Russell Quotes

We've searched our database for all the quotes and captions related to Russell. Here they are! All 100 of them:

β€œ
There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (The Conquest of Happiness)
β€œ
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
β€œ
Doctor Who: You want weapons? We're in a library. Books are the best weapon in the world. This room's the greatest arsenal we could have. Arm yourself! (from Tooth and Claw in Season 2)
”
”
Russell T. Davies
β€œ
Go, my book, and help destroy the world as it is.
”
”
Russell Banks (Continental Drift)
β€œ
War does not determine who is right β€” only who is left.
”
”
Anonymous
β€œ
To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already 3-parts dead.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
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.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (A History of Western Philosophy)
β€œ
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
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
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.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (The Conquest of Happiness)
β€œ
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
β€œ
What I am is tired of jam.
”
”
Russell Hoban
β€œ
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)
β€œ
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)
β€œ
I couldn't possibly have sex with someone with such a slender grasp on grammar!
”
”
Russell Brand
β€œ
The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
It's easy to fall in love. The hard part is finding someone to catch you.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
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.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (A History of Western Philosophy)
β€œ
Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
Even as a junkie I stayed true [to vegetarianism] - 'I shall have heroin, but I shan't have a hamburger.' What a sexy little paradox.
”
”
Russell Brand (My Booky Wook)
β€œ
It is the preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
If you are an alien, how come you sound like you're from the north?' 'Lots of planets have a north!
”
”
Russell T. Davies
β€œ
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.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (Unpopular Essays)
β€œ
Rebel children, I urge you, fight the turgid slick of conformity with which they seek to smother your glory.
”
”
Russell Brand
β€œ
It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
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.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (On Education: On Education (Routledge Classics))
β€œ
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)
β€œ
All sacrifice and suffering is redemptive. It is used to either teach the individual or to help others. Nothing is by chance.
”
”
A.J. Russell
β€œ
My desire and wish is that the things I start with should be so obvious that you wonder why I spend my time stating them. This is what I aim at because 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.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism)
β€œ
Fate loves the fearless.
”
”
James Russell Lowell
β€œ
I can’t lose the thing I’ve held onto for so long, you know?” My face twists up from the pain of pushing it out. β€œI just really need it to be a love story, you know? I really, really need it to be that.” β€œI know,” she says. β€œBecause if it isn’t a love story, then what is it”? I look to her glassy eyes, her face of wide open empathy. β€œIt’s my life,” I say. β€œThis has been my whole life.
”
”
Kate Elizabeth Russell (My Dark Vanessa)
β€œ
Have you been out in society recently? 'Cause it's SHIT.
”
”
Russell Brand
β€œ
Sanity calms, but madness is more interesting.
”
”
John Russell
β€œ
One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
The secret of happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
People will risk everything for a little bit of something beautiful.
”
”
Kate Elizabeth Russell (My Dark Vanessa)
β€œ
When you want to teach children to think, you begin by treating them seriously when they are little, giving them responsibilities, talking to them candidly, providing privacy and solitude for them, and making them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the beginning. That’s if you want to teach them to think.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
There's one tiny little gap in the universe left, just about to close. And it takes a lot of power to send this projection. I'm in orbit around a supernova. I'm burning up a sun just to say goodbye.
”
”
Russell T. Davies (Doctor Who: The Shooting Scripts)
β€œ
Rose:i love you Doctor:Quite right, and i guess if it's my last chance to say it... Rose Tyler... (the doctor fades, him in his TARDIS, with tear tracks and a tear running down his cheek)
”
”
Russell T. Davies
β€œ
[T]he infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (Sceptical Essays (Routledge Classics))
β€œ
Patriots always talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
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)
β€œ
The excuses we make for them are outrageous, but they’re nothing compared with the ones we make for ourselves.
”
”
Kate Elizabeth Russell (My Dark Vanessa)
β€œ
It's always funny until someone gets hurt. Then it's just hilarious.
”
”
Bill Hicks
β€œ
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
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.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (Marriage and Morals)
β€œ
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.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (Unpopular Essays)
β€œ
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)
β€œ
Be led by your talent, not by your self-loathing; those other things you just have to manage.
”
”
Russell Brand (My Booky Wook)
β€œ
Books are the bees which carry the quickening pollen from one to another mind.
”
”
James Russell Lowell
β€œ
Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (Am I an Atheist or an Agnostic?)
β€œ
So far as I can remember there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
For me happiness occurs arbitrarily: a moment of eye contact on a bus, where all at once you fall in love; or a frozen second in a park where it's enough that there are trees in the world.
”
”
Russell Brand
β€œ
The take-home message is that we should blame religion itself, not religious extremism - as though that were some kind of terrible perversion of real, decent religion. Voltaire got it right long ago: 'Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.' So did Bertrand Russell: 'Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do.
”
”
Richard Dawkins (The God Delusion)
β€œ
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 paradise in a few years.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
Because even if I sometimes use the word abuse to describe certain things that were done to me, in someone else’s mouth the word turns ugly and absolute. It swallows up everything that happened.
”
”
Kate Elizabeth Russell (My Dark Vanessa)
β€œ
Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
The mentality and behavior of drug addicts and alcoholics is wholly irrational until you understand that they are completely powerless over their addiction and unless they have structured help, they have no hope.
