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Philosophy, If It Cannot Answer So Many Questions As We Could Wish, Has At Least The Power Of Asking Questions Which Increase The Interest Of The World, And Show The Strangeness And Wonder Lying Just Below The Surface Even In The Commonest Things Of Daily Life.

-Bertrand Russell

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Philosophy, If It Cannot

Bertrand Russell

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Philosophy, If It Cannot Answer So Many Questions As We Could Wish, Has At Least The Power Of Asking Questions Which Increase The Interest Of The World, And Show The Strangeness And Wonder Lying Just Below The Surface Even In The Commonest Things Of Daily Life.

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Asking Questions

More From Bertrand Russell

Almost All Education Has A Political Motive.

Do Not Use Power To Suppress Opinions You Think Pernicious, For If You Do The Opinions Will Suppress You.

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

The Problem With The Wise Is They Are So Filled With Doubts While The Dull Are So Certain.

...the Nonexistence Of God Makes More Difference To Some Of Us Than To Others. To Me, It Means That There Is No Absolute Morality, That Moralities Are Sets Of Social Conventions Devised By Humans To Satisfy Their Needs.

I Believe In Using Words, Not Fists. I Believe In My Outrage Knowing People Are Living In Boxes On The Street. I Believe In Honesty. I Believe In A Good Time. I Believe In Good Food. I Believe In Sex.

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.

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.

When Considering Marriage One Should Ask Oneself This Question; 'will I Be Able To Talk With This Person Into Old Age?' Everything Else Is Transitory, The Most Time Is Spent In Conversation.

The Essence Of The Liberal Outlook Lies Not In What Opinions Are Held, But In How They Are Held; Instead Of Being Held Dogmatically, They Are Held Tentatively, And With A Consciousness That New Evidence May At Any Moment Lead To Their Abandonment.

What Science Cannot Discover, Mankind Cannot Know.

Dread Of Disaster Makes Everybody Act In The Very Way That Increases The Disaster.

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

It Appeared To Me That The Dignity Of Which Human Existence Is Capable Is Not Attainable By Devotion To The Mechanism Of Life , And That Unless Contemplation Of Eternal Things Is Preserved, Mankind Will Become No Better Than Well-fed Pigs.

It Has Been Said That Man Is A Rational Animal. All My Life I Have Been Searching For Evidence Which Could Support This.

Remember Your Humanity, And Forget The Rest.

One Of The Commonest Things To Do With Savings Is To Lend Them To Some Government. In View Of The Fact That The Bulk Of The Public Expenditure Of Most Civilized Governments Consists In Payment For Past Wars Or Preparation For Future Wars, The Man Who Lends His Money To A Government Is In The Same Position As The Bad Men In Shakespeare Who Hire Murderers. The Net Result Of The Man's Economical Habits Is To Increase The Armed Forces Of The State To Which He Lends His Savings. Obviously It Would Be Better If He Spent The Money, Even If He Spent It In Drink Or Gambling.

Man Can Be Scientifically Manipulated.

If A Philosophy Is To Bring Happiness It Should Be Inspired By Kindly Feelings. Marx Pretended That He Wanted The Happiness Of The Proletariat; What He Really Wanted Was The Unhappiness Of The Bourgeois.

One Of The Most Interesting And Harmful Delusions To Which Men And Nations Can Be Subjected Is That Of Imagining Themselves Special Instruments Of The Divine Will.

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.

In A Democracy It Is Necessary That People Should Learn To Endure Having Their Sentiments Outraged.

Christ . . . Said That A Man Who Had Looked After A Woman Lustfully Had Sinned As Much As The Man Who Had Seduced Her. How Absurd!

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.

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.

It Is Preoccupation With Possessions, More Than Anything Else, That Prevents Us From Living Freely And Nobly.

