept Being Expelled En Masse From Their Own Country; How Can Anyone Require The People Of Palestine To Accept A Punishment Which Nobody Else Would Tolerate?

The Christian View That All Intercourse Outside Marriage Is Immoral Was, As We See In The Above Passages From St. Paul, Based Upon The View That All Sexual Intercourse, Even Within Marriage, Is Regrettable. A View Of This Sort, Which Goes Against Biological Facts, Can Only Be Regarded By Sane People As A Morbid Aberration. The Fact That It Is Embedded In Christian Ethics Has Made Christianity Throughout Its Whole History A Force Tending Towards Mental Disorders And Unwholesome Views Of Life.

This Has Been My Life. I Have Found It Worth Living, And Would Gladly Live It Again If The Second Chance Were Offered Me.

Science Has Made Unrestricted National Sovereignty Incompatible With Human Survival. The Only Possibilities Are Now World Government Or Death.

World Government

Man Can Be Scientifically Manipulated.

There Is An Artist Imprisoned In Each One Of Us. Let Him Loose To Spread Joy Everywhere.

The Rules Of Logic Are To Mathematics What Those Of Structure Are To Architecture.

Mathematics Is Only The Art Of Saying The Same Thing In Different Words.

Thought Is Subversive And Revolutionary, Destructive And Terrible, Thought Is Merciless To Privilege, Established Institutions, And Comfortable Habit. Thought Is Great And Swift And Free.

I Hate The World And Almost All The People In It. I Hate The Labour Congress And The Journalists Who Send Men To Be Slaughtered, And The Fathers Who Feel A Smug Pride When Their Sons Are Killed, And Even The Pacifists Who Keep Saying Human Nature Is Essentially Good, In Spite Of All The Daily Proofs To The Contrary. I Hate The Planet And The Human Race—i Am Ashamed To Belong To Such A Species.

I Cannot Favour Laws Such As That Of Idaho, Which Allows Sterilization Of 'mental Defectives, Epileptics, Habitual Criminals, Moral Degenerates, And Sex Perverts.' The Last Two Categories Here Are Very Vague . . . The Law Of Idaho Would Have Justified The Sterilization Of Socrates, Plato, Julius Caesar, And St. Paul.

Intelligence, It Might Be Said, Has Caused Our Troubles; But It Is Not Unintelligence That Will Cure Them. Only More And Wiser Intelligence Can Make A Happier World

Right Conduct Can Never, Except By Some Rare Accident, Be Promoted By Ignorance Or Hindered By Knowledge.

What Is Matter? Never Mind.

The Above Proposition Is Occasionally Useful.

Patriotism Which Has The Quality Of Intoxication Is A Danger Not Only To Its Native Land But To The World, And "my Country Never Wrong" Is An Even More Dangerous Maxim Than "my Country, Right Or Wrong."

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

All The Important Human Advances That We Know Of Since Historical Times Began Have Been Due To Individuals Of Whom The Majority Faced Virulent Public Opposition.

Happiness, As Is Evident, Depends Partly Upon External Circumstances And Partly Upon Oneself.

Work Is Of Two Kinds: First, Altering The Position Of Matter At Or Near The Earth's Surface Relative To Other Matter; Second, Telling Other People To Do So.

None But A Coward Dares To Boast That He Has Never Known Fear.

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.

Whenever One Finds Oneself Inclined To Bitterness, It Is A Sign Of Emotional Failure.

Common Sense, However It Tries, Cannot Avoid Being Surprised From Time To Time.

Diversity Is Essential To Happiness And In Utopia There Is Hardly Any. This Is A Defect In All Planned Social Systems.

Drunkenness Is Temporary Suicide.

From The Height Of Their Disillusionment They Look Down Upon Those Whom They Despise As Simple Souls. For My Part I Have No Sympathy With This Outlook. All Disenchantment Is To Me A Malady, Which, It Is True, Certain Circumstances May Render Inevitable, But Which None The Less, When It Occurs, Is To Be Cured As Soon As Possible, Not To Be Regarded As A Higher Form Of Wisdom.

Civilized Life, If It Is To Be Stable, Must Provide A Harmless Outlets For The Impulses Which Our Remote Ancestors Satisfied In Hunting. In Australia, Where People Are Few, And Rabbits Are Many, I Watched The Whole Populace Satisfying The Primitive Impulse In The Primitive Manner By The Skilful Slaughter Of Many Thousands Of Rabbits.

