Bertrand Russell:
“So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.”
“It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won’t go.”
“Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.”
“Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth – more than ruin – more even than death… Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.”
“No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.”
“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 greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.”
“The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”
“The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.”
“The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”
“This is patently absurd; but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.”
“War does not determine who is right - only who is left.”
“Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.”
“When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others.”
“Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.”
“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.”
“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.”
“Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.”
“It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it is true.”
“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.”
“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.”
“Sin is geographical.”
“The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.”