I Used, When I Was Younger, To Take My Holidays Walking. I Would Cover 25 Miles A Day, And When The Evening Came I Had No Need Of Anything To Keep Me From Boredom, Since The Delight Of Sitting Amply Sufficed.

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.

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

There Is Something Feeble And A Little Contemptible About A Man Who Cannot Face The Perils Of Life Without The Help Of Comfortable Myths.

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.

We All Have A Tendency To Think That The World Must Conform To Our Prejudices. The Opposite View Involves Some Effort Of Thought, And Most People Would Die Sooner Than Think In Fact They Do So.

What We Cannot Think We Cannot Think, Therefore We Also Cannot Say What We Cannot Think.

In The Part Of This Universe That We Know There Is Great Injustice, And Often The Good Suffer, And Often The Wicked Prosper, And One Hardly Knows Which Of Those Is The More Annoying.

What The World Needs Is Not Dogma But An Attitude Of Scientific Inquiry Combined With A Belief That The Torture Of Millions Is Not Desirable, Whether Inflicted By Stalin Or By A Deity Imagined In The Likeness Of The Believer

[there Are M]oral Precepts That We Consider Really Important, Such As 'don't Pick Your Nose' Or 'don't Eat Peas With A Knife'. There May, For Ought I Know, Be Admirable Reasons For Eating Peas With A Knife, But . . . Early Persuasion Has Made Me Completely Incapable Of Appreciating Them.

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

I Must Confess That I Am Deeply Troubled. I Fear That Human Beings Are Intent Upon Acting Out A Vast Deathwish And That It Lies With Us Now To Make Every Effort To Promote Resistance To The Insanity And Brutality Of Policies Which Encompass The Extermination Of Hundreds Of Millions Of Human Beings.

Admit At Least One Painful Truth To Yourself Every Day. Teach Yourself To Feel That Life Would Still Be Worth Living Even If You Were Not Immeasurably Superior To All Your Friends. Exercises Of This Sort, Prolonged Through Several Years, Will At Last Enable You To Admit Facts Without Flinching, And Will, In So Doing, Free You From The Empire Of Fear Over A Very Large Field.

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.

One Of The Most Painful Circumstances Of Recent Advances In Science Is That Each One Makes Us Know Less Than We Thought We Did

When I Was A Child . . . Only Virtue Was Prized, Virtue At The Expense Of Intellect, Health, Happiness, And Every Mundane Good.

I Do Not Pretend To Start With Precise Questions. I Do Not Think You Can Start With Anything Precise. You Have To Achieve Such Precision As You Can, As You Go Along.

Men Have Physical Needs, And They Have Emotions. While Physical Needs Are Unsatisfied, They Take First Place; But When They Are Satisfied, Emotions Unconnected With Them Become Important In Deciding Whether A Man Is To Be Happy Or Unhappy.

I Have Come To Realize That An Early Symptom Of Approaching Mental Illness Is The Belief That One's Work Is Terribly Important. If You Consider Your Work Very Important You Should Take A Day Off.

I Am As Firmly Convinced That Religions Do Harm As I Am That They Are Untrue.

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.

A Generation That Cannot Endure Boredom Will Be A Generation Of Little Men, Of Men Unduly Divorced From The Slow Process Of Nature, Of Men In Whom Every Vital Impulse Slowly Withers As Though They Were Cut Flowers In A Vase.

The Solution Of The Difficulties Which Formerly Surrounded The Mathematical Infinite Is Probably The Greatest Achievement Of Which Our Age Has To Boast.

The First Dogma Which I Came To Disbelieve Was That Of Free Will. It Seemed To Me That All Notions Of Matter Were Determined By The Laws Of Dynamics And Could Not Therefore Be Influenced By Human Wills.

The Whole Realm Of Thought And Opinion Is Utterly Unsuited To Public Control; It Ought To Be As Free, And As Spontaneous As Is Possible. The State Is Justified In Insisting That Children Shall Be Educated, But It Is Not Justified In Forcing Their Education To Proceed On A Uniform Plan And To Be Directed To The Production Of A Dead Level Of Glib Uniformity.

