Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling? Bertrand Russell More Quotes by Bertrand Russell More Quotes From Bertrand Russell Anything you're good at contributes to happiness. Bertrand Russell mind happy happiness 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 anniversary parent children 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 suffering people enemy 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 next towns country Drunkenness is temporary suicide. Bertrand Russell alcohol suicide drinking 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 individual passion important 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 atheism men religion Drunkeness is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness. Bertrand Russell suicidal alcohol suicide 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 creative artist teacher 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 numbers country people Really high-minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially other people's. Bertrand Russell eugenics happiness people 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 inquiry attitude needs 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 creative joy adventure I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment. Bertrand Russell everlasting punishment believe 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 enmity pride country 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 gratitude happiness life The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution. Bertrand Russell problem challenges way Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless. Bertrand Russell atheism purpose religion 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 emotional real thinking A world full of happiness is not beyond human power to create; the obstacles imposed by inanimate nature are not insuperable. The real obstacles lie in the heart of man, and the cure for these is a firm hope, informed and fortified by thought. Bertrand Russell real happiness lying
