There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.
Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already 3-parts dead.
I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence
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.
In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.
It's easy to fall in love. The hard part is finding someone to catch you.
Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.
To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.
Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.
It is the preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else that prevents us from living freely and nobly.
We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power.
No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.
It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.
Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
The secret of happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible.
Really high-minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially other people's.
Patriots always talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country.
So far as I can remember there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years.
Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.
![[T]he infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.](https://quotes.thefamouspeople.com/images/quotes/bertrand-russell-8117.jpg)
[T]he infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.
I believe in using words, not fists. I believe in my outrage knowing people are living in boxes on the street. I believe in honesty. I believe in a good time. I believe in good food. I believe in sex.
