You know what charm is: a way of getting the answer yes without having asked any clear question.
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… everything in nature…
… everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence.
9Love is only half the…
Love is only half the illusion; the lover, but not his love, is deceived.
The Life of Reason, 1905-190620
An ideal cannot wait for…
The loneliest woman in…
The loneliest woman in the world is a woman without a close woman friend.
The Life of Reason, 1905-190643
Friends are generally…
Friends are generally of the same sex, for when men and women agree, it is only in the conclusions; their reasons are always different.
Persons and Places: The Middle Span, 194534
Fanaticism consists of…
The brute necessity of…
The brute necessity of believing something so long as life lasts does not justify any belief in particular.
Scepticism and Animal Faith, 192328
My atheism, like that…
My atheism, like that of Spinoza, is true piety towards the universe and denies only gods fashioned by men in their own image to be servants of their human interests.
17The happiness that is…
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.
17Collective fear stimulates…
Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
11The place of the father…
The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.
29Everything is vague to…
Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.
“The Philosophy of Logical Atomism”11
When one admits that nothing…
When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also add that some things are more nearly certain than others.
“Am I an Atheist or an Agnostic?”12
I found one day in school…
I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: ‘The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that’s fair.’ In these words he epitomized the history of the human race.
Education and the Social Order20
Three passions have governed…
Three passions have governed my life:
The longings for love, the search for knowledge,
And unbearable pity for the suffering of [humankind].
Love brings ecstasy and relieves loneliness.
In the union of love I have seen
In a mystic miniature the prefiguring vision
Of the heavens that saints and poets have imagined.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge.
I have wished to understand the hearts of [people].
I have wished to know why the stars shine.
Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens,
But always pity brought me back to earth;
Cries of pain reverberated in my heart
Of children in famine, of victims tortured
And of old people left helpless.
I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot,
And I too suffer.
This has been my life; I found it worth living.
adapted23
There are two motives…
There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.
20What a man believes upon…
What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires — desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.
12In conclusion, there is…
In conclusion, there is a marvelous anecdote from the occasion of Russell’s ninetieth birthday that best serves to summarize his attitude toward God and religion. A London lady sat next to him at this party, and over the soup she suggested to him that he was not only the world’s most famous atheist but, by this time, very probably the world’s oldest atheist. “What will you do, Bertie, if it turns out you’re wrong?” she asked. “I mean, what if — uh — when the time comes, you should meet Him? What will you say?” Russell was delighted with the question. His bright, birdlike eyes grew even brighter as he contemplated this possible future dialogue, and then he pointed a finger upward and cried, “Why, I should say, ‘God, you gave us insufficient evidence.'”
Al Seckel, in Preface to Bertrand Russell on God and Religion11
When, however, one reads…
When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet. . . indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman.
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