Herd Pressure Is To Be Judged By Two Things: First, Its Intensity, And Second, Its Direction.

God And Satan Alike Are Essentially Human Figures, The One A Projection Of Ourselves, The Other Of Our Enemies.

Liberty Is The Right To Do What I Like; Licence, The Right To Do What You Like.

I Once Saw A Photograph Of A Large Herd Of Wild Elephants In Central Africa Seeing An Airplane For The First Time, And All In A State Of Wild Collective Terror... As, However, There Were No Journalists Among Them, The Terror Died Down When The Airplane Was Out Of Sight.

Next To Worry Probably One Of The Most Potent Causes Of Unhappiness Is Envy.

The Criminal Law Has, From The Point Of View Of Thwarted Virtue, The Merit Of Allowing An Outlet For Those Impulses Of Aggression Which Cowardice, Disguised As Morality, Restrains In Their More Spontaneous Forms. War Has The Same Merit. You Must Not Kill You Neighbor, Whom Perhaps You Genuinely Hate, But By A Little Propaganda This Hate Can Be Transferred To Some Foreign Nation, Against Whom All Your Murderous Impulses Become Patriotic Heroism.

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

In The Daily Lives Of Most Men And Women, Fear Plays A Greater Part Than Hope: They Are More Filled With The Thought Of The Possessions That Others May Take From Them, Than Of The Joy That They Might Create In Their Own Lives And In The Lives With Which They Come In Contact. It Is Not So That Life Should Be Lived.

The Conception Of The Necessary Unit Of All That Is Resolves Itself Into The Poverty Of The Imagination, And A Freer Logic Emancipates Us From The Straitwaistcoated Benevolent Institution, Which Idealism Palms Off As The Totality Of Being.

I Am Firm; You Are Obstinate; He Is A Pig-headed Fool.

There Is Exactly The Same Degree Of Possibility And Likelihood Of The Existence Of The Christian God As There Is Of The Existence Of The Homeric God. I Cannot Prove That Either The Christian God Or The Homeric Gods Do Not Exist, But I Do Not Think That Their Existence Is An Alternative That Is Sufficiently Probable To Be Worth Serious Consideration.

Thee Might Observe Incidentally That If The State Paid For Child-bearing It Might And Ought To Require A Medical Certificate That The Parents Were Such As To Give A Reasonable Result Of A Healthy Child -- This Would Afford A Very Good Inducement To Some Sort Of Care For The Race, And Gradually As Public Opinion Became Educated By The Law, It Might React On The Law And Make That More Stringent, Until One Got To Some State Of Things In Which There Would Be A Little Genuine Care For The Race, Instead Of The Present Haphazard Higgledy-piggledy Ways.

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.

We Know That The Exercise Of Virtue Should Be Its Own Reward, And It Seems To Follow That The Enduring Of It On The Part Of The Patient Should Be Its Own Punishment.

The Most Essential Characteristic Of Scientific Technique Is That It Proceeds From Experiment, Not From Tradition.

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.

Aristotle Maintained That Women Have Fewer Teeth Than Men; Although He Was Twice Married, It Never Occurred To Him To Verify This Statement By Examining His Wives' Mouths.

To Abandon The Struggle For Private Happiness, To Expel All Eagerness Of Temporary Desire, To Burn With Passion For Eternal Things-this Is Emancipation, And This Is The Free Man's Worship... United With His Fellow Men By The Strongest Of All Ties, The Tie Of A Common Doom, The Free Man Finds That A New Vision Is With Him Always, Shedding Over Every Daily Task The Light Of Love.

There Lies Before Us, If We Choose, Continual Progress In Happiness, Knowledge And Wisdom. Shall We Instead Choose Death, Because We Cannot Forget Our Quarrels? I Appeal As A Human Being To Human Beings; Remember Your Humanity, And Forget The Rest.

A Life Without Adventure Is Likely To Be Unsatisfying, But A Life In Which Adventure Is Allowed To Take Whatever Form It Will Is Sure To Be Short.