In Emancipation From The Fears That Beset The Slave Of Circumstance He Will Experience A Profound Joy, And Through All The Vicissitudes Of His Outward Life He Will Remain In The Depths Of His Being A Happy Man.

To Expect A Personality To Survive The Disintegration Of The Brain Is Like Expecting A Cricket Club To Survive When All Of Its Members Are Dead.

In The Ordinary Business Of Life Punctuality Is . . . Necessary.

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.

Every Living Thing Is A Sort Of Imperialist, Seeking To Transform As Much As Possible Of Its Environment Into Itself . . . When We Compare The (present) Human Population Of The Globe With . . . That Of Former Times, We See That "chemical Imperialism" Has Been . . . The Main End To Which Human Intelligence Has Been Devoted.

The More We Realize Our Minuteness And Our Impotence In The Face Of Cosmic Forces, The More Amazing Becomes What Human Beings Have Achieved.

It Is Only Theory That Makes Men Completely Incautious.

Mathematics, Rightly Viewed, Possesses Not Only Truth, But Supreme Beauty-a Beauty Cold And Austere ... Yet Sublimely Pure And Capable Of Stern Perfection Such As Only The Greatest Art Can Show.

At The Age Of Eleven, I Began Euclid, With My Brother As My Tutor. ... I Had Not Imagined That There Was Anything So Delicious In The World. After I Had Learned The Fifth Proposition, My Brother Told Me That It Was Generally Considered Difficult, But I Had Found No Difficulty Whatsoever. This Was The First Time It Had Dawned On Me That I Might Have Some Intelligence.

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

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

By Self-interest, Man Has Become Gregarious, But In Instinct He Has Remained To A Great Extent Solitary; Hence The Need Of Religion And Morality To Reinforce Self-interest.

Much Of The Most Important Evils That Mankind Have To Consider Are Those Which They Inflict Upon Each Other Through Stupidity Or Malevolence Or Both.

Most Of The Greatest Evils That Man Has Inflicted Upon Man Have Come Through People Feeling Quite Certain About Something Which, In Fact, Was False.

Calculus Required Continuity, And Continuity Was Supposed To Require The Infinitely Little; But Nobody Could Discover What The Infinitely Little Might Be.

Those Who In Principle Oppose Birth Control Are Either Incapable Of Arithmetic Or Else In Favour Of War, Pestilence And Famine As Permanent Features Of Human Life.

Logic Must No More Admit A Unicorn Than Zoology Can.

The Chicken Noticed That The Farmer Came Every Day To Feed It. It Predicted That The Farmer Would Continue To Bring Food Every Day. Inductivists Think That The Chicken Had "extrapolated" Its Observations Into A Theory, And That Each Feeding Time Added Justification To That Theory. Then One Day The Farmer Came And Wrung The Chicken's Neck. This Inductively Justifies The Conclusion That Induction Cannot Justify Any Conclusion.

Love And Knowledge Led Upwards To The Heavens.

[one] Must Look Into Hell Before One Has Any Right To Speak Of Heaven.

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

World Government

When White Men First Effect Contact With Some Unspoilt Race Of Savages, They Offer Them All Kinds Of Benefits, From The Light Of The Gospel To Pumpkin Pie. These, However, Much As We May Regret It, Most Savages Receive With Indifference. What They Really Value Among The Gifts That We Bring To Them Is Intoxicating Liquor Which Enables Them, For The First Time In Their Lives, To Have The Illusion For A Few Brief Moments That It Is Better To Be Alive Than Dead.

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

To Be Able To Concentrate For A Considerable Time Is Essential To Difficult Achievement.

Love Is Something Far More Than Desire For Sexual Intercourse; It Is The Principal Means Of Escape From The Loneliness Which Afflicts Most Men And Women Throughout The Greater Part Of Their Lives.

