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Worry Is A Form Of Fear, And All Forms Of Fear Produce Fatigue. A Man Who Has Learned Not To Feel Fear Will Find The Fatigue Of Daily Life Enormously Diminished.

-Bertrand Russell

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Worry Is A Form

Bertrand Russell

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Worry Is A Form Of Fear, And All Forms Of Fear Produce Fatigue. A Man Who Has Learned Not To Feel Fear Will Find The Fatigue Of Daily Life Enormously Diminished.

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

Clergymen Almost Necessarily Fail In Two Ways As Teachers Of Morals. They Condemn Acts Which Do No Harm And They Condone Acts Which Do Great Harm.

You Find This Curious Fact, That The More Intense Has Been The Religion Of Any Period And More Profound Has Been The Dogmatic Belief, The Greater Has Been The Cruelty And The Worse Has Been The State Of Affairs. In The So Called Age Of Faith, When Men Really Did Believe The Christian Religion In All Its Completeness, There Was The Inquisition, With Its Tortures; There Were Millions Of Unfortunate Women Burnt As Witches; And There Was Every Kind Of Cruelty Practised Upon All Sorts Of People In The Name Of Religion.

With Subjectivity In Philosophy, Anarchism In Politics Goes Hand In Hand. Already During Luther's Lifetime, Unwelcome And Unacknowledged Disciples Had Developed The Doctrine Of Anabaptism, Which For A Time Dominated The City Of Munster. The Anabaptists Repudiated All Law Since They Held That Good Men Will Be Guided At Every Moment By The Holy Spirit, Who Can Not Be Bound By Formulas. From This Premise They Arrive At Communism And Sexual Promiscuity; They Were Therefore Exterminated After A Heroic Resistance.

There Are Three Ways Of Securing A Society That Shall Be Stable As Regards Population. The First Is That Of Birth Control, The Second That Of Infanticide Or Really Destructive Wars, And The Third That Of General Misery Except For A Powerful Minority.

Freedom Comes Only To Those Who No Longer Ask Of Life That It Shall Yield Them Any Of Those Personal Goods That Are Subject To The Mutations Of Time.

To Fear Love Is To Fear Life, And Those Who Fear Life Are Already Three Parts Dead.

Our Individual Life Is Brief, And Perhaps The Whole Life Of Mankind Will Be Brief If Measured In Astronomical Scale

The Camera Is As Subjective As We Are.

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.

Opinions Which Justify Cruelty Are Inspired By Cruel Impulses.

Whatever We Know Without Inference Is Mental.

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

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.

The Newspapers At One Time Said That I Was Dead But After Carefully Examining The Evidence I Came To The Conclusion That This Statement Was False.

The Discipline In Your Life Should Be One Determined By Your Own Desires And Your Own Needs, Not Put Upon You By Society Or Authority.

The Great Majority Of Men And Women, In Ordinary Times, Pass Through Life Without Ever Contemplating Or Criticising, As A Whole, Either Their Own Conditions Or Those Of The World At Large.

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

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.

Those Who Have Never Known The Deep Intimacy And The Intense Companionship Of Happy Mutual Love Have Missed The Best Thing That Life Has To Give.

Change Is One Thing, Progress Is Another.

Never Let Yourself Be Diverted, Either By What You Wish To Believe, Or What You Think Could Have Beneficent Social Effects If It Were Believed; But Look Only And Solely At What Are The Facts.

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.

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

Protestants, From The First, Have Been Distinguished From Their Opponents By What They Do Not Believe; To Throw Over One More Dogma Is, Therefore, Merely To Carry The Movement One Stage Further. Moral Fervor Is The Essence Of The Matter.

There Are Two Ways Of Avoiding Fear: One Is By Persuading Ourselves That We Are Immune From Disaster, And The Other Is By The Practice Of Sheer Courage. The Latter Is Difficult, And To Everybody Becomes Impossible At A Certain Point. The Former Has Therefore Always Been More Popular. Primitive Magic Has The Purpose Of Securing Safety, Either By Injuring Enemies, Or By Protecting Oneself By Talismans, Spells, Or Incantations.