Man Is The Product Of Causes Which Had No Prevision Of The End They Were Achieving; His Origin, His Growth, His Hopes And Fears, His Loves And Beliefs, Are But The Outcome Of Accidental Collocations Of Atoms; No Fire, No Heroism, No Intensity Of Though And Feeling, Can Preserve An Individual Life Beyond The Grave.

The Church No Longer Contends That Knowledge Is In Itself Sinful, Though It Did So In Its Palmy Days; But The Acquisition Of Knowledge, Even Though Not Sinful, Is Dangerous, Since It May Lead To Pride Of Intellect, And Hence To A Questioning Of The Christian Dogma.

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.

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

In Democratic Countries, The Most Important Private Organizations Are Economic. Unlike Secret Societies, They Are Able To Exercise Their Terrorism Without Illegality, Since They Do Not Threaten To Kill Their Enemies, But Only To Starve Them.

Freedom In Education Has Many Aspects. There Is First Of All Freedom To Learn Or Not To Learn. Then There Is Freedom As To What To Learn. And In Later Education There Is Freedom Of Opinion.

All Serious Innovation Is Only Rendered Possible By Some Accident Enabling Unpopular Persons To Survive.

Heretical Views Arise When The Truth Is Uncertain, And It Is Only When The Truth Is Uncertain That Censorship Is Invoked.

Envy ... Is One Form Of A Vice, Partly Moral, Partly Intellectual, Which Consists In Seeing Things Never In Themselves But Only In Their Relations.

The Examination System, And The Fact That Instruction Is Treated Mainly As A Training For A Livelihood, Leads The Young To Regard Knowledge From A Purely Utilitarian Point Of View As The Road To Money, Not As The Gateway To Wisdom.

Religions, Which Condemn The Pleasures Of Sense, Drive Men To Seek The Pleasures Of Power. Throughout History Power Has Been The Vice Of The Ascetic.

[industrialism's Soon Diminishing] Capacity To Supply Human Needs Could Be Prevented If Men Exercised Any Restraint Or Foresight In Their Present Frenzied Exploitation.

Nine-tenths Of The Appeal Of Pornography Is Due To The Indecent Feelings Concerning Sex Which Moralists Inculcate In The Young; The Other Tenth Is Physiological, And Will Occur In One Way Or Another Whatever The State Of The Law May Be.

The Best Authorities Are Unanimous In Saying That A War With H-bombs Might Possibly Put An End To The Human Race. It Is Feared That If Many H-bombs Are Used There Will Be Universal Death, Sudden Only For A Minority, But For The Majority A Slow Torture Of Disease And Disintegration.

What Vanity Needs For Its Satisfaction Is Glory, And It's Easy To Have Glory Without Power.

If We Were All Given By Magic The Power To Read Each Other’s Thoughts, I Suppose The First Effect Would Be Almost All Friendships Would Be Dissolved; The Second Effect, However, Might Be Excellent, For A World Without Any Friends Would Be Felt To Be Intolerable, And We Should Learn To Like Each Other Without Needing A Veil Of Illusion To Conceal From Ourselves That We Did Not Think Each Other Absolutely Perfect.

In Attempting To Understand The Elements Out Of Which Mental Phenomena Are Compounded, It Is Of The Greatest Importance To Remember That From The Protozoa To Man There Is Nowhere A Very Wide Gap Either In Structure Or In Behaviour. From This Fact It Is A Highly Probable Inference That There Is Also Nowhere A Very Wide Mental Gap.

The Average Man's Opinions Are Much Less Foolish Than They Would Be If He Thought For Himself.

The Widespread Interest In Gossip Is Inspired, Not By A Love Of Knowledge But By Malice: No One Gossips About Other People's Secret Virtues, But Only About Their Secret Vices. Accordingly Most Gossip Is Untrue, But Care Is Taken Not To Verify It. Our Neighbour's Sins, Like The Consolations Of Religion, Are So Agreeable That We Do Not Stop To Scrutinise The Evidence Closely.

It's Easy To Fall In Love. The Hard Part Is Finding Someone To Catch You.

Falling In Love

New Relationship

That The World Is In A Bad Shape Is Undeniable, But There Is Not The Faintest Reason In History To Suppose That Christianity Offers A Way Out.

The Greatest Challenge To Any Thinker Is Stating The Problem In A Way That Will Allow A Solution.

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 We Compare Europe With Other Continents, It Is Marked Out As [another] Persecuting Continent.

