Background Image

...

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.

-Bertrand Russell

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

We Are Told That

Bertrand Russell

...

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.

Views: 92719

Topic

More From Bertrand Russell

It Is Impossible To Read In America, Except On A Train, Because Of The Telephone. Everyone Has A Telephone, And It Rings All Day And Most Of The Night.

I Am As Drunk As A Lord, But Then, I Am One, So What Does It Matter ?

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

The First Step In A Fascist Movement Is The Combination Under An Energetic Leader Of A Number Of Men Who Possess More Than The Average Share Of Leisure, Brutality, And Stupidity. The Next Step Is To Fascinate Fools And Muzzle The Intelligent, By Emotional Excitement On The One Hand And Terrorism On The Other.

It Is A Curious And Painful Fact That Almost All The Completely Futile Treatments That Have Been Believed In During The Long History Of Medical Folly Have Been Such As Caused Acute Suffering To The Patient. When Anesthetics Were Discovered, Pious People Considered Them An Attempt To Evade The Will Of God. It Was Pointed Out, However, That When God Extracted Adam's Rib He Put Him Into A Deep Sleep. This Proved That Anesthetics Are All Right For Men; Women, However, Ought To Suffer, Because Of The Curse Of Eve.

The Use Of Force Stands In Need Of Control By A Public Neutral Authority, In The Interests Of Liberty No Less Than Of Justice. Within A Nation, This Public Authority Will Naturally Be The State; In Relations Between Nations, If The Present Anarchy Is To Cease, It Will Have To Be Some International Parliament.

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

It Would Have Been Very Much Better For The World If Britain Had Remained Neutral And The Germans Had Won A Quick Victory. We Should Not Have Had Either The Nazis Or The Communists If That Had Happened.

People Will Tell Us That Without The Consolations Of Religion They Would Be Intolerably Unhappy. So Far As This Is True, It Is A Coward's Argument. Nobody But A Coward Would Consciously Choose To Live In A Fool's Paradise. When A Man Suspects His Wife Of Infidelity, He Is Not Thought The Better Of For Shutting His Eyes To The Evidence. And I Cannot See Why Ignoring Evidence Should Be Contemptible In One Case And Admirable In The Other.

Life Is Just One Cup Of Coffee After Another, And Don't Look For Anything Else.

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.

All The Conditions Of Happiness Are Realized In The Life Of The Man Of Science.

The Only Thing That Will Redeem Mankind Is Cooperation.

Frege Has The Merit Of ... Finding A Third Assertion By Recognising The World Of Logic Which Is Neither Mental Nor Physical.

Dont Let The Old Break You; Let The Love Make You

The Skill Of The Politician Consists In Guessing What People Can Be Brought To Think Advantageous To Themselves; The Skill Of The Expert Consists In Calculating What Really Is Advantageous, Provided People Can Be Brought To Think So.

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.

What Hunger Is In Relation To Food, Zest Is In Relation To Life.

Every Great Idea Starts Out As A Blasphemy.

Drunkenness Is Temporary Suicide.

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.

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

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

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.

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.'

Bacon Not Only Despised The Syllogism, But Undervalued Mathematics, Presumably As Insufficiently Experimental. He Was Virulently Hostile To Aristotle , But He Thought Very Highly Of Democritus , Although He Did Not Deny That The Course Of Nature Exemplifies A Divine Purpose, He Objected To Any Admixture Of Teleological Explanation In The Actual Investigation Of Phenomena; Everything, He Held, Should Be Explained As Following Necessarily From Efficient Causes .

The Happy Life Is To An Extraordinary Extent The Same As The Good Life.

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.

Formality Thus The Absence Of All Mention Of Particular Things Or Properties In Logic Or Pure Mathematics Is A Necessary Result Of The Fact That This Study Is, As We Say, "purely Formal".

Why Is Propaganda So Much More Successful When It Stirs Up Hatred Than When It Tries To Stir Up Friendly Feeling?

Love Is A Slippery Eel That Bites Like Hell

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

Insight, Untested And Unsupported, Is An Uncertain Guarantee Of The Truth.

The Fundamental Cause Of The Trouble Is That In The Modern World The Stupid Are Cocksure While The Intelligent Are Full Of Doubt. Even Those Of The Intelligent Who Believe That They Have A Nostrum Are Too Individualistic To Combine With Other Intelligent Men From Whom They Differ On Minor Points.

