Will Shanklin > Will's Quotes

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#1

“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.”
― Bertrand Russell

tags: doubt, intelligent, problems, smart, stupid, world

2391 likes

#2

“I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove that Satan is a fiction. The Christian god may exist; so may the gods of Olympus, or of ancient Egypt, or of Babylon. But no one of these hypotheses is more probable than any other: they lie outside the region of even probable knowledge, and therefore there is no reason to consider any of them.”
― Bertrand Russell , Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects

tags: babylon, belief, burden-of-proof, christian-god, egyptian, fiction, gods, hypothesis, knowledge, olympus, probability, proof, rational, reason, santa, satan, superstition

820 likes

#3

“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.”
― Bertrand Russell

tags: certainty, perspective, presumption, questioning

854 likes

#4

“War does not determine who is right — only who is left.”
― Anonymous

tags: misattributed-bernard-shaw, misattributed-bertrand-russell, war

1546 likes

#5

“Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.”
― Bertrand Russell

602 likes

#6

“One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways.”
― Bertrand Russell, The Conquest of Happiness

352 likes

#7

“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”
― Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays

tags: cruelty, fear, superstition

724 likes

#8

“It's easy to fall in love. The hard part is finding someone to catch you.”
― Bertrand Russell

637 likes

#9

“So far as I can remember there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.”
― Bertrand Russell

212 likes

#10

“I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.”
― Bertrand Russell

tags: paraphrased, philosophy

1346 likes

#11

“Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature made them.”
― Bertrand Russell, New Hopes for a Changing World

tags: communism, democracy, dishonesty, funny, humour, politicians, politics, revolution, socialism

840 likes

#12

“There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dare not face this thought! Moreover, since he is aware, however dimly, that his opinions are not rational, he becomes furious when they are disputed.”
― Bertrand Russell, Human Society in Ethics and Politics

223 likes

#13

“An idealist is one who, on noticing that a rose smells better than a cabbage, concludes that it makes a better soup.”
― H.L. Mencken, A Book of Burlesques

tags: cabbage, cooking, fragrance, humor, idealism, metaphors, perfume, roses, similes

473 likes

#14

“Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.”
― Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays

101 likes

#15

“[T]he infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.”
― Bertrand Russell, Sceptical Essays

tags: conscience, cruelty, dishonesty, double-standards, hell, morality

243 likes

#16

“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 habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. 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.”
― Bertrand Russell, Why Men Fight

tags: courage, defiance, fearlessness, free-thinker, freedom, freedom-of-thought, independence, intelligence, strength, thought

605 likes

#17

“If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.”
― Bertrand Russell

323 likes

#18

“Beware the man of a single book.”
― St. Thomas Aquinas

tags: books-reading, ignorance, illiteracy, limitation

488 likes

#19

“To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”
― Bertrand Russell

155 likes

#20

“A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.”
― Bertrand Russell

63 likes

#21

“If throughout your life you abstain from murder, theft, fornication, perjury, blasphemy, and disrespect toward your parents, church, and your king, you are conventionally held to deserve moral admiration even if you have never done a single kind, generous or useful action. This very inadequate notion of virtue is an outcome of taboo morality, and has done untold harm.”
― Bertrand Russell

115 likes

#22

“There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our thoughts.”
― Bertrand Russell, Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects

92 likes

#23

“Sin is geographical.”
― Bertrand Russell

150 likes

#24

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

tags: future, life, past, reflection, understanding

8989 likes

#25

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

tags: civil-rights, free-speech, free-will, freedom, intelligence, liberty, stupidity

4203 likes

#26

“The Bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly.”
― Soren Kierkegaard, Provocations: Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard

tags: bible, christianity

1159 likes

#27

“Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.”
― Søren Kierkegaard , The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin

tags: anxiety, dizziness, fear, freedom, life

3132 likes

#28

“What is a poet? An unhappy man who hides deep anguish in his heart, but whose lips are so formed that when the sigh and cry pass through them, it sounds like lovely music.... And people flock around the poet and say: 'Sing again soon' - that is, 'May new sufferings torment your soul but your lips be fashioned as before, for the cry would only frighten us, but the music, that is blissful.”
― Soren Kierkegaard, Either - Or

tags: poets

1007 likes

#29

“Many of us pursue pleasure with such breathless haste that we hurry past it.”
― Søren Kierkegaard

tags: pleasure

384 likes

#30

“A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that's just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it's a joke.”
― Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or, Part I

tags: humor

990 likes

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