Quotes

Bertrand Russell

Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.

Bertrand Russell

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

Bertrand Russell

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite

Bertrand Russell

Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

People do not seem to realize that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character. 

Bertrand Russell

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? 

Bertrand Russell

Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power. 

Bertrand Russell

I’ve made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I’m convinced of the opposite. 

Aristotle

Hope is a waking dream

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is brave five minutes longer

Bertrand Russell

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. 

Bertrand Russell

All movements go too far.

Ralph Waldo Emerson 

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

Bertrand Russell

A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.

Bertrand Russell

All movements go too far.

Bertrand Russell

Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?

Bertrand Russell

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.

Mitch Hedberg

My fake plants died because I did not pretend to water them.

Aristotle

Anybody can become angry – that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way – that is not within everybody’s power and is not easy.

Bertrand Russell

To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.

Bertrand Russell

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

Bertrand Russell

Orson Welles

We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself.

Bertrand Russell

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

Bertrand Russell

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.

Bertrand Russell

It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.

Bertrand Russell

Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.

Bertrand Russell

The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics.

Bertrand Russell

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.

Bertrand Russell

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

Bertrand Russell

We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.

Bertrand Russell

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.

Bertrand Russell

It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.

Irving Berlin

Life is 10 percent what you make it, and 90 percent how you take it.

Martin Luther King, Jr

Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.

Martin Luther

Even if I knew that tomorrow the world would go to pieces, I would still plant my apple tree.

Bertrand Russell

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.

Elbert Hubbard

Do not take life too seriously. You will never get out of it alive.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

No change of circumstances can repair a defect of character.

Bertrand Russell

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.

Bertrand Russell

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

Sun Tzu

There is no instance of a nation benefitting from prolonged warfare.

Albert Einstein

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Ships that pass in the night, and speak each other in passing, only a signal shown, and a distant voice in the darkness; So on the ocean of life, we pass and speak one another, only a look and a voice, then darkness again and a silence.

E. B. White

Prejudice is a great time saver. You can form opinions without having to get the facts.

Dr. Seuss

Maybe Christmas, the Grinch thought, doesn’t come from a store.

Lily Tomlin

I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.

Lou Holtz

Ability is what you’re capable of doing. Motivation determines what you do. Attitude determines how well you do it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

An ounce of action is worth a ton of theory.

Hunter S. Thompson

No man is so foolish but he may sometimes give another good counsel, and no man so wise that he may not easily err if he takes no other counsel than his own. He that is taught only by himself has a fool for a master.

Friedrich Nietzsche

You have your way. I have my way. As for the right way, the correct way, and the only way, it does not exist.

Confucius

To know what you know and what you do not know, that is true knowledge.

Socrates

The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Always do what you are afraid to do.

Bertrand Russell

One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.

Confucius

Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.

Aristotle

Education is the best provision for old age.

Bertrand Russell

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

Bertrand Russell

Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know.

Bertrand Russell

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

Karl Marx

Capital is money, capital is commodities. By virtue of it being value, it has acquired the occult ability to add value to itself. It brings forth living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs.

Bertrand Russell

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

The end of the human race will be that it will eventually die of civilization.

Bertrand Russell

War does not determine who is right – only who is left.

Karl Marx

Social progress can be measured by the social position of the female sex.

Friedrich Nietzsche

In individuals, insanity is rare; but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.

Bertrand Russell

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.

Confucius

By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; Second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Adopt the pace of nature: her secret is patience.

Bertrand Russell

Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.