I Did Not, However, Commit Suicide, Because I Wished To Know More Of Mathematics.

Respectability, Regularity, And Routine - The Whole Cast-iron Discipline Of A Modern Industrial Society - Have Atrophied The Artistic Impulse, And Imprisoned Love So That It Can No Longer Be Generous And Free And Creative, But Must Be Either Stuffy Or Furtive.

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

An Individual Human Existence Should Be Like A River

Facts Have To Be Discovered By Observation, Not By Reasoning

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

Life And Hope For The World Are To Be Found Only In The Deeds Of Love.

The First Man Who Said "fire Burns" Was Employing Scientific Method, At Any Rate If He Had Allowed Himself To Be Burnt Several Times. This Man Had Already Passed Through The Two Stages Of Observation And Generalization. He Had Not, However, What Scientific Technique Demands - A Careful Choice Of Significant Facts On The One Hand, And, On The Other Hand, Various Means Of Arriving At Laws Otherwise Than My Mere Generalization.

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

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.

I Have Found, For Example, That If I Have To Write Upon Sum Rather Difficult Topic, The Best Plan Is To Think About It With Very Great Intensity-the Greatest Intensity Of Which I Am Capable-for A Few Hours Or Days, And At The End Of That Time Give Orders, So To Speak (to My Subconscious Mind) That The Work Is To Proceed Underground. After Some Months I Return Consciously To The Topic And Find That The Work Has Been Done.

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

Be Isolated, Be Ignored, Be Attacked, Be In Doubt, Be Frightened, But Do Not Be Silenced.

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.

Christ Said "thou Shalt Love Thy Neighbor As Thyself" And When Asked "who Is Thy Neighbour? Went On To The Parable Of The Good Samaritan. If You Wish To Understand This Parable As It Was Understood By His Hearers, You Should Substitute "germans And Japanese" For Samaritan. I Fear My Modern Day Christians Would Resent Such A Substitution, Because It Would Compel Them To Realize How Far They Have Departed From The Teachings Of The Founder Of Their Religion.

Every Living Thing Is A Sort Of Imperialist, Seeking To Transform As Much As Possible Of Its Environment Into Itself.

You Find As You Look Around The World That Every Single Bit Of Progress In Humane Feeling, Every Improvement In The Criminal Law, Every Step Toward The Diminution Of War, Every Step Toward Better Treatment Of The Colored Races, Or Every Mitigation Of Slavery, Every Moral Progress That There Has Been In The World, Has Been Consistently Opposed By The Organized Churches Of The World. I Say Quite Deliberately That The Christian Religion, As Organized In Its Churches, Has Been And Still Is The Principle Enemy Of Moral Progress In The World.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Human Life, Its Growth, Its Hopes, Fears, Loves, Et Cetera, Are The Result Of Accidents

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

The Process Of Philosophizing, To My Mind, Consists Mainly In Passing From Those Obvious, Vague, Ambiguous Things, That We Feel Quite Sure Of, To Something Precise, Clear, Definite, Which By Reflection And Analysis We Find Is Involved In The Vague Thing That We Start From, And Is, So To Speak, The Real Truth Of Which That Vague Thing Is A Sort Of Shadow.

When One Admits That Nothing Is Certain One Must, I Think, Also Admit That Some Things Are Much More Nearly Certain Than Others.

It Is Not By Delusion, However Exalted, That Mankind Can Prosper, But Only By Unswerving Courage In The Pursuit Of Truth.

War Grows Out Of Ordinary Human Nature.

Law In Origin Was Merely A Codification Of The Power Of Dominant Groups, And Did Not Aim At Anything That To A Modern Man Would Appear To Be Justice

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.

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 .

Drunkeness Is Temporary Suicide: The Happiness That It Brings Is Merely Negative, A Momentary Cessation Of Unhappiness.

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

All Religions Are Both Harmful And Untrue.

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

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.

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

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 The State Intervenes To Insure The Indoctrination Of Some Doctrine, It Does So Because There Is No Conclusive Evidence In Favor Of That Doctrine.

