Bertrand Russel
Bertrand Russel
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRSwas a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist and Nobel laureate. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had "never been any of these things, in any profound sense". He was born in Monmouthshire into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in the United Kingdom...
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Men, quite ordinary men, will compel children to look on while their mothers are raped. In pursuit of political aims men will submit their opponents to long years of unspeakable anguish
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Young men and young women meet each other with much less difficulty than was formerly the case, and every housemaid expects at least once a week as much excitement as would have lasted a Jane Austen heroine throughout a whole novel
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Our mental make-up is suited to a life of very severe physical labor
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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.
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In America everybody is of opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors.
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As men begin to grow civilized, they cease to be satisfied with mere tabus, and substitute divine commands and prohibitions
anxious benefit easier enemies good great hate hatred injure intense large love men opponents
Hatred of enemies is easier and more intense than love of friends. But from men who are more anxious to injure opponents than to benefit the world at large no great good is to be expected.
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The need for prostitution arises from the fact that many men are either unmarried or away from their wives on journeys, that such men are not content to remain continent, and that in a conventionally virtuous community they do not find respectable women.
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The idea that men are God's children is one which cannot be conveyed to the Trobriand Islanders, since they do not think that anybody is the child of any male
chief earth fear glory great hell light looks men merciless pit ruin subversive swift
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.
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Man is a feeble creature, to whom only submission and worship are besoming. Pride is insolence, and belief in human power is impiety
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Man, condemned today to lose his dearest, tomorrow himself to pass through the gate of darkness
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There's a Bible on the shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire-poison and antidote.
dissolve effect given magic power suppose
If we were all given by magic power to read each other's thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be to dissolve all friendships