Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already 3-parts dead.
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.
There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
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.
Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?
Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attibutable to science, which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century.
Philosophy, from the earliest times, has made greater claims, and achieved fewer results, than any other branch of learning.
The search for something permanent is one of the deepest of the instincts leading men to philosophy.
Whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.
Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or what you think could have beneficent social effects if it were believed; but look only and solely at what are the facts.
It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.
Grammar and ordinary language are bad guides to metaphysics. A great book might be written showing the influence of syntax on philosophy.
It is evident as a matter of logic that, since they (world religions) disagree, not more than one of them can be true.
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
Science can teach us, and I think our hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supporters, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make the world a fit place to live.
In this lies Man’s true freedom: in determination to worship only the God created by our own love of the good.
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
I think the essence of wisdom is emancipation, as far as possible, from the tyranny of the here and now.
When a man tells you he knows the exact truth about anything, you are safe in inferring he is an inexact man.
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.
It is essential to happiness that our way of living should spring from our own deep impulses and not from the accidental tastes and desires of those who happen to be our neighbors, or even our relations.
To like many people spontaneously and without effort is perhaps the greatest of all sources of personal happiness.
If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.
The Victorian Age, for all its humbug, was a period of rapid progress, because men were dominated by hope rather than fear. If we are again to have progress, we must again be dominated by hope.
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
Neither love without knowledge nor knowledge without love can produce a good life.
Change is scientific, ‘progress’ is ethical. Change is indubitable whereas progress is a matter of controversy.
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.
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.
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own.
Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know
It is not what the man of science believes that distinguishes him, but how and why he believes it. His beliefs are tentative, not dogmatic; they are based on evidence, not on authority or intuition.
Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives’ mouths.
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
Conquer the world by intelligence, and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it.
Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.
It is the preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.
The problem of political theory is how to combine that degree of individual initiative which is necessary for progress, with the degree of social cohesion which is necessary for survival.
The psychology of adultery has been falsified by conventional morals, which assume, in monogamous countries, that attraction to one person cannot coexist with affection for another. Everybody knows that this is untrue.
When the qualities that now confer leadership have become universal, there will no longer be leaders and followers, and democracy will have been realized at last.
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.
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.
I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of work, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organised diminution of work.
Perhaps the greatest importance of the family, in these days of contraceptives, is that it preserves the habit of having children.
Travelling, whether in the mental or the physical world, is a joy, and it is good to know that, in the mental world at least, there are vast countries still very imperfectly explored
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little; it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover.
If children learn of sex as a relation between their parents to which they owe their own existence, they learn of it in its best form and in connection with its biological purpose.
The affection of parents makes infants feel safe in this dangerous world, and gives them boldness in experimentation and in exploration of their environments.
The heterosexual emotions of young children can find a natural, wholesome and innocent outlet with other children; in this form they are a part of play, and like all play, they afford a preparation for adult activities.
So long as there is death there will be sorrow, and so long as there is sorrow it can be no part of the duty of human beings to increase its amount, in spite of the fact that a few rare spirits know how to transmute it.
Happiness, as is evident, depends partly upon external circumstances and partly upon oneself.
We know too much and feel too little. At least, we feel too little of those creative emotions from which a good life springs.
The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widely spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
William James used to preach the ‘will to believe.’ For my part, I should wish to preach the ‘will to doubt’ … what is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite.
The ‘practical’ man, as this word is often used, is one who recognizes only the material needs, who realizes that men must have food for the body, but is oblivious of the necessity of providing food for the mind.
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth — more than ruin, more even than death.
…what is the use of making everybody rich if the rich themselves are miserable?
The belief that personality is mysterious and irreducible has no scientific warrant, and is accepted chiefly because it is flattering to our human self esteem.
There was a footpath leading across fields to New Southgate, and I used to go there alone to watch the sunset and contemplate suicide. I did not, however, commit suicide, because I wished to know more of mathematics.