The Demand For Certainty Is One Which Is Natural To Man, But Is Nevertheless An Intellectual Vice.

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

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

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?

War Can Only Be Abolished By The Establishment Of A World Government.

World Government

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.

It's Coexistence Or No Existence.

If Life Is To Be Fully Human It Must Serve Some End Which Seems, In Some Sense, Outside Human Life, Some End Which Is Impersonal And Above Mankind, Such As God Or Truth Or Beauty. Those Who Best Promote Life Do Not Have Life For Their Purpose. They Aim Rather At What Seems Like A Gradual Incarnation, A Bringing Into Our Human Existence Of Something Eternal, Something That Appears To Imagination To Live In A Heaven Remote From Strife And Failure And The Devouring Jaws Of Time.

Boys And Girls Should Be Taught Respect For Each Other's Liberty... And That Jealousy And Possessiveness Kill Love.

Broadly Speaking, Protestants Like To Be Good And Have Invented Theology In Order To Keep Themselves So, Whereas Catholics Like To Be Bad And Have Invented Theology In Order To Keep Their Neighbors Good. Hence, The Social Character Of Catholicism And The Individual Character Of Protestantism.

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

Science Can Teach Us, And I Think Our Hearts Can Teach Us, No Longer To Look Around For Imaginary Supporters, No Longer To Invent Allies In The Sky, But Rather To Look To Our Own Efforts Here Below To Make The World A Fit Place To Live.

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

How Much Good It Would Do If One Could Exterminate The Human Race.

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.

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

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

None Of Our Beliefs Are Quite True; All Have At Least A Penumbra Of Vagueness And Error.

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.

No Man Who Believes That All Is For The Best In This Suffering World Can Keep His Ethical Values Unimpaired, Since He Is Always Having To Find Excuses For Pain And Misery.

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

The World That I Should Wish To See Would Be One Freed From The Virulence Of Group Hostilities And Capable Of Realizing That Happiness For All Is To Be Derived Rather From Co-operation Than From Strife. I Should Wish To See A World In Which Education Aimed At Mental Freedom Rather Than Imprisoning The Minds Of The Young In Rigid Armor Of Dogma Calculated To Protect Them Through Life Against The Shafts Of Impartial Evidence.

The Fact That All Mathematics Is Symbolic Logic Is One Of The Greatest Discoveries Of Our Age; And When This Fact Has Been Established, The Remainder Of The Principles Of Mathematics Consists Of The Analysis Of Symbolic Logic Itself.

Mathematical Logic

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

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

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

Language Serves Not Only To Express Thought But To Make Possible Thoughts Which Could Not Exist Without It.

The More You Complain The Longer God Lets You Live

Funny Bumper Sticker

To Think I Have Spent My Life On Absolute Muck.

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

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."

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

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

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

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.

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

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

I Feel As If One Would Only Discover On One's Death Bed What One Ought To Have Lived For

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.

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

I Suppose The Advocates Of Unreason Think That There Is A Better Chance Of Profitably Deceiving The Populace If They Keep It In A State Of Effervescence.

My Own Belief Is That In Most Ages And In Most Places Obscure Psychological Forces Led Men To Adopt Systems Involving Quite Unnecessary Cruelty, And That This Is Still The Case Among The Most Civilized Races At The Present Day.

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.

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

I Greatly Doubt Whether The Men Who Become Pirate Chiefs Are Those Who Are Filled With Retrospective Terror Of Their Fathers, Or Whether Napoleon , At Austerlitz, Really Felt That He Was Getting Even With Madame Mère. I Know Nothing Of The Mother Of Attila , But I Rather Suspect That She Spoilt The Little Darling, Who Subsequently Found The World Irritating Because It Sometimes Resisted His Whims.

Worry Is A Form Of Fear, And All Forms Of Fear Produce Fatigue. A Man Who Has Learned Not To Feel Fear Will Find The Fatigue Of Daily Life Enormously Diminished.