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.

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

Power, Like Vanity, Is Insatiable. Nothing Short Of Omnipotence Could Satisfy It Completely.

Fundamental Happiness Depends More Than Anything Else Upon What May Be Called A Friendly Interest In Persons And Things.

The True Function Of Logic ... As Applied To Matters Of Experience ... Is Analytic Rather Than Constructive; Taken A Priori, It Shows The Possibility Of Hitherto Unsuspected Alternatives More Often Than The Impossibility Of Alternatives Which Seemed Prima Facie Possible. Thus, While It Liberates Imagination As To What The World May Be, It Refuses To Legislate As To What The World Is

Even If We Could Be Certain That One Of The World's Religions Were Perfectly True, Given The Sheer Number Of Conflicting Faiths On Offer, Every Believer Should Expect Damnation Purely As A Matter Of Probability.

Love Is A Little Haven Of Refuge From The World.

What Is Best In Mathematics Deserves Not Merely To Be Learnt As A Task, But To Assimilated As A Part Of Daily Thought, And Brought Again And Again Before The Mind With Ever-renewed Encouragement.

The Fact That A Belief Has A Good Moral Effect Upon A Man Is No Evidence Whatsoever In Favor Of Its Truth.

The Essence Of Good Manners Consists In Making It Clear That One Has No Wish To Hurt. When It Is Clearly Necessary To Hurt, It Must Be Done In Such A Way As To Make It Evident That The Necessity Is Felt To Be Regrettable.

It Seems Clear To Me That Marriage Ought To Be Constituted By Children, And Relations Not Involving Children Ought To Be Ignored By The Law And Treated As Indifferent By Public Opinion. It Is Only Through Children That Relations Cease To Be A Purely Private Matter.

One Of The Symptoms Of Approaching Nervous Breakdown Is The Belief That One's Work Is Terribly Important, And That To Take A Holiday Would Bring All Kinds Of Disaster. If I Were A Medical Man, I Should Prescribe A Holiday To Any Patient Who Considered His Or Her Work Important.

We May Define "faith" As The Firm Belief In Something For Which There Is No Evidence. Where There Is Evidence, No One Speaks Of "faith." We Do Not Speak Of Faith That Two And Two Are Four Or That The Earth Is Round. We Only Speak Of Faith When We Wish To Substitute Emotion For Evidence. The Substitution Of Emotion For Evidence Is Apt To Lead To Strife, Since Different Groups, Substitute Different Emotions.

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

All Definite Knowledge - So I Should Contend - Belongs To Science; All Dogma As To What Surpasses Definite Knowledge Belongs To Theology. But Between Theology And Science There Is A No Man's Land, Exposed To Attack By Both Sides; This No Man's Land Is Philosophy.

From India To Spain, The Brilliant Civilization Of Islam Flourished. What Was Lost To Christendom At This Time Was Not Lost To Civilization, But Quite The Contrary.

[freedom] Is The Greatest Of Political Goods. I Do Not Say Freedom Is The Greatest Of All Goods: The Best Things Come From Within They Are Such Things As Creative Art, And Love, And Thought. Such Things Can Be Helped Or Hindered By Political Conditions, But Not Actually Produced By Them; And Freedom Is, Both In Itself And In Its Relation To These Other Goods The Best Thing That Political And Economic Conditions Can Secure.

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

Really High-minded People Are Indifferent To Happiness, Especially Other People's.

[the Church] Is In Its Major Part An Opponent Still Of Progress And Improvement In All The Ways That Diminish Suffering In The World, Because It Has Chosen To Label As Morality A Certain Narrow Set Of Rules Of Conduct Which Have Nothing To Do With Human Happiness; And When You Say That This Or That Ought To Be Done Because It Would Make For Human Happiness, They Think That Has Nothing To Do With The Matter At All. "what Has Human Happiness To Do With Morals? The Object Of Morals Is Not To Make People Happy.

I Do So Hate To Leave This World.

Politics Is Concerned With Herds Rather Than With Individuals, And The Passions Which Are Important In Politics Are, Therefore, Those In Which The Various Members Of A Given Herd Can Feel Alike.

When All Experts Agree, You Need To Watch Out.

