Russell, Bertrand

"A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short."

"One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison."

"In the life of the individual, rejection and failure define the edges of ambition."

"The mark of a civilized man is his willingness to reread."

"Happiness is not something ready made. It comes from your own actions."

"A thinker sees his own actions as experiments and questions--as attempts to find out something."

"Passionate love is a queer thing. It is what unites religions and kills them, creates ideals and butchers them."

"Do you think you can take over the universe and improve it? I do not think it can be done. The universe is sacred."

"The evils which we suffer from come from lack of imagination."

"Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true."

"Take the risk of thinking for yourself, much more happiness, truth, beauty, and wisdom will come to you."

"There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate newspaper campaigns."

"Happiness is not best achieved by those who seek it directly; and very often its pursuit leads to misery."

"Knowledge is power, but enthusiasm pulls the switch."

"The world needs open hearts and open minds, and there is no time to lose."

"I wish to propose for the reader's favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive."

"The slave is doomed to servitude by the consciousness of his own inferiority."

"One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and imprisonment, but not further."

"The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge."

"Many a man hath blamed marriage for all his worldly troubles, not realizing that it is his own lack of virtue that is the cause of his problems."

"It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly."

"Art is the effort of man to express not the facts, but his feeling about facts."

"Young people are supposed to think about themselves. It's their job."

"The development of civilization has been accompanied by a development of cruelty."

"There is no great invention, from fire to electricity, that has not been hailed as an insult to some god."

"Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so."

"The more you own, the more it owns you."

"If your child is to be fully educated, he cannot confine himself to a single subject."

"The question of free will is a very difficult one."

"The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice."