Bertrand Russell Quotes
If we were all given by magic the power to read each other's thoughts I suppose the first effect would be to dissolve all friendships.
A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked not endured with patient resignation.
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.
Continuity of purpose is one of the most essential ingredients of happiness in the long run and for most men this comes chiefly through their work.
A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.
A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked not be endured with patient resignation.
In all affairs love religion politics or business it's a healthy idea now and then to hang a question mark on things you have long taken for granted.
Real life is to most men a long second best a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible.
The good life as I conceive it is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
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.
There was never any reason to believe in any innate superiority of the male except his superior muscle.
We have two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice and the other which we practice but seldom preach.
One should respect public opinion in so far as it is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
Beggars do not envy millionaires though of course they will envy other beggars who are more successful.
It is preoccupation with possession more than anything else that prevents men from living freely and nobly.
The fundamental defect of fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them.
To teach how to live with uncertainty and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy in our age can still do for those who study it.
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.
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is very important.
Self-respect will keep a man from being abject when he is in the power of enemies and will enable him to feel that he may be in the right when the world is against him.
Unless a man has been taught what to do with success after getting it the achievement of it must inevitably leave him a prey to boredom.
Whenever one finds oneself inclined to bitterness it is a sign of emotional failure.
No matter how eloquently a dog may bark he cannot tell you that his parents were poor but honest.
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.
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 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.