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

I Conclude That, While It Is True That Science Cannot Decide Questions Of Value, That Is Because They Cannot Be Intellectually Decided At All, And Lie Outside The Realm Of Truth And Falsehood. Whatever Knowledge Is Attainable, Must Be Attained By Scientific Methods; And What Science Cannot Discover, Mankind Cannot Know.

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.

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.

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

There Is No Excuse For Deceiving Children. And When, As Must Happen In Conventional Families, They Find That Their Parents Have Lied, They Lose Confidence In Them And Feel Justified In Lying To Them.

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.

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.

My Own View On Religion Is . . . It Helped In Early Days To Fix The Calendar, And . . . To Chronicle Eclipses . . . These Two Services I Am Prepared To Acknowledge.

A Habit Of Basing Convictions Upon Evidence, And Of Giving To Them Only That Degree Or Certainty Which The Evidence Warrants, Would, If It Became General, Cure Most Of The Ills From Which The World Suffers.

More Cranks Take Up Unfashionable Errors Than Unfashionable Truths.

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.

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

Neither A Man Nor A Crowd Nor A Nation Can Be Trusted To Act Humanely Or To Think Sanely Under The Influence Of A Great Fear.

The Opposition Of Instinct And Reason Is Mainly Illusory. Instinct, Intuition, Or Insight Is What First Leads To The Beliefs Which Subsequent Reason Confirms Or Confutes; But The Confirmation, Where It Is Possible, Consists, In The Last Analysis, Of Agreement With Other Beliefs No Less Instinctive. Reason Is A Harmonizing, Controlling Force Rather Than A Creative One. Even In The Most Purely Logical Realms, It Is Insight That First Arrives At What Is New.

The Human Race May Well Become Extinct Before The End Of The Century. Speaking As A Mathematician, I Should Say The Odds Are About Three To One Against Survival.

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

For Over Two Thousand Years It Has Been The Custom Among Earnest Moralists To Decry Happiness As Something Degraded And Unworthy

One Is Often Told That It Is A Very Wrong Thing To Attack Religion, Because Religion Makes Men Virtuous. So I Am Told; I Have Not Noticed It.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

The Wise Man Will Be As Happy As Circumstances Permit, And If He Finds The Contemplation Of The Universe Painful Beyond A Point, He Will Contemplate Something Else Instead.

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

Religion May In Most Of Its Forms Be Defined As The Belief That The Gods Are On The Side Of The Government.

If There Were In The World Today Any Large Number Of People Who Desired Their Own Happiness More Than They Desired The Unhappiness Of Others, We Could Have A Paradise In A Few Years.

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

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

Power Of Thought

The Fact That A Belief Has A Good Moral Effect Upon A Man Is No Evidence Whatsoever In Favor Of Its Truth. I'm Not Contending In A Dogmatic Way That There Is Not A God. What I'm Contending Is That We Don't Know That There Is. I Don't Like The Word "absolute." I Don't Think There Is Anything Absolute Whatever. The Moral Law, For Example, Is Always Changing. At One Period In The Development Of The Human Race, Almost Everybody Thought Cannibalism Was A Duty.

Mankind Is Divided Into Two Classes: Those Who, Being Artificial, Praise Nature, And Those Who, Being Natural, Praise Art.

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.

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

The Institution Of Representative Government To Us Seems An Essential Part Of Democracy, But The Ancients Never Thought Of It. Its Immense Merit Was That It Enabled A Large Constituency To Exert Indirect Power, And Thus Made Possible The Distribution Of Political Responsibility Throughout The Great States Of Modern Times.

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

Science And Religion

If Two Hitherto Rival Football Teams, Under The Influence Of Brotherly Love, Decided To Co-operate In Placing The Football First Beyond One Goal And Then Beyond The Other, No One's Happiness Would Be Increased

It Is Only Through Imagination That Men Become Aware Of What The World Might Be; Without It, ‘progress’ Would Become Mechanical And Trivial.

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

Extreme Hopes Are Born Of Extreme Misery, And In Such A World Hopes Could Only Be Irrational.

