It is not my prayer and humility that you cause things to go as you wish, but by acquiring a knowledge of natural laws. Bertrand Russell More Quotes by Bertrand Russell More Quotes From Bertrand Russell If a Black Death could be spread throughout the world once in every generation survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full. Bertrand Russell eugenicspopulationblack Anything you're good at contributes to happiness. Bertrand Russell mindhappyhappiness There is no greater reason for children to honour parents than for parents to honour children except, that while the children are young, the parents are stronger than children. Bertrand Russell anniversaryparentchildren All who are not lunatics are agreed about certain things. That it is better to be alive than dead, better to be adequately fed than starved, better to be free than a slave. Many people desire those things only for themselves and their friends; they are quite content that their enemies should suffer. These people can only be refuted by science: Humankind has become so much one family that we cannot ensure our own prosperity except by ensuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy. Bertrand Russell sufferingpeopleenemy The puritanism of Christianity has played havoc with the moderation that an enlightened and tolerant critical spirit would have produced. I've noticed that in whatever country, county, town, or other region there is a regulation enjoining temperance, the population seems to be entirely composed of teetotallers and drunkards. There's a Bible on that shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire - poison and antidote. Bertrand Russell nexttownscountry Drunkenness is temporary suicide. Bertrand Russell alcoholsuicidedrinking Politics is concerned with herds rather than with individuals, and the passions which are important in politics are, therefore, those in which the various members of a given herd can feel alike. Bertrand Russell individualpassionimportant One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it. Bertrand Russell atheismmenreligion Drunkeness is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness. Bertrand Russell suicidalalcoholsuicide The teacher, like the artist, the philosopher, and the man of letters, can only perform his work adequately if he feels himself to be an individual directed by an inner creative impulse, not dominated and fettered by an outside authority. Bertrand Russell creativeartistteacher The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was “given” by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new state. The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict their numbers increased. How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty? Bertrand Russell numberscountrypeople Really high-minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially other people's. Bertrand Russell eugenicshappinesspeople What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer Bertrand Russell inquiryattitudeneeds The world that we must seek is a world in which the creative spirit is alive, in which life is an adventure full of joy and hope, based rather upon the impulse to construct than upon the desire to retain what we possess or to seize what is possessed by others. Bertrand Russell creativejoyadventure I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment. Bertrand Russell everlastingpunishmentbelieve Americans and Englishmen, when they become acquainted with the Balkans, feel an astonished contempt when they study the mutual enmities of Bulgarians and Serbs, of Hungarians and Rumanians. It is evident to them that these enmities are absurd and that the belief of each little nation in its own superiority has no objective basis. But most of them are quite unable to see that the national pride of a Great Power is essentially as unjustifiable as that of a little Balkan country. Bertrand Russell enmitypridecountry 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. Bertrand Russell gratitudehappinesslife The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution. Bertrand Russell problemchallengesway Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless. Bertrand Russell atheismpurposereligion I do not think that the real reason why people accept religion has anything to do with argumentation. They accept religion on emotional grounds. Bertrand Russell emotionalrealthinking
