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
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.
All movements go too far.Almost everything that distinguishes the modern
world from earlier centuries is attributable to science, which achieved its most
spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century.
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.
A stupid man's report of
what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates
what he hears into something he can understand.
Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist,
since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
Both in thought and in feeling, even though time
be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.Conventional people are roused to fury by
departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a
criticism of themselves.
Democracy is the process by which people choose
the man who'll get the blame.Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for
every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
Every living thing is a sort of imperialist,
seeking to transform as much as possible of its environment into itself... When
we compare the (present) human population of the globe with... that of former
times, we see that "chemical imperialism" has been... the main end to which
human intelligence has been devoted.
Every time the subject
(philosophy) came up they (his family) repeated with unfailing regularity, 'what
is mind? No matter. what is matter? Never mind.'
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one
of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
Freedom of opinion can only exist when the
government thinks itself secure.
How dare we speak of the
laws of chance? Is not chance the antithesis of all law?
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.
I like mathematics because it is not human and
has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental
universe - because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return.
I once saw a photograph
of a large herd of wild elephants in Central Africa seeing an airplane for the
first time, and all in state of wild collective terror... As, however, there
were no journalists among them, the terror died down when the airplane was out
of sight.
It has been said that man
is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could
support this.
I think we ought always to entertain our
opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to
believe any philosophy, not even mine.
It is permissible with
certain precautions to speak in print of coitus, but it is not permissible to
employ the monosyllabic synonym for this word.
I would never die for my beliefs because I might
be wrong.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.
If it is the devil that
tempts the young to enjoy themselves, is it not, perhaps, the same personage
that persuades the old to condemn their enjoyment?
If I were a medical man,
I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important.
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.
In addition to cotton
goods we exported tuberculosis and syphilis, but for them there was no charge.
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.
In America everybody is of the opinion that he
has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he
has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine
that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.It has been said that man is a rational animal.
All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than
anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.It may seem to your conceited to suppose that
you can do anything important toward improving the lot of mankind. But this is a
fallacy. You must believe that you can help bring about a better world. A good
society is produced only by good individuals, just as truly as a majority in a
presidential election is produced by the votes of single electors. Everybody can
do something toward creating in his own environment kindly feelings rather than
anger, reasonableness rather than hysteria, happiness rather than misery.
It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain
what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals.Italy, and the spring and first love all
together should suffice to make the gloomiest person happy.
Life is nothing but a
competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.
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.
Man is a credulous
animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief,
he will be satisfied with bad ones.
Man needs, for his happiness, not only the
enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.
Many people would sooner die than think; in
fact, they do so.
Men are born ignorant,
not stupid; they are mad stupid by education.
Marriage is for women the commonest mode of
livelihood, and the total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably
greater in marriage than in prostitution.
Mathematics may be defined
as the subject where we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what
we are saying is true.
Mathematics takes us into the region of absolute
necessity, to which not only the actual word, but every possible word, must
conform.Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made
stupid by education.
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.Most people would sooner die than think; in
fact, they do so.
Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred
or disguised love of power.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.
Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest
pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more
generally, in the acquisition of power.No man treats a motor car as foolishly as he
treats another human being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its
annoying behavior to sin, he does not say, "You are a wicked motorcar, and I
shall not give you any more petrol until you go." He attempts to find out what
is wrong and set it right.
No one gossips about other people's secret
virtues.
(Nowadays) every
housemaid expects at least once a week as much excitement as would have lasted a
Jane Austen heroine throughout a whole novel.
No; we have been as usual asking the wrong
question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is
singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?
None but a coward dares to boast that he has
never known fear.Nothing of importance is ever achieved without
discipline. I feel myself sometimes not wholly in sympathy with some modern
educational theorists, because I think that they underestimate the part that
discipline plays. But the discipline you have in your life should be one
determined by your own desires and your own needs, not put upon you by society
or authority.
Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some
elderly and ignorant magistrate.
Of remoter ancestors I
can only discover one who did not live to a great age, and he died of a disease
which is now rare, namely, having his head cut off.
One of the chief obstacles to intelligence is
credulity, and credulity could be enormously diminished by instructions as to
the prevalent forms of mendacity. Credulity is a greater evil in the present day
than it ever was before, because, owing to the growth of education, it is much
easier than it used to be to spread misinformation, and, owing to democracy, the
spread of misinformation is more important than in former times to the holders
of power.
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous
breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.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.
Order, unity, and continuity are human
inventions, just as truly as catalogues and encyclopedias.Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be
killed for trivial reasons.
Patriots always talk of dying for their country
and never of killing for their country.Religion is something left over from the infancy
of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our
guidelines.
Religions that teach brotherly love have been
used as an excuse for persecution, and our profoundest scientific insight is
made into a means of mass destruction.Right discipline consists, not in external
compulsion, but in the habits of mind which lead spontaneously to desirable
rather than undesirable activities.
Science is what you know, philosophy is what you
don't know.Sin is geographical.
So far as I can remember,
there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence; and in this
respect ministers of religion follow gospel authority more closely than in some
others.
Suppose atomic bombs had
reduced the population of the world to one brother and sister; should they let
the human race die out?
The coward wretch whose hand and heart Can bear
to torture aught below, Is ever first to quail and start From the slightest pain
or equal foe.
The degree of one's
emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts -- the less you know
the hotter you get.The fact that an opinion has been widely held is
no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.
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.
The most savage controversies are those about
matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in
theology, not in arithmetic.The observer, when he seems to himself to be
observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the
effects of the stone upon himself.
The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary
pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of
others.
The place of the father in the modern suburban
family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.
The point of philosophy is to start with
something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so
paradoxical that no one will believe it.
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.The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
The trouble with the world is that the stupid
are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.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.
The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we
know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.The whole problem with the world is that fools
and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of
doubts.
The world is full of magical things patiently
waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
There is much pleasure to be gained from useless
knowledge.
There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the
vast majority by adequate governmental action.
This, however, is a
passing nightmare; in time the earth will become again incapable of supporting
life, and peace will retrurn.
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.To be without some of the things you want is an
indispensable part of happiness.
To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear
life are already three parts dead.
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.
Trivial people suffer
trivially, great men suffer greatly.
We are told that sin
consists in acting contrary to God's commands, but we are also told that God is
omnipotent. If He is, nothing contrary to His will can occur; therefore when the
sinner disobeys His commands, He must have intended this to happen.
We love those who hate
our enemies, and if we had no enemies, there would be very few people whom we
should love.
War does not determine who is right - only who
is left.
We are faced with the paradoxical fact that
education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of
thought.What is wanted is not the will to believe, but
the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
Work is of two kinds: first, altering the
position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other matter;
second, telling other people to do so.