All Traditional Logic Habitually Assumes That Precise Symbols Are Being Employed. It Is Therefore Not Applicable To This Terrestial Life But Only To An Imagined Celestial Existence... Logic Takes Us Nearer To Heaven Than Other Studies.

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

The Significance Of A Fact Is Relative To [the General Body Of Scientific] Knowledge. To Say That A Fact Is Significant In Science, Is To Say That It Helps To Establish Or Refute Some General Law; For Science, Though It Starts From Observation Of The Particular, Is Not Concerned Essentially With The Particular, But With The General. A Fact, In Science, Is Not A Mere Fact, But An Instance. In This The Scientist Differs From The Artist, Who, If He Deigns To Notice Facts At All, Is Likely To Notice Them In All Their Particularity.

We Are Condemned To Kill Time, Thus We Die Bit By Bit. - Octavio Paz The Time You Enjoy Wasting Is Not Wasted Time.

Fear Is The Parent Of Cruelty, And Therefore It Is No Wonder If Cruelty And Religion Have Gone Hand-in-hand. It Is Because Fear Is At The Basis Of Those Two Things. In This World We Can Now Begin A Little To Understand Things, And A Little To Master Them By The Help Of Science, Which Has Forced Its Way Step By Step Against The Christian Religion, Against The Churches, And Against The Opposition Of All The Old Precepts.

It Must Not Be Supposed That The Subjective Elements Are Any Less 'real' Than The Objective Elements; They Are Only Less Important... Because They Do Not Point To Anything Beyond Ourselves.

The Secrets To Happiness Include Enterprise, Exploration Of One's Interests And The Overcoming Of Obstacles.

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.

[regarding] The Convention That Clergymen Are More Virtuous Than Other Men. Any Average Selection Of Mankind, Set Apart And Told That It Excels The Rest In Virtue, Must Tend To Sink Below The Average.

There Will Still Be Things That Machines Cannot Do. They Will Not Produce Great Art Or Great Literature Or Great Philosophy; They Will Not Be Able To Discover The Secret Springs Of Happiness In The Human Heart; They Will Know Nothing Of Love And Friendship.

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.

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.

We Are Told That Sin Consists In Acting Contrary To God's Commands, But We Are Also Told That God Is Omnipotent. If He Is, Nothing Contrary To His Will Can Occur; Therefore When The Sinner Disobeys His Commands, He Must Have Intended This To Happen.

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. Modern Methods Of Production Have Given Us The Possibility Of Ease And Security For All; We Have Chosen, Instead, To Have Overwork For Some And Starvation For The Others. Hitherto We Have Continued To Be As Energetic As We Were Before There Were Machines; In This We Have Been Foolish, But There Is No Reason To Go On Being Foolish For Ever.

The First Step In Wisdom, As Well As In Morality, Is To Open The Windows Of The Ego As Wide As Possible.

It Is Essential To Happiness That Our Way Of Living Should Spring From Our Own Deep Impulses And Not From The Accidental Tastes And Desires Of Those Who Happen To Be Our Neighbors, Or Even Our Relations.

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

I've Always Thought Respectable People Scoundrels, And I Look Anxiously At My Face Every Morning For Signs Of My Becoming A Scoundrel.

We Know Too Much And Feel Too Little.

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.

Drunkenness Is Temporary Suicide.

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

A Marriage Is Likely To Be Called Happy If Neither Party Ever Expected To Get Much Happiness Out Of It.

At The Age Of Eleven, I Began Euclid, With My Brother As My Tutor. This Was One Of The Great Events Of My Life, As Dazzling As First Love. I Had Not Imagined There Was Anything So Delicious In The World. From That Moment Until I Was Thirty-eight, Mathematics Was My Chief Interest And My Chief Source Of Happiness.

I Don't Like The Spirit Of Socialism - I Think Freedom Is The Basis Of Everything.

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

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.

