Bertrand Russell · 749 pages
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“I hate the world and almost all the people in it. I hate the Labour Congress and the journalists who send men to be slaughtered, and the fathers who feel a smug pride when their sons are killed, and even the pacifists who keep saying human nature is essentially good, in spite of all the daily proofs to the contrary. I hate the planet and the human race—I am ashamed to belong to such a species.”
― Bertrand Russell, quote from The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
“(on A History of Western Philosophy) I was sometimes accused by reviewers of writing not a true history but a biased account of the events that I arbitrarily chose to write of. But to my mind, a man without a bias cannot write interesting history - if, indeed, such man exists.”
― Bertrand Russell, quote from The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
“A good social system is not to be secured by making people unselfish, but, by making their own vital impulses fit in with other peoples. This is feasible. Those who have produced stoic philosophies have all had enough to eat and drink.
I feel I shall find the truth on my deathbed and be surrounded by people too stupid to understand—fussing about medicines instead of searching for wisdom.
I hate being all tidy like a book in a library where nobody reads – prison is horribly like that.”
― Bertrand Russell, quote from The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
“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.”
― Bertrand Russell, quote from The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
“Ever since puberty I have believed in the value of two things: kindness and clear thinking. At first these two remained more or less distinct; when I felt triumphant I believed most in clear thinking, and in the opposite mood I believed most in kindness. Gradually, the two have come more and more together in my feelings. I find that much unclear thought exists as an excuse for cruelty, and that much cruelty is prompted by superstitious beliefs.”
― Bertrand Russell, quote from The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
“Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.”
― Bertrand Russell, quote from The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
“Nothing can penetrate the loneliness of the human heart except the highest intensity of the sort of love the religious teachers have preached.”
― Bertrand Russell, quote from The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
“Nature and books and (later) mathematics saved me from complete despondency.”
― Bertrand Russell, quote from The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
“At the age of eleven, I began Euclid, with my brother as my tutor. ... I had not imagined that there was anything so delicious in the world. After I had learned the fifth proposition, my brother told me that it was generally considered difficult, but I had found no difficulty whatsoever. This was the first time it had dawned on me that I might have some intelligence.”
― Bertrand Russell, quote from The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
“It is not growing fanaticism, but growing democracy, that causes my troubles. Did you ever read the life of Averroes? He was protected by kings, but hated by the mob, which was fanatical. In the end, the mob won. Free thought has always been a perquisite of aristocracy.”
― Bertrand Russell, quote from The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
“My advice to anyone who wishes to write is to know all the very best literature by heart, and ignore the rest as completely as possible.”
― Bertrand Russell, quote from The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
“In general, I find that things that have happened to me out of doors have made a deeper impression than things that have happened indoors.”
― Bertrand Russell, quote from The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
“...I went to Chicago, where I stayed with an eminent gynaecologist and his family...He was obviously a man of very strong sexual passions, and his face was ravaged by the efforts of self-control.”
― Bertrand Russell, quote from The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
“Love of England is very nearly the strongest emotion that I possess.”
― Bertrand Russell, quote from The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
“The beginnings of Algebra I found far more difficult, perhaps as a result of bad teaching, I was made to learn by heart: 'The square of the sum of two numbers is equal to the sum of their squares increased by twice their product.' I had not the vaguest idea what this meant, and when I could not remember the words, my tutor threw the book at my head, which did not stimulate my intellect in any way.”
― Bertrand Russell, quote from The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
“...nor do I think that my scientific outlook has contributed very greatly to my happiness, which I attribute to defecating twice a day with unfailing regularity.”
― Bertrand Russell, quote from The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
“My first book of stories was 'Satan in the Suburbs'. The title story was in part suggested to me by a stranger whom I met in Mortlake and who, when he saw me, crossed the road and made the sign of the Cross as he went.”
― Bertrand Russell, quote from The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
“I’m getting on pretty well with German, though I haven’t arrived at the stage of finding it a reasonable medium for the expression of thought. I think the original couple who spoke it must have died rather soon after the Tower of Babel, leaving a rather pedantically-minded baby, who had learnt all the words of one syllable, and had to make up the long ones with them – at least how else can you account for such words as Handschule and be-ab-sichtigen? I”
― Bertrand Russell, quote from The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Born place: in Trellech, Monmouthshire, Wales, The United Kingdom
Born date May 18, 1872
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“The universe deepened at that moment, the music of the spheres grew from a mere chorus to a symphony as triumphant as Beethoven’s Ninth, and I knew that I would always be able to hear it when I wished or needed to, always be able to Use it to take the step I needed to see the one I loved, or, failing that, step to the place where I had been with the one I loved, or, failing that, find a place to love for its own beauty and richness.
The energy of quasars and exploding stellar nuclei filled me then. I was borne up on waves of energy more lovely and more lyrical even than the Ouster angels’ wings seen sliding along corridors of sunlight. The shell of deadly energy that was my prison and execution cell seemed laughable now, Schrödinger’s original joke, a child’s jump rope laid around me on the ground as restraining walls.
I stepped out of the Schrödinger cat box and out of Armaghast System.”
― Dan Simmons, quote from The Rise of Endymion
“I remember the way Mother's eyes watched him. Like she could never get enough. She spent her life loving him, like I've spent mine loving you.”
― Julie Berry, quote from All the Truth That's in Me
“You can’t tell which way the train went by looking at the tracks.”
― James Patterson, quote from 1st to Die
“We always have the necessary resources to face the storms that life throws at us, but most of the time,those resources are locked up in the depths of our heart and we waste an enormous amount of time trying to find them.By the time we've found them,we already been defeated by adversity.”
― Paulo Coelho, quote from Like the Flowing River
“Wordsworth had discerned a 'spirit' which was at one and the same time immanent in and distinct from natural phenomena:
'A presence that disturbs me with the joy
Of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime
Of something far more deeply interfused
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns,
And the round ocean and the living air,
And the blue sky, and in the mind of man:
A motion and a spirit, that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought
And rolls through all things.”
― Karen Armstrong, quote from A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam
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