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The Wisdom of Bertrand Russell

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.Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live.
Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.
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.
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
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.

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.

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

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

In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.

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

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.

Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, Thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought is great and swift and free.

The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.

Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.
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.

Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.

To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.
Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.
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.
I believe in using words, not fists. I believe in my outrage knowing people are living in boxes on the street. I believe in honesty. I believe in a good time. I believe in good food. I believe in sex.
I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.
Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.
Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.
When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief which he finds in himself.
To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education ( not all education only the one that doesn't take our thoughts toward the right direction - Krishna).
There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.
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.
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.
Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.
The man who can centre his thoughts and hopes upon something transcending self can find a certain peace in the ordinary troubles of life, which is impossible to the pure egoist.
Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.
Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.
Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.
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.
We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education ( as it is taught in the schools now - not all education - Krishna) has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.
The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts.
A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.

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.
Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.

The man who can centre his thoughts and hopes upon something transcending self can find a certain peace in the ordinary troubles of life, which is impossible to the pure egoist.

Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.
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.
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.
Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
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.
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.
Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who'll get the blame.
Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.
Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.
Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.
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.
Drunkenness is temporary suicide.
It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.
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.
In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word experience have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word.
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know.
Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people's happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race.
Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.
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.
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.
Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
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.
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.
Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who'll get the blame.
Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.
Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.
Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.
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.
Drunkenness is temporary suicide.
It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.
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.
In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word experience have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word.
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know.
Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people's happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race.

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Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 12, 2015 at 7:55am

The man who can centre his thoughts and hopes upon something transcending self can find a certain peace in the ordinary troubles of life, which is impossible to the pure egoist.

Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 12, 2015 at 9:17am

I do not pretend to start with precise questions. I do not think you can start with anything precise. You have to achieve such precision as you can, as you go along.
All movements go too far.

Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 12, 2015 at 8:54am

Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 12, 2015 at 9:06am

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.
Mathematics takes us into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual word, but every possible word, must conform.
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires.
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.
The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.
Anything you're good at contributes to happiness.
The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.
Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.
Boredom is... a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do so.
The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short.
Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
No one gossips about other people's secret virtues.
http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors
The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.
Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.
Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself.
None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.
Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires.
If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.

Permalink Reply by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 12, 2015 at 9:15am

There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths.
Liberty is the right to do what I like; license, the right to do what you like.
Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one.
The most savage controversies are about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.
Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one.
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.
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.
Religions that teach brotherly love have been used as an excuse for persecution, and our profoundest scientific insight is made into a means of mass destruction.
Right discipline consists, not in external compulsion, but in the habits of mind which lead spontaneously to desirable rather than undesirable activities.
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.
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. ( And I don't! - Krishna)
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.
Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attributable to science, which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century.
The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men.
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?