”
”
Russell Brand
β€œ
Cyber Leader: Daleks, be warned. You have declared war upon the Cybermen. Dalek Sec: This is not war - this is pest control! Cyber Leader: We have five million Cybermen. How many are you? Dalek Sec: Four. Cyber Leader: You would destroy the Cybermen with four Daleks? Dalek Sec: We would destroy the Cybermen with one Dalek! You superior in only one respect. Cyber Leader: What is that? Dalek Sec: You are better at dying.
”
”
Russell T. Davies
β€œ
The secret of happiness is this: let your interest be as wide as possible and let your reactions to the things and persons who interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
I do what I do without hope of reward or fear of punishment. I do not require Heaven or Hell to bribe or scare me into acting decently.
”
”
Mary Doria Russell (The Sparrow (The Sparrow, #1))
β€œ
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.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge
”
”
Bertrand Russell (Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits)
β€œ
It’s strange to know that whenever I remember myself at fifteen, I’ll think of this.
”
”
Kate Elizabeth Russell (My Dark Vanessa)
β€œ
Anything you're good at contributes to happiness.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
I saw the Fall of Troy! World War Five! I was pushing boxes at the Boston Tea Party! Now I'm gonna die in a dungeon.... [disgustedly] in Cardiff!
”
”
Russell T. Davies
β€œ
I wonder how much victimhood they’d be willing to grant a girl like me.
”
”
Kate Elizabeth Russell (My Dark Vanessa)
β€œ
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
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.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (What I Believe)
β€œ
The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holders lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (Sceptical Essays (Routledge Classics))
β€œ
When considering marriage one should ask oneself this question; 'will I be able to talk with this person into old age?' Everything else is transitory, the most time is spent in conversation.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
Sin is geographical.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
I want to change the world, and do something valuable and beautiful. I want people to remember me before I'm dead, and then more afterwards.
”
”
Russell Brand (My Booky Wook)
β€œ
Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
It's difficult to believe in yourself because the idea of self is an artificial construction. You are, in fact, part of the glorious oneness of the universe. Everything beautiful in the world is within you. No one really feels self-confident deep down because it's an artificial idea. Really, people aren't that worried about what you're doing or what you're saying, so you can drift around the world relatively anonymously: you must not feel persecuted and examined. Liberate yourself from that idea that people are watching you.
”
”
Russell Brand
β€œ
Somehow I sensed what was coming for me even then. Really, though, what girl doesn’t? It looms over you, that threat of violence. They drill the danger into your head until it starts to feel inevitable. You grow up wondering when it’s finally going to happen.
”
”
Kate Elizabeth Russell (My Dark Vanessa)
β€œ
Vulnerability is the only authentic state. Being vulnerable means being open, for wounding, but also for pleasure. Being open to the wounds of life means also being open to the bounty and beauty. Don’t mask or deny your vulnerability: it is your greatest asset. Be vulnerable: quake and shake in your boots with it. the new goodness that is coming to you, in the form of people, situations, and things can only come to you when you are vulnerable, i.e. open.
”
”
Stephen Russell (Barefoot Doctor's Guide to the Tao: A Spiritual Handbook for the Urban Warrior)
β€œ
We all need something to help us unwind at the end of the day. You might have a glass of wine, or a joint, or a big delicious blob of heroin to silence your silly brainbox of its witterings but there has to be some form of punctuation, or life just seems utterly relentless.
”
”
Russell Brand (My Booky Wook)
β€œ
These illustrations suggest four general maxims[...]. The first is: remember that your motives are not always as altruistic as they seem to yourself. The second is: don't over-estimate your own merits. The third is: don't expect others to take as much interest in you as you do yourself. And the fourth is: don't imagine that most people give enough thought to you to have any special desire to persecute you.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (The Conquest of Happiness)
β€œ
The Doctor: Rose... before I go, I just want to tell you: you were fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And do you know what? [Pause] So was I! [The TARDIS lights up with energy as the Doctor regenerates into his tenth incarnation.] The Tenth Doctor: Hello! Okayβ€” [The Doctor pauses and swallows uncomfortably] New teeth. That's weird. So where was I? Oh, that's right. Barcelona! [Grins]
”
”
Russell T. Davies
β€œ
My dad's philosophy was (and I think still is) that life is a malevolent force, which seeks to destroy you, and you have to struggle with it. Only those who are hard enough will succeed. Most people get crushed, but if you fight, in the end life will go, "Fucking hell. This one's serious. Let him through.
”
”
Russell Brand
β€œ
As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
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)
β€œ
Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beautyβ€”a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (A History of Western Philosophy)
β€œ
Rose: My mum's here. The Doctor: Oh, that's just what I need! Don't you dare make this place domestic! Mickey Smith: You ruined my life, Doctor. [the Doctor turns and looks at him, irritated] They thought she was dead, I was a murder suspect because of you! The Doctor: [looks at Rose] See what I mean? Domestic! Mickey: I bet you don't even remember my name! The Doctor: Ricky. Mickey: It's Mickey! The Doctor: No, it's Ricky. Mickey: I think I know my own name! The Doctor: You think you know your own name? How stupid are you?
”
”
Russell T. Davies
β€œ
I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting. Many a man has borne himself proudly on the scaffold; surely the same pride should teach us to think truly about man's place in the world. Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cosy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigour, and the great spaces have a splendour of their own.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
Love is wise; hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don't like. We can only live together in that way. But if we are to live together, and not die together, we must learn a kind of charity and a kind of tolerance, which is absolutely vital to the continuation