Thought Is Merciless To Privilege, Established Institutions, And Comfortable Habit.

I Do Not Think Any Reasonable Person Can Doubt That In India, China And Japan, If The Knowledge Of Birth Control Existed, The Birthrate Would Fall Very Rapidly

When Two Great Powers Disagree About Anything - It Doesn't Matter What - They Must Find A Way To Settle It Somehow By Arbitration Or By Negotiation, Not By War Or Threat Of War.

Love And Knowledge, So Far As They Were Possible, Led Upward Toward The Heavens. But Always Pity Brought Me Back To Earth. Echoes Of Cries Of Pain Reverberate In My Heart. Children In Famine, Victims Tortured By Oppressors, Helpless Old People A Burden To Their Sons, And The Whole World Of Loneliness, Poverty, And Pain Make A Mockery Of What Human Life Should Be. I Long To Alleviate This Evil, But I Cannot, And I Too Suffer.

...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.

While I Am As Convinced A Socialist As The Most Ardent Marxian, I Do Not Regard Socialism As A Gospel Of Proletarian Revenge, Nor Even, Primarily, As A Means Of Securing Economic Justice. I Regard It Primarily As An Adjustment To Machine Production Demanded By Considerations Of Common Sense, And Calculated To Increase The Happiness, Not Only Of Proletarians, But Of All Except A Tiny Minority Of The Human Race.

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.

Scientific Method, Although In Its More Refined Forms It May Seem Complicated, Is In Essence Remarkably Simply. It Consists In Observing Such Facts As Will Enable The Observer To Discover General Laws Governing Facts Of The Kind In Question. The Two Stages, First Of Observation, And Second Of Inference To A Law, Are Both Essential, And Each Is Susceptible Of Almost Indefinite Refinement. (1931)

To A Modern Mind, It Is Difficult To Feel Enthusiastic About A Virtuous Life If Nothing Is Going To Be Achieved By It.

Fervent Religious Believers Sacrifice Pleasures Of The Body, But Instead Enjoy Pleasures Of The Mind, Including The Joy Of Knowing That Those Men Who Didn't Follow Their Religion Would Be Tortured For Eternity.

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.

The Human Heart As Modern Civilization Has Made It Is More Prone To Hatred Than To Friendship. And It Is Prone To Hatred Because It Is Dissatisfied.

It Is Odd That Neither The Church Nor Modern Public Opinion Condemns Petting, Provided It Stops Short At A Certain Point. At What Point Sin Begins Is A Matter As To Which Casuists Differ. One Eminently Orthodox Catholic Divine Laid It Down That A Confessor May Fondle A Nun's Breasts, Provided He Does It Without Evil Intent. But I Doubt Whether Modern Authorities Would Agree With Him On This Point.

The Secret Of Happiness Is This: Let Your Interests Be As Wide As Possible, And Let Your Reactions To The Things And Persons That Interest You Be As Far As Possible Friendly Rather Than Hostile.

A Process Which Led From The Amoeba To Man Appeared To The Philosophers To Be Obviously A Progress Though Whether The Amoeba Would Agree With This Opinion Is Not Known.

What Has Human Happiness To Do With Morals? The Object Of Morals Is Not To Make People Happy.

My Whole Religion Is This: Do Every Duty, And Expect No Reward For It, Either Here Or Hereafter.

All Exact Science Is Dominated By The Idea Of Approximation.

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

Only Mathematics And Mathematical Logic Can Say As Little As The Physicist Means To Say.

Mathematical Logic

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

I Think We Ought Always To Entertain Our Opinions With Some Measure Of Doubt. I Shouldn't Wish People Dogmatically To Believe Any Philosophy, Not Even Mine.

To Understand The Actual World As It Is, Not As We Should Wish It To Be, Is The Beginning Of Wisdom.

The Power Of Thought, The Vast Regions It Can Master.

Power Of Thought

The Essence Of Education Is That It Is A Change Effected In The Organism To Satisfy The Operator.

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

The Typical Westerner Wishes To Be The Cause Of As Many Changes As Possible In His Environment; The Typical Chinaman Wishes To Enjoy As Much And As Delicately As Possible.

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.

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

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.

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

Lives Of Others

All Who Are Not Lunatics Are Agreed About Certain Things : That It Is Better To Be Alive Than Dead, Better To Be Adequately Fed Than Starved, Better To Be Free Than A Slave

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.