…love must feel the ego of the beloved person as important as one’s own ego, and must realize the other’s feelings and wishes as though they were one’s own.
I have frequently experienced myself the mood in which I felt that all is vanity; I have emerged from it not by any philosophy, but owing to some imperative necessity of action.
Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.
[T]he infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.
Government can easily exist without laws, but law cannot exist without government.
I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: “The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that’s fair.” In these words he epitomized the history of the human race.
The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our imagination.
Nothing can penetrate the loneliness of the human heart except the highest intensity of the sort of love the religious teachers have preached.
It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so,it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that gaurds the door,and this dragon is religion
All that alcohol does for them is to liberate the sense of sin, which reason suppresses in saner moments.
The whole conception of ‘sin’ is one which I find very puzzling, doubtless owing to my sinful nature.
Liberation from the tyranny of the body contributes to greatness, but just as much to greatness in sin as to greatness in virtue.
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.
Most people would rather die than think and many of them do!
If our logic is to find the common world intelligible, it must not be hostile, but must be inspired by a genuine acceptance such as is not usually to be found among metaphysicians.
For my part, I prefer the ontological argument, the cosmological argument and the rest of the old stock-in-trade, to the sentimental illogicality that has sprung from Rousseau.
The objection to propaganda is not only its appeal to unreason, but still more the unfair advantage which it gives to the rich and powerful.
Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
In Labor movements generally, success through violence can hardly be expected except in circumstances where success without violence is attainable.
The problem of finding a collection of “wise” men and leaving the government to them is thus an insoluble one. That is the ultimate reason for democracy.
The importance of Man, which is the one indispensable dogma of the theologians, receives no support from a scientific view of the future of the solar system.
Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.
We have in fact, two kinds of morality, side by side: one which we preach, but do not practice, and another which we practice, but seldom preach.
Having knowledge of an unethical act and allowing it to continue can spread a contagion that can affect multiple beings in society
Science tells us what we can know, but what we can know is little, and if we forget how much we cannot know, we become insensitive to many things of great importance.
Sometimes the hardest thing in life is to know which bridge to cross and which to burn
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so sure of themselves and wiser people so full of doubts.
There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.
All the labor of all the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction. So now, my friends, if that is true, and it is true, what is the point?
What Galileo and Newton were to the seventeenth century, Darwin was to the nineteenth.
Education is not to be viewed as something like filling a vessel with water but, rather, assisting a flower to grow in its own way
Patriots always talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country.
Advocates of capitalism like to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.
Mathematics takes us still further from what is human into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual world, but ever possible world, must conform.
In adolescence, I hated life and was continually on the verge of suicide, from which, however, I was restrained by the desire to know more mathematics.
Where envy is unavoidable it must be used as a stimulus to one’s own efforts, not to the thwarting of the efforts of rivals.
Boredom is therefore a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
The centre of me is always and eternally in terrible pain … A searching for something beyond what the world contains, something transfiguring and infinite.
The more we realize our minuteness and our impotence in the face of cosmic forces the more astonishing becomes what human beings have achieved.
Real life is to most men … a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible.
The central problem of our age is how to act decisively in the absence of certainty.
It is only in marriage with the world that our ideals can bear fruit divorced from it they remain barren.
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.
Mathematics possesses not only truth but supreme beauty – a beauty cold and austere like that of a sculpture.
Many people when they fall in love look for a little haven of refuge from the world where they can be sure of being admired when they are not admirable and praised when they are not praiseworthy.
Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist since at least half of the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
‘Change’ is scientific ‘progress’ is ethical change is indubitable whereas progress is a matter of controversy.
Man needs for his happiness not only the enjoyment of this or that but hope and enterprise and change.
To be able to concentrate for a considerable time is essential to difficult achievement.
Every man wherever he goes is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions which move with him like flies on a summer day.
The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard chiefly I think because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.
The average man’s opinions are much less foolish than they would be if he thought for himself.
Cynicism such as one finds very frequently among the most highly educated young men and women of the West results from the combination of comfort and powerlessness.