America... Where Law And Custom Alike Are Based Upon The Dreams Of Spinsters...

A Man Of Seville Is Shaved By The Barber Of Seville If And Only If The Man Does Not Shave Himself. Does The Barber Shave Himself?

In Mass Cruelty, The Expulsions Of Germans Ordered By The Russians Fall Not Very Far Short Of The Atrocities Perpetrated By The Nazis.

Remote From Human Passions, Remote Even From The Pitiful Facts Of Nature, The Generations Have Gradually Created An Ordered Cosmos [mathematics], Where Pure Thought Can Dwell In Its Natural Home.

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.

People Are Zealous For A Cause When They Are Not Quite Positive That It Is True.

Positive Thinking

When There Are Rational Grounds For An Opinion, People Are Content To Set Them Forth And Wait For Them To Operate. In Such Cases, People Do Not Hold Their Opinions With Passion; They Hold Them Calmly, And Set Forth Their Reasons Quietly. The Opinions That Are Held With Passion Are Always Those For Which No Good Ground Exists; Indeed The Passion Is The Measure Of The Holder's Lack Of Rational Conviction.

Historically, It Is Quite Doubtful Whether Christ Ever Existed At All, And If He Did We Do Not Know Anything About Him.

Some Care Is Needed In Using Descartes' Argument. "i Think, Therefore I Am" Says Rather More Than Is Strictly Certain. It Might Seem As Though We Are Quite Sure Of Being The Same Person To-day As We Were Yesterday, And This Is No Doubt True In Some Sense. But The Real Self Is As Hard To Arrive At As The Real Table, And Does Not Seem To Have That Absolute, Convincing Certainty That Belongs To Particular Experiences.

If A Law Were Passed Giving Six Months To Every Writer Of A First Book, Only The Good Ones Would Do It.

Of All Forms Of Caution, Caution In Love Is Perhaps The Most Fatal To True Happiness.

A Man Who Has Once Perceived, However Temporarily And However Briefly, What Makes Greatness Of Soul, Can No Longer Be Happy If He Allows Himself To Be Petty, Self-seeking, Troubled By Trivial Misfortunes, Dreading What Fate May Have In Store For Him. The Man Capable Of Greatness Of Soul Will Open Wide The Windows Of His Mind, Letting The Winds Blow Freely Upon It From Every Portion Of The Universe.

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.

All The Time That He Can Spare From The Adornment Of His Person, He Devotes To The Neglect Of His Duties.

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

The "social Contract," In The Only Sense In Which It Is Not Completely Mythical, Is A Contract Among Conquerors, Which Loses Its Raison D'être If They Are Deprived Of The Benefits Of Conquest.

Into Every Tidy Scheme For Arranging The Pattern Of Human Life, It Is Necessary To Inject A Certain Dose Of Anarchism.

When A Man Acts In Ways That Annoy Us We Wish To Think Him Wicked, And We Refuse To Face The Fact That His Annoying Behavior Is The Result Of Antecedent Causes Which, If You Follow Them Long Enough, Will Take You Beyond The Moment Of His Birth, And Therefore To Events For Which He Cannot Be Held Responsible By Any Stretch Of Imagination... When A Motorcar Fails To Start, We Do Not Attribute Its Annoying Behavior To Sin, We Do Not Say, You Are A Wicked Motorcar, And You Shall Not Have Any More Gasoline Until You Go.

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.

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

Few People Can Be Happy Unless They Hate Some Other Person, Nation, Or Creed.

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

So Far I Have Been Speaking Of Theoretical Science, Which Is An Attempt To Understand The World. Practical Science, Which Is An Attempt To Change The World, Has Been Important From The First, And Has Continually Increased In Importance, Until It Has Almost Ousted Theoretical Science From Men's Thoughts.

