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Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 5

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Worry is a form of fear, and all forms of fear produce fatigue. A man who has learned not to feel fear will find the fatigue of daily life enormously diminished.

Worry is a form of fear, and all forms of fear produce fatigue. A man who has learned not to feel fear will find the fatigue of daily life enormously diminished.

Bertrand Russell
Fear, Men, Worry
Bertrand Russell (2013). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.31, W. W. Norton & Company

Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed.

Bertrand Russell
Happiness, Depressing, Hate

Passive acceptance of the teacher's wisdom is easy to most boys and girls. It involves no effort of independent thought, and seems rational because the teacher knows more than his pupils; it is moreover the way to win the favour of the teacher unless he is a very exceptional man. Yet the habit of passive acceptance is a disastrous one in later life. It causes man to seek and to accept a leader, and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that position.

Bertrand Russell
Leadership, Girl, Teacher
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Why Men Fight”, p.106, Routledge

I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: "The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair." In these words he epitomized the history of the human race.

Bertrand Russell
Baby, Bullying, Anger
"Education and the Social Order". Book by Bertrand Russell, p. 31, 1932.

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
Country, Numbers, People
Bertrand Russell, Ray Perkins (Jr.) (2002). “Yours Faithfully, Bertrand Russell: A Lifelong Fight for Peace, Justice, and Truth in Letters to the Editor”, p.411, Open Court Publishing

Facts have to be discovered by observation, not by reasoning

Bertrand Russell
Facts, Observation, Reasoning
Bertrand Russell (2013). “History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition”, p.465, Routledge

An educator should think of a child as a gardener thinks of a plant, as something to be made to grow by having the right soil and the right amount of water. If your roses fail to bloom, it does not occur to you to whip them, but you try to find out what has been amiss in your treatment of them. ... The important thing is what the children do, and not what they do not do. And what they do, if it is to have value, must be a spontaneous expression of their own vital energy.

Bertrand Russell
Children, Teaching, Thinking
"The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959".

Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature has made them.

Bertrand Russell
Clever, Stupid, Men
"New Hopes for a Changing World". Part III: Man and Himself, Ch. 16: Ideas Which Have Become Obsolete, p. 158. Book by Bertrand Russell, 1951.

The main thing needed to make men happy is intelligence.

Bertrand Russell
Happiness, Men, Needed

Grasshopper always wrong in argument with chicken.

Bertrand Russell
Wisdom, Argument, Grasshoppers

Too little liberty brings stagnation, and too much brings chaos.

Bertrand Russell
Liberty, Littles, Too Much
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Authority and the Individual”, p.44, Routledge

Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.

Bertrand Russell
Philosophy, Past, Degrees
Bertrand Russell, Robert Charles Marsh (1988). “Logic and Knowledge: Essays 1901-1950”, p.180, Psychology Press

Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.

Bertrand Russell
Intelligent, Agreement, Pleasure
Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.554, Routledge

More important than the curriculum is the question of the methods of teaching and the spirit in which the teaching is given

Bertrand Russell
Teacher, Educational, Teaching
Bertrand Russell (2014). “On Education”, p.181, Routledge

Prison is a severe and terrible punishment; but for me, thanks to Arthur Balfour, this was not so. I was much cheered on my arrival by the warder at the gate, who had to take particulars about me. He asked my religion, and I replied 'agnostic.' He asked how to spell it, and remarked with a sigh: 'Well, there are many religions, but I suppose they all worship the same God.' This remark kept me cheerful for about a week.

Bertrand Russell
God, Punishment, Religion
Bertrand Russell (1998). “Autobiography”, p.257, Psychology Press

None of our beliefs are quite true; all have at least a penumbra of vagueness and error.

Bertrand Russell
Errors, Vagueness, Belief
Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.129, Psychology Press

It is the things for which there is no evidence that are believed with passion.

Bertrand Russell
Passion, Religion, Evidence
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Fact and Fiction”, p.63, Routledge

Admit at least one painful truth to yourself every day. Teach yourself to feel that life would still be worth living even if you were not immeasurably superior to all your friends. Exercises of this sort, prolonged through several years, will at last enable you to admit facts without flinching, and will, in so doing, free you from the empire of fear over a very large field.

Bertrand Russell
Exercise, Years, Empires
Bertrand Russell (2012). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.173, Routledge

Dread of disaster makes everybody act in the very way that increases the disaster.

Bertrand Russell
Way, Disaster, Increase
Bertrand Russell (2014). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.54, Routledge

All forms of fear produce fatigue.

Bertrand Russell
Fear, Form, Produce
Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.43, Lulu Press, Inc

The idea that the poor should have leisure has always been shocking to the rich.

Bertrand Russell
Should Have, Ideas, Leisure
Bertrand Russell (2015). “In Praise of Idleness”, p.9, Lulu Press, Inc

That the world is in a bad shape is undeniable, but there is not the faintest reason in history to suppose that Christianity offers a way out.

Bertrand Russell
Atheist, World, Shapes

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
Love, Powerful, Men
Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.10, Lulu Press, Inc

It is essential to happiness that our way of living should spring from our own deep impulses and not from the accidental tastes and desires of those who happen to be our neighbors, or even our relations.

Bertrand Russell
Spring, Desire, Essentials
Bertrand Russell (1975). “The conquest of happiness”

Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of the world.

Bertrand Russell
Buddhism, Winning, Islam
Bertrand Russell (2007). “The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism”, p.74, Cosimo, Inc.

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