Americans And Englishmen, When They Become Acquainted With The Balkans, Feel An Astonished Contempt When They Study The Mutual Enmities Of Bulgarians And Serbs, Of Hungarians And Rumanians. It Is Evident To Them That These Enmities Are Absurd And That The Belief Of Each Little Nation In Its Own Superiority Has No Objective Basis. But Most Of Them Are Quite Unable To See That The National Pride Of A Great Power Is Essentially As Unjustifiable As That Of A Little Balkan Country.

The Atomists , Unlike Socrates , Plato , And Aristotle , Sought To Explain The World Without Introducing The Notion Of Purpose Or Final Cause.

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

Moral Indignation Is One Of The Most Harmful Forces In The Modern World, The More So As It Can Always Be Diverted To Sinister Uses By Those Who Control Propaganda.

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

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.

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

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.

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

To Write Tragedy, A Man Must Feel Tragedy. To Feel Tragedy, A Man Must Be Aware Of The World In Which He Lives. Not Only With His Mind, But With His Blood And Sinews.

Philosophy, Though Unable To Tell Us With Certainty What Is The True Answer To The Doubts Which It Raises, Is Able To Suggest Many Possiblities Which Enlarge Our Thoughts And Free Them From The Tyranny Of Custom. Thus, While Diminishing Our Feeling Of Certainty As To What Things Are, It Greatly Increases Our Knowledge As To What The May Be; It Removes The Somewhat Arrogant Dogmatism Of Those Who Have Never Travelled Into The Region Of Liberating Doubt, And It Keeps Alive Our Sense Of Wonder By Showing Familar Things In An Unfamilar Aspect

The Main Thing Needed To Make Men Happy Is Intelligence.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

There's A Bible On That Shelf There. But I Keep It Next To Voltaire - Poison And Antidote.

We Shall Say That We Have Acquaintance With Anything Of Which We Are Directly Aware, Without The Intermediary Of Any Process Of Inference Of Any Knowledge Of Truths.

The World In Which We Live Can Be Understood As A Result Of Muddle And Accident; But If It Is The Outcome Of Deliberate Purpose, The Purpose Must Have Been That Of A Fiend. For My Part, I Find Accident A Less Painful And More Plausible Hypothesis.

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

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

I Like Mathematics Because It Is Not Human And Has Nothing Particular To Do With This Planet Or With The Whole Accidental Universe - Because, Like Spinoza's God, It Won't Love Us In Return.

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.

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

Science Tells Us What We Can Know But What We Can Know Is Little And If We Forget How Much We Cannot Know We Become Insensitive Of Many Things Of Very Great Importance. Theology, On The Other Hand Induces A Dogmatic Belief That We Have Knowledge Where In Fact We Have Ignorance And By Doing So Generates A Kind Of Impertinent Insolence Towards The Universe. Uncertainty In The Presence Of Vivid Hopes And Fears Is Painful, But Must Be Endured If We Wish To Live Without The Support Of Comforting Fairy Tales.

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.

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.

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.

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

There Is No Nonsense So Errant That It Cannot Be Made The Creed Of The Vast Majority By Adequate Governmental Action.

Knowledge And Power

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.

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

I Consider The Official Catholic Attitude On Divorce, Birth Control, And Censorship Exceedingly Dangerous To Mankind.

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.

Ironclads And Maxim Guns Must Be The Ultimate Arbiters Of Metaphysical Truth.

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.

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

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 Say Quite Deliberately That The Christian Religion, As Organized In Its Churches, Has Been And Still Is The Principal Enemy Of Moral Progress In The World.

Every Housemaid Expects At Least Once A Week As Much Excitement As Would Have Lasted A Jane Austen Heroine Throughout A Whole Novel.

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

I Have Lived In The Pursuit Of A Vision, Both Personal And Social. Personal: To Care For What Is Noble, For What Is Beautiful, For What Is Gentle; To Allow Moments Of Insight To Give Wisdom At More Mundane Times. Social: To See In Imagination The Society That Is To Be Created, Where Individuals Grow Freely, And Where Hate And Greed And Envy Die Because There Is Nothing To Nourish Them. These Things I Believe, And The World, For All Its Horrors, Has Left Me Unshaken.

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