It Is Undesirable To Believe A Proposition When There Is No Ground Whatever For Supposing It True

The Puritanism Of Christianity Has Played Havoc With The Moderation That An Enlightened And Tolerant Critical Spirit Would Have Produced. I've Noticed That In Whatever Country, County, Town, Or Other Region There Is A Regulation Enjoining Temperance, The Population Seems To Be Entirely Composed Of Teetotallers And Drunkards. There's A Bible On That Shelf There. But I Keep It Next To Voltaire - Poison And Antidote.

Men Who Allow Their Love Of Power To Give Them A Distorted View Of The World Are To Be Found In Every Asylum: One Man Will Think He Is The Governor Of The Bank Of England, Another Will Think He Is The King, And Yet Another Will Think He Is God. Highly Similar Delusions, If Expressed By Educated Men In Obscure Language, Lead To Professorships Of Philosophy; And If Expressed By Emotional Men In Eloquent Language, Lead To Dictatorships.

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.

The Whole Problem With The World Is That Fools And Fanatics Are Always So Certain Of Themselves, And Wiser People So Full Of Doubts.

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.

It Is Not Known Why The Lord Made The Human Body As He Did, Since One Might Suppose That Omnipotence Could Have Made It Such As Would Not Have Shocked The Nice People.

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.

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

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.

The Fact That An Opinion Has Been Widely Held Is No Evidence Whatever That It Is Not Utterly Absurd.

Mathematics Rightly Viewed Possesses Not Only Truth But Supreme Beauty.

Western Philosophy

One Must Expect A War Between U.s.a. And U.s.s.r. Which Will Begin With The Total Destruction Of London. I Think The War Will Last 30 Years, And Leave A World Without Civilised People, From Which Everything Will Have To Build Afresh - A Process Taking (say) 500 Years.

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.

Science, By Itself, Cannot Supply Us With An Ethic. It Can Show Us How To Achieve A Given End, And It May Show Us That Some Ends Cannot Be Achieved. But Among Ends That Can Be Achieved Our Choice Must Be Decided By Other Than Purely Scientific Considerations. If A Man Were To Say, "i Hate The Human Race, And I Think It Would Be A Good Thing If It Were Exterminated," We Could Say, "well, My Dear Sir, Let Us Begin The Process With You." But This Is Hardly Argument, And No Amount Of Science Could Prove Such A Man Mistaken.

This, However, Is A Passing Nightmare; In Time The Earth Will Become Again Incapable Of Supporting Life, And Peace Will Return.

The Fundamental Defect Of Christian Ethics Consists In The Fact That It Labels Certain Classes Of Acts 'sins' And Others 'virtue' On Grounds That Have Nothing To Do With Their Social Consequences.

We Ought To Look The World Frankly In The Face.

Something Of The Hermit's Temper Is An Essential Element In Many Forms Of Excellence, Since It Enables Men To Resist The Lure Of Popularity, To Pursue Important Work In Spite Of General Indifference Or Hostility, And Arrive At Opinions Which Are Opposed To Prevalent Errors.

Escape From Boredom Is One Of The Really Powerful Desires Of Almost All Human Beings.

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.

While The Dogmatist Is Harmful, The Sceptic Is Useless ...; One Is Certain Of Knowing, The Other Of Not Knowing. What Philosophy Should Dissipate Is Certainty, Whether Of Knowledge Or Of Ignorance. Knowledge Is Not So Precise A Concept As Is Commonly Thought. Instead Of Saying 'i Know This', We Ought To Say 'i More Or Less Know Something More Or Less Like This'. ... Knowledge In Practical Affairs Has Not The Certainty Or The Precision Of Arithmetic.

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

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

[man] ... His Origin, His Growth, His Hopes And Fears, His Loves And His Beliefs Are But The Outcome Of Accidental Collocations Of Atoms; That No Fire, No Heroism, No Intensity Of Thought And Feeling Can Preserve An Individual Life Beyond The Grave; That All The Labour Of The Ages, All The Devotion, All The Inspiration, All The Noonday Brightness Of Human Genius Are Destined To Extinction In The Vast Death Of The Solar System, And That The Whole Temple Of Man's Achievement Must Inevitably Be Buried Beneath The Debris Of A Universe In Ruins.