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

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

When You Want To Teach Children To Think, You Begin By Treating Them Seriously When They Are Little, Giving Them Responsibilities, Talking To Them Candidly, Providing Privacy And Solitude For Them, And Making Them Readers And Thinkers Of Significant Thoughts From The Beginning. That’s If You Want To Teach Them To Think.

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.

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

The Objections To Religion Are Of Two Sorts - Intellectual And Moral. The Intellectual Objection Is That There Is No Reason To Suppose Any Religion True; The Moral Objection Is That Religious Precepts Date From A Time When Men Were More Cruel Than They Are And Therefore Tend To Perpetuate Inhumanities Which The Moral Conscience Of The Age Would Otherwise Outgrow.

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.

As A Lover Of Truth, The National Propaganda Of All The Belligerent Nations Sickened Me. As A Lover Of Civilization, The Return To Barbarism Appalled Me.

There Are Some Simple Maxims Which I Think Might Be Commended To Writers Of Expository Prose. First: Never Use A Long Word If A Short Word Will Do. So, If You Want To Make A Statement With A Great Many Qualifications, Put Some Of The Qualifications In Separate Sentences. Third: Do Not Let The Beginning Of Your Sentence Lead The Reader To An Expectation Which Is Contradicted By The End.

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

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.

It Can Be Shown That A Mathematical Web Of Some Kind Can Be Woven About Any Universe Containing Several Objects. The Fact That Our Universe Lends Itself To Mathematical Treatment Is Not A Fact Of Any Great Philosophical Significance.

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

Perhaps The Nuclear Physicists Have Come So Near To The Ultimate Secrets That He Thinks It Time To Bring Their Activities To A Stop. And What Simpler Method Could He Devise Than To Let Them Carry Their Ingenuity To The Point Where They Exterminate The Human Race?

The Whole Of Theology, In Regard To Hell No Less Than To Heaven, Takes It For Granted That Man Is What Is Of Most Importance In The Universe Of Created Beings. Since All Theologians Are Men, This Postulate Has Met With Little Opposition.

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

Man Is A Credulous Animal, And Must Believe Something; In The Absence Of Good Grounds For Belief, He Will Be Satisfied With Bad Ones.

As Soon As It Is Held That Any Belief, No Matter What, Is Important For Some Other Reason Than That It Is True, A Whole Host Of Evils Is Ready To Spring Up.

There Is An Element Of The Busybody In Our Conception Of Virtue: Unless A Man Makes Himself A Nuisance To A Great Many People, We Do Not Think He Can Be An Exceptionally Good Man.

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

More Cranks Take Up Unfashionable Errors Than Unfashionable Truths.

The Man Who Is Unhappy Will, As A Rule, Adopt An Unhappy Creed, While The Man Who Is Happy Will Adopt A Happy Creed; Each May Attribute His Happiness Or Unhappiness To His Beliefs, While The Real Causation Is The Other Way Round.

It Will Be Found, As Men Grow More Tolerant In Their Instincts, That Many Uniformities Now Insisted Upon Are Useless And Even Harmful.

The Best Practical Advice I Can Give To The Present Generation Is To Practice The Virtue Which The Christians Call Love.

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 Late F. W. H. Myers Used To Tell How He Asked A Man At A Dinner Table What He Thought Would Happen To Him When He Died. The Man Tried To Ignore The Question, But, On Being Pressed, Replied: "oh Well, I Suppose I Shall Inherit Eternal Bliss, But I Wish You Wouldn't Talk About Such Unpleasant Subjects."

The Question Of "unreality"is A Very Important One. Misled By Grammar, The Great Majority Of Those Logicians Who Have Dealt With This Question Have Dealt With It On Mistaken Lines. They Have Regarded Grammatical Form As A Surer Guide In Analysis Than, In Fact, It Is. And They Have Not Known What Differences In Grammatical Form Are Important.

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.

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

It Is Amusing To Hear The Modern Christian Telling You How Mild And Rationalistic Christianity Really Is And Ignoring The Fact That All Its Mildness And Rationalism Is Due To The Teaching Of Men Who In Their Own Day Were Persecuted By All Orthodox Christians.

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.

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.

Perhaps The Best Hope For The Future Of Mankind Is That Ways Will Be Found Of Increasing The Scope And Intensity Of Sympathy.

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

Morality In Sexual Relations, When It Is Free From Superstition, Consists Essentially In Respect For The Other Person, And Unwillingness To Use That Person Solely As A Means Of Personal Gratification, Without Regard To His Or Her Desires.