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

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

The Demand For Certainty Is One Which Is Natural To Man, But Is Nevertheless An Intellectual Vice. So Long As Men Are Not Trained To Withhold Judgment In The Absence Of Evidence, They Will Be Led Astray By Cocksure Prophets, And It Is Likely That Their Leaders Will Be Either Ignorant Fanatics Or Dishonest Charlatans. To Endure Uncertainty Is Difficult, But So Are Most Of The Other Virtues.

There Are Certain Things That Our Age Needs, And Certain Things That It Should Avoid. It Needs Compassion And A Wish That Mankind Should Be Happy; It Needs The Desire For Knowledge And The Determination To Eschew Pleasant Myths; It Needs, Above All, Courageous Hope And The Impulse To Creativeness.

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

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.

The Fundamental Concept In Social Science Is Power, In The Same Sense In Which Energy Is The Fundamental Concept In Physics.

I Have Throughout Been Curious About How Much We Can Be Said To Know And With What Degree Of Certainty Or Doubtfulness.

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.

All's Well That Ends Well; Which Is The Epitaph I Should Put On My Tombstone If I Were The Last Man Left Alive.

It Is Entirely Clear That There Is Only One Way In Which Great Wars Can Be Permanently Prevented, And That Is The Establishment Of An International Government With A Monopoly Of Serious Armed Force.

There Is As Much Difference Between A Collection Of Mentally Free Citizens And A Community Molded By Modern Methods Of Propaganda As There Is Between A Heap Of Raw Materials And A Battleship.

The Ten Commandments Should Be Headed Like An Examination Paper: No More Than Six To Be Attempted.

Indemnity For The Past And Security For The Future.

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.

The Sea, The Stars, The Night Wind In Waste Places, Mean More To Me Than Even The Human Beings I Love Best.

I Suggest To Young Professors That Their First Work Should Be Written In A Jargon Only To Be Understood By The Erudite Few. With That Behind Them, They Can Ever After Say What They Have To Say In A Language 'understand Of The People.'

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

In The Revolt Against Idealism, The Ambiguities Of The Word Experience Have Been Perceived, With The Result That Realists Have More And More Avoided The Word.

...impregnation Will Be Regarded In An Entirely Different Manner, More In The Light Of A Surgical Operation, So That It Will Be Thought Not Ladylike To Have It Performed In The Natural Manner.

You Could Live Without The Opera Singer, But Not Without The Services Of The Baker. On This Ground You Might Say That The Baker Performs A Greater Service; But No Lover Of Music Would Agree.

There Was, I Think, Never Any Reason To Believe In Any Innate Superiority Of The Male, Except His Superior Muscle.

Religion Is Based, I Think, Primarily And Mainly Upon Fear.

Science And Religion

The Universe May Have A Purpose, But Nothing We Know Suggests That, If So, This Purpose Has Any Similarity To Ours.

Anything You're Good At Contributes To Happiness.

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.

What Will Be The Good Of The Conquest Of Leisure And Health, If No One Remembers How To Use Them?

Any Philosophy Worth Taking Seriously Would Have To Be Built Upon A Firm Foundation Of Unyielding Despair.

Truth Is A Shining Goddess, Always Veiled, Always Distant, Never Wholly Approachable, But Worthy Of All The Devotion Of Which The Human Spirit Is Capable.

More And More People Are Becoming Unable To Accept Traditional [religious] Beliefs. If They Think That, Apart From These Beliefs, There Is No Reason For Kindly Behaviour, The Results May Be Needlessly Unfortunate. That Is Why It Is Important To Show That No Supernatural Reasons Are Needed To Make [people] Kind And To Prove That Only Through Kindness Can The Human Race Achieve Happiness.

Human Nature Is So Constructed That It Gives Affection Most Readily To Those Who Seem Least To Demand It.

Man Has Existed For About A Million Years. He Has Possessed Writing For About 6,000 Years, Agriculture Somewhat Longer, But Perhaps Not Much Longer. Science, As A Dominant Factor In Determining The Belief Of Educated Men, Has Existed For About 300 Years; As A Source Of Economic Technique, For About 150 Years. In This Brief Period It Has Proved Itself An Incredibly Powerful Revolutionary Force. When We Consider How Recently It Has Risen To Power, We Find Ourselves Forced To Believe That We Are At The Very Beginning Of Its Work In Transforming Human Life.

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Fyodor Dostoevsky

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