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.

A Logical Theory May Be Tested By Its Capacity For Dealing With Puzzles, And It Is A Wholesome Plan, In Thinking About Logic, To Stock The Mind With As Many Puzzles As Possible, Since These Serve Much The Same Purpose As Is Served By Experiments In Physical Science.

The Knowledge Exists By Which Universal Happiness Can Be Secured; The Chief Obstacle To Its Utilization For That Purpose Is The Teaching Of Religion. Religion Prevents Our Children From Having A Rational Education; Religion Prevents Us From Removing The Fundamental Causes Of War; Religion Prevents Us From Teaching The Ethic Of Scientific Cooperation In Place Of The Old Fierce Doctrines Of Sin And Punishment. 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.

In All Affairs It's A Healthy Thing Now And Then To Hang A Question Mark On The Things You Have Long Taken For Granted.

It Will Be Said That The Joy Of Mental Adventure Must Be Rare, That There Are Few Who Can Appreciate It, And That Ordinary Education Can Take No Account Of So Aristocratic A Good. I Do Not Believe This. The Joy Of Mental Adventure Is Far Commoner In The Young Than In Grown Men And Women. ...it Is Rare In Later Life Because Everything Is Done To Kill It During Education.

Science Is What We Know, And Philosophy Is What We Don't Know.

Zeno Was Concerned With Three Problems... These Are The Problem Of The Infinitesimal, The Infinite, And Continuity.

We Know Too Much And Feel Too Little. At Least, We Feel Too Little Of Those Creative Emotions From Which A Good Life Springs.

It Is Not What The Man Of Science Believes That Distinguishes Him, But How And Why He Believes It. His Beliefs Are Tentative, Not Dogmatic; They Are Based On Evidence, Not On Authority Or Intuition.

Politics Is Largely Governed By Sententious Platitudes Which Are Devoid Of Truth

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

War Does Not Determine Who Is Right - Only Who Is Left.

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

The Immense Majority Of Intellectually Eminent Men Disbelieve In The Christian Religion, But They Conceal The Fact In Public, Because They Are Afraid Of Losing Their Incomes.

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

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

The Mormons Had A Divine Revelation In Favour Of Polygamy, But Under Pressure From The United States Government They Discovered That The Revelation Was Not Binding.

Divine Revelation

The Megalomaniac Differs From The Narcissist By The Fact That He Wishes To Be Powerful Rather Than Charming, And Seeks To Be Feared Rather Than Loved. To This Type Belong Many Lunatics And Most Of The Great Men Of History.

Many A Man Will Have The Courage To Die Gallantly, But Will Not Have The Courage To Say, Or Even To Think, That The Cause For Which He Is Asked To Die Is An Unworthy One.

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.

Men Who Are Unhappy, Like Men Who Sleep Badly, Are Always Proud Of The Fact.

The Theoretical Understanding Of The World, Which Is The Aim Of Philosophy, Is Not A Matter Of Great Practical Importance To Animals, Or To Savages, Or Even To Most Civilised Men.

Understanding Human Nature Must Be The Basis Of Any Real Improvement In Human Life. Science Has Done Wonders In Mastering The Laws Of The Physical World, But Our Own Nature Is Much Less Understood, As Yet, Than The Nature Of Stars And Electrons. When Science Learns To Understand Human Nature, It Will Be Able To Bring A Happiness Into Our Lives Which Machines And The Physical Sciences Have Failed To Create.

Facts Have To Be Discovered By Observation, Not By Reasoning

Most Political Leaders Acquire Their Position By Causing Large Numbers Of People To Believe That These Leaders Are Actuated By Altruistic Desires

There Is Little Of The True Philosophic Spirit In Aquinas. He Does Not, Like The Platonic Socrates, Set Out To Follow Wherever The Argument May Lead.

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.

Whatever We Know Without Inference Is Mental.

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

Through The Greatness Of The Universe, Which Philosophy Contemplates, The Mind Also Is Rendered Great, And Becomes Capable Of That Union With The Universe Which Constitutes Its Highest Good.

A Proverb Is One Man's Wit And All Men's Wisdom.

Obscenity Is Whatever Happens To Shock Some Elderly And Ignorant Magistrate.

Why Repeat The Old Errors, If There Are So Many New Errors To Commit?

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

Next To Enjoying Ourselves, The Next Greatest Pleasure Consists In Preventing Others From Enjoying Themselves, Or, More Generally, In The Acquisition Of Power.

There Is No Reason To Suppose That The World Had A Beginning At All. The Idea That Things Must Have A Beginning Is Really Due To The Poverty Of Our Thoughts.

When Benjamin Franklin Invented The Lightning-rod, The Clergy, Both In England And America, With Enthusiastic Support Of George Iii, Condemned It As An Impious Attempt To Defeat The Will Of God.

England And America

I Think Modern Educational Theorists Are Inclined To Attach Too Much Importance To The Negative Virtue Of Not Interfering With Children, And Too Little To The Positive Merit Of Enjoying Their Company.

The Satisfaction To Be Derived From Success In A Great Constructive Enterprise Is One Of The Most Massive That Life Has To Offer.

As I Grew Up I Became Increasingly Interested In Philosophy, Or Which [his Family] Profoundly Disapproved. Everytime The Subject Came Up They Repeated With Unfailing Regularity, "what Is Mind? No Matter. What Is Matter? Never Mind." After Some Fifty Or Sixty Repititions, This Remark Ceased To Amuse Me.

Science, By Itself Cannot, Supply Us With An Ethic.

The White Tails Of Rabbits, According To Some Theologians, Have A Purpose, Namely To Make It Easier For Sportsmen To Shoot Them.

Gradually, ... The Aspect Of Science As Knowledge Is Being Thrust Into The Background By The Aspect Of Science As The Power Of Manipulating Nature. It Is Because Science Gives Us The Power Of Manipulating Nature That It Has More Social Importance Than Art. Science As The Pursuit Of Truth Is The Equal, But Not The Superior, Of Art. Science As A Technique, Though It May Have Little Intrinsic Value, Has A Practical Importance To Which Art Cannot Aspire.

An Extra-terrestrial Philosopher, Who Had Watched A Single Youth Up To The Age Of Twenty-one And Had Never Come Across Any Other Human Being, Might Conclude That It Is The Nature Of Human Beings To Grow Continually Taller And Wiser In An Indefinite Progress Towards Perfection; And This Generalization Would Be Just As Well Founded As The Generalization Which Evolutionists Base Upon The Previous History Of This Planet.

The Evolution Of Our Spirit Is Blazed On The Dark Background Of Eternity By Our Individual Wakes. Every Person Can, If He/she Wishes, Leave A More Or Less Brilliant Wake Behind Them.

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

A Good Social System Is Not To Be Secured By Making People Unselfish, But, By Making Their Own Vital Impulses Fit In With Other Peoples. This Is Feasible. Those Who Have Produced Stoic Philosophies Have All Had Enough To Eat And Drink. I Feel I Shall Find The Truth On My Deathbed And Be Surrounded By People Too Stupid To Understand—fussing About Medicines Instead Of Searching For Wisdom. I Hate Being All Tidy Like A Book In A Library Where Nobody Reads – Prison Is Horribly Like That.

We Do Not Like To Be Robbed Of An Enemy; We Want Someone To Hate When We Suffer. It Is So Depressing To Think That We Suffer Because We Are Fools; Yet, Taking Mankind In The Mass, That Is The Truth.

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