… everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence.
11Author: admin Quotes
Create Personalise WishesLove is only half the…
Love is only half the illusion; the lover, but not his love, is deceived.
The Life of Reason, 1905-190622
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, 1905-1906435
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, 1945420
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, 192330
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.
19The 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.
20Collective fear stimulates…
Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
17The place of the father…
The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.
37Everything 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”17
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?”17
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 Order76
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.
adapted32
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.
24What 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.
15In 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 Religion14
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.
397The history of men’s opposition…
The history of men’s opposition to women’s emancipation is more interesting perhaps than the story of that emancipation itself.
402To enjoy freedom, if the…
To enjoy freedom, if the platitude is pardonable, we have of course to control ourselves. We must not squander our powers, helplessly and ignorantly, squirting half the house in order to water a single rose-bush; we must train them, exactly and powerfully, here on the very spot.
30It is worth mentioning,…
It is worth mentioning, for future reference, that the creative power which bubbles so pleasantly in beginning a new book quiets down after a time, and one goes on more steadily. Doubts creep in. Then one becomes resigned. Determination not to give in, and the sense of an impending shape keep one at it more than anything.
19Without self-confidence…
Without self-confidence we are as babes in the cradle. And how can we generate this imponderable quality, which is yet so invaluable, most quickly? By thinking that other people are inferior to oneself.
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