Most people would die sooner than think in fact they do.
Nothing is so exhausting as indecision and nothing is so futile.
To teach how to live with uncertainty yet without being paralyzed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy can do.
Drunkenness is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative a momentary cessation of unhappiness.
Drunkenness is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative a momentary cessation of unhappiness.
The true spirit of delight the exultation the sense of being more than Man which is the touchstone of the highest excellence is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.
To be able to use leisure intelligently will be the last product of an intelligent civilization.
What hunger is in relation to food zest is in relation to life.
Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.
Fear is the main source of superstition and one of the main sources of cruelty.
If we were all given by magic the power to read each other’s thoughts I suppose the first effect would be to dissolve all friendships.
A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked not endured with patient resignation.
No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.
Man needs for his happiness not only the enjoyment of this or that but hope and enterprise and change.
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.
Continuity of purpose is one of the most essential ingredients of happiness in the long run and for most men this comes chiefly through their work.
Man needs for his happiness not only the enjoyment of this or that but hope and enterprise and change.
A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.
Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person nation or creed.
Man needs for his happiness not only the enjoyment of this or that but hope and enterprise and change.
A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked not be endured with patient resignation.
There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.
In all affairs love religion politics or business it’s a healthy idea now and then to hang a question mark on things you have long taken for granted.
Real life is to most men a long second best a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible.
The good life as I conceive it is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy – I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
To fear love is to fear life and those who fear life are already three parts dead.
The secret of happiness is this: Let your interests be as wide as possible and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
There was never any reason to believe in any innate superiority of the male except his superior muscle.
We have two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice and the other which we practice but seldom preach.
One should respect public opinion in so far as it is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
Beggars do not envy millionaires though of course they will envy other beggars who are more successful.
It is preoccupation with possession more than anything else that prevents men from living freely and nobly.
The fundamental defect of fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them.
Science is what you know philosophy is what you don’t know.
To teach how to live with uncertainty 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.
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.
I do not believe that any peacock envies another peacock his tail because every peacock is persuaded that his own tail is the finest in the world. The consequence of this is that peacocks are peaceable birds.
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is very important.
Real life is to most men … a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible.
Self-respect will keep a man from being abject when he is in the power of enemies and will enable him to feel that he may be in the right when the world is against him.
Men who are unhappy like men who sleep badly are always proud of the fact.
Unless a man has been taught what to do with success after getting it the achievement of it must inevitably leave him a prey to boredom.
The habit of looking into the future and thinking that the whole meaning of the present lies in what it will bring forth is a pernicious one. There can be no value in the whole unless there is value in the parts.
Whenever one finds oneself inclined to bitterness it is a sign of emotional failure.
No matter how eloquently a dog may bark he cannot tell you that his parents were poor but honest.
Continuity of purpose is one of the most essential ingredients of happiness in the long run and for most men this comes chiefly through their work.
A great many worries can be diminished by realizing the unimportance of the matter which is causing anxiety.
No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.
Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.
One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
Against my will, in the course of my travels, the belief that everything worth knowing was known at Cambridge gradually wore off. In this respect my travels were very useful to me.
There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.
War does not determine who is right – only who is left.
Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.
The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives.
Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.
To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.
The pleasure of work is open to anyone who can develop some specialised skill, provided that he can get satisfaction from the exercise of his skill without demanding universal applause.
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.
I’ve made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I’m convinced of the opposite.
Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know.
Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.
The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics.
The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.
To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.
The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.
A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live.
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.
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 a paradise in a few years.
Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people’s happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race.
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.
I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its Churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.
The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.
Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.
Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.
Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.
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.
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.
The degree of one’s emotions varies inversely with one’s knowledge of the facts.
Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one.
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.
Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.
The man who can centre his thoughts and hopes upon something transcending self can find a certain peace in the ordinary troubles of life, which is impossible to the pure egoist.
The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.
Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires.
Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.
The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.
The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.