It Is Only Theory That Makes Men Completely Incautious.

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

Three Passions, Simple But Overwhelmingly Strong, Have Governed My Life: The Longing For Love, The Search For Knowledge, And Unbearable Pity For The Suffering Of Mankind.

If The West Can Claim Superiority In Anything, It Is . . . In Science And Scientific Technique.

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

But I Simply Can't Stand A View Limited To This Earth, I Feel Life Is So Small Unless It Has Windows Into Other Worlds...i Like Mathematics Largely Because It Is Not Human.

The Road To Happiness And Prosperity Lies In An Organized Diminution Of Work.

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.

The Man Who Pursues Happiness Wisely Will Aim At The Possession Of A Number Of Subsidiary Interests In Addition To Those Central Ones Upon Which His Life Is Built.

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.

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

A Physicist Looks For Causes; That Does Not Necessarily Imply That There Are Causes Everywhere. A Man May Look For Gold Without Assuming That There Is Gold Everywhere; If He Finds Gold, Well And Good, If He Doesn't He's Had Bad Luck. The Same Is True When The Physicists Look For Causes.

Every Philosophical Problem, When It Is Subjected To The Necessary Analysis And Justification, Is Found Either To Be Not Really Philosophical At All, Or Else To Be, In The Sense In Which We Are Using The Word, Logical.

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.

Men Are Born Ignorant, Not Stupid. They Are Made Stupid By Education.

Who Ever Heard A Theologian Preface His Creed, Or A Politician Conclude His Speech With An Estimate Of The Probable Error Of His Opinion?

They Must Often Change, Who Would Be Constant In Happiness Or Wisdom. Those Who Continually Search For Happiness Will Never Find It. Happiness Is Made, Not Found. To Be Without Some Of The Things You Want Is An Indispensable Part Of Happiness.

This Idea Of Weapons Of Mass Extermination Is Utterly Horrible And Is Something Which No One With One Spark Of Humanity Can Tolerate.

We May Say, In A Broad Way, That Greek Philosophy Down To Aristotle Expresses The Mentality Appropriate To The City State; That Stoicism Is Appropriate To A Cosmopolitan Despotism; That Stochastic Philosophy Is An Intellectual Expression Of The Church As An Organization; That Philosophy Since Descartes, Or At Any Rate Since Locke, Tends To Embody The Prejudices Of The Commercial Middle Class; And That Marxism And Fascism Are The Philosophies Appropriate To The Modern Industrial State.

At First It Seems Obvious, But The More You Think About It The Stranger The Deductions From This Axiom Seem To Become; In The End You Cease To Understand What Is Meant By It.

History Is Valuable, To Begin With, Because It Is True; And This, Though Not The Whole Of Its Value, Is The Foundation And Condition Of All The Rest. That All Knowledge, As Such, Is In Some Degree Good, Would Appear To Be At Least Probable; And The Knowledge Of Every Historical Fact Possesses This Element Of Goodness, Even If It Posses No Other.

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

It May Seem To Your Conceited To Suppose That You Can Do Anything Important Toward Improving The Lot Of Mankind. But This Is A Fallacy. You Must Believe That You Can Help Bring About A Better World. A Good Society Is Produced Only By Good Individuals, Just As Truly As A Majority In A Presidential Election Is Produced By The Votes Of Single Electors. Everybody Can Do Something Toward Creating In His Own Environment Kindly Feelings Rather Than Anger, Reasonableness Rather Than Hysteria, Happiness Rather Than Misery.

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.

I Believe That Communism Is Necessary To The World, And I Believe That The Heroism Of Russia Has Fired Men's Hopes In A Way Which Was Essential To The Realization Of Communism In The Future. Regarded As A Splendid Attempt, Without Which Ultimate Success Would Have Been Very Improbable, Bolshevism Deserves The Gratitude And Admiration Of All The Progressive Part Of Mankind.

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.

Even In The Most Purely Logical Realms, It Is Insight That First Arrives At What Is New.

I Never Held Negroes To Be Inherently Inferior. The Statement In Marriage And Morals Refers To Environmental Conditioning. I Have Had It Withdrawn From Subsequent Editions Because It Is Clearly Ambiguous.

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.

To Realize The Unimportance Of Time Is The Gate To Wisdom.

The Really Useful Education Is That Which Follows The Direction Of The Child's Own Instinctive Interests, Supplying Knowledge For Which It Is Seeking, Not Dry, Detailed Information Wholly Out Of Relation To Its Spontaneous Desires.

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

No Opinion Has Ever Been Too Errant To Become A Creed.

The Most Valuable Things In Life Are Not Measured In Monetary Terms. The Really Important Things Are Not Houses And Lands, Stocks And Bonds, Automobiles And Real State, But Friendships, Trust, Confidence, Empathy, Mercy, Love And Faith.

It [is] Possible To Suppose That, If Russia Is Allowed To Have Peace, An Amazing Industrial Development May Take Place, Making Russia A Rival Of The United States.

People Are Said To Believe In God, Or To Disbelieve In Adam And Eve. But In Such Cases What Is Believed Or Disbelieved Is That There Is An Entity Answering A Certain Description. This, Which Can Be Believed Or Disbelieved Is Quite Different From The Actual Entity (if Any) Which Does Answer The Description. Thus The Matter Of Belief Is, In All Cases, Different In Kind From The Matter Of Sensation Or Presentation, And Error Is In No Way Analogous To Hallucination. A Hallucination Is A Fact, Not An Error; What Is Erroneous Is A Judgment Based Upon It.

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.

A Man Is Rational In Proportion As His Intelligence Informs And Controls His Desires.

I Think People Who Are Unhappy Are Always Proud Of Being So, And Therefore Do Not Like To Be Told That There Is Nothing Grand About Their Unhappiness. A Man Who Is Melancholy Because Lack Of Exercise Has Upset His Liver Always Believes That It Is The Loss Of God, Or The Menace Of Bolshevism, Or Some Such Dignified Cause That Makes Him Sad. When You Tell People That Happiness Is A Simple Matter, They Get Annoyed With You.

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.

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

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.

The Place Of The Father In The Modern Suburban Family Is A Very Small One, Particularly If He Plays Golf.

Psychology Often Becomes The Disease Of Which It Should Be The Cure.

The Most Essential Characteristic Of Scientific Technique Is That It Proceeds From Experiment, Not From Tradition. The Experimental Habit Of Mind Is A Difficult One For Most People To Maintain; Indeed, The Science Of One Generation Has Already Become The Tradition Of The Next

The Main Thing Needed To Make Men Happy Is Intelligence.

In Astronomy, The Law Of Gravitation Is Plainly Better Worth Knowing Than The Position Of A Particular Planet On A Particular Night, Or Even On Every Night Throughout A Year. There Are In The Law A Splendour And Simplicity And Sense Of Mastery Which Illuminate A Mass Of Otherwise Uninteresting Details. But In History The Matter Is Far Otherwise. Historical Facts, Many Of Them, Have An Intrinsic Value, A Profound Interest On Their Own Account, Which Makes Them Worthy Of Study, Quite Apart From Any Possibility Of Linking Them Together By Means Of Causal Laws.

Bad Philosophers May Have A Certain Influence; Good Philosophers, Never.

The True Spirit Of Delight...is To Be Found In Mathematics As Surely As In Poetry.

It Appeared To Me Obvious That The Happiness Of Mankind Should Be The Aim Of All Action, And I Discovered To My Surprise That There Were Those Who Thought Otherwise.

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.

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.

He Will See Himself And Life And The World As Truly As Our Human Limitations Will Permit; Realizing The Brevity And Minuteness Of Human Life, He Will Realize Also That In Individual Minds Is Concentrated Whatever Of Value The Known Universe Contains. And He Will See That The Man Whose Mind Mirrors The World Becomes In A Sense As Great As The World. 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.

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.

Prophets, Mystics, Poets, Scientific Discoverers Are Men Whose Lives Are Dominated By A Vision; They Are Essentially Solitary Men . . . Whose Thoughts And Emotions Are Not Subject To The Dominion Of The Herd.

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.

Written Words Differ From Spoken Words In Being Material Structures. A Spoken Word Is A Process In The Physical World, Having An Essential Time-order; A Written Word Is A Series Of Pieces Of Matter, Having An Essential Space-order.

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

Artists Are On The Average Less Happy Than Men Of Science.

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

Reason Is A Harmonising, Controlling Force Rather Than A Creative One.

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

If You Question Any Candid Person Who Is No Longer Young, He Is Very Likely To Tell You That, Having Tasted Life In This World, He Has No Wish To Begin Again As A "new Boy" In Another.

A Good World Needs Knowledge, Kindliness, And Courage; It Does Not Need A Regretful Hankering After The Past Or A Fettering Of The Free Intelligence By The Words Uttered Long Ago By Ignorant Men.

The Happiness That Is Genuinely Satisfying Is Accompanied By The Fullest Exercise Of Our Faculties And The Fullest Realization Of The World In Which We Live.

All Great Books Contain Boring Portions, And All Great Lives Have Contained Uninteresting Stretches.

The Practice Of Inhibiting Impulses, Which Is To A Great Extent Necessary To Civilized Life, Makes Mistakes Easier, By Preventing Experience Of The Actions To Which A Desire Would Otherwise Lead, And By Often Causing The Inhibited Impulses Themselves To Be Unnoticed Or Quickly Forgotten.

The Point Of Philosophy Is To Start With Something So Simple As Not To Seem Worth Stating, And To End With Something So Paradoxical That No One Will Believe It.

Marriage Is For Women The Commonest Mode Of Livelihood, And The Total Amount Of Undesired Sex Endured By Women Is Probably Greater In Marriage Than In Prostitution.

I Am Not Myself In Any Degree Ashamed Of Having Changed My Opinions.

Many People When They Fall In Love Look For A Little Haven Of Refuge From The World, Where They Can Be Sure Of Being Admired When They Are Not Admirable, And Praised When They Are Not Praiseworthy.

It Is A Waste Of Energy To Be Angry With A Man Who Behaves Badly, Just As It Is To Be Angry With A Car That Won't Go.

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

The Supreme Maxim In Scientific Philosophising Is This: Wherever Possible, Logical Constructions Are To Be Substituted For Inferred Entities.

The Life Of Man Is A Long March Through The Night, Surrounded By Invisible Foes, Tortured By Weariness And Pain, Towards A Goal That Few Can Hope To Reach, And Where None May Tarry Long.

War Grows Out Of Ordinary Human Nature.

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.

It Is Likely That America Will Be More Important During The Next Century Or Two, But After That It May Well Be The Turn Of China.

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.

The First Essential Character [of Civilization], I Should Say, Is Forethought. This, Indeed, Is What Mainly Distinguishes Men From Brutes And Adults From Children.

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.

The Fundamental Defect Of Fathers, In Our Competitive Society, Is That They Want Their Children To Be A Credit To Them.

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

You Must Believe That You Can Help Bring About A Better World. A Good Society Is Produced Only By Good Individuals, Just As Truly As A Majority In A Presidential Election Is Produced By The Votes Of Single Electors.

Admiration Of The Proletariat, Like That Of Dams, Power Stations, And Aeroplanes, Is Part Of The Ideology Of The Machine Age.

No; We Have Been As Usual Asking The Wrong Question. It Does Not Matter A Hoot What The Mockingbird On The Chimney Is Singing. The Real And Proper Question Is: Why Is It Beautiful?

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

Both In Thought And In Feeling, Even Though Time Be Real, To Realise The Unimportance Of Time Is The Gate Of Wisdom.

In Action, In Desire, We Must Submit Perpetually To The Tyranny Of Outside Forces; But In Thought, In Aspiration, We Are Free, Free From Our Fellowmen, Free From The Petty Planet On Which Our Bodies Impotently Crawl, Free Even, While We Live, From The Tyranny Of Death.

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.

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 Poetry.

With Equal Passion I Have Sought Knowledge. I Have Wished To Understand The Hearts Of Men. I Have Wished To Know Why The Stars Shine. And I Have Tried To Apprehend The Pythagorean Power By Which Number Holds Sway About The Flux. A Little Of This, But Not Much, I Have Achieved.

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

A Religious Creed Differs From A Scientific Theory In Claiming To Embody Eternal And Absolutely Certain Truth, Whereas Science Is Always Tentative, Expecting That Modification In Its Present Theories Will Sooner Or Later Be Found Necessary, And Aware That Its Method Is One Which Is Logically Incapable Of Arriving At A Complete And Final Demonstration.

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.

If An Opinion Contrary To Your Own Makes You Angry, That Is A Sign That You Are Subconsciously Aware Of Having No Good Reason For Thinking As You Do.

Is A Man What He Seems To The Astronomer, A Tiny Lump Of Impure Carbon And Water Crawling Impotently On A Small And Unimportant Planet? Or Is He What He Appears To Hamlet? Is He Perhaps Both As Once?

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.

Trending Author

Leonard Mlodinow

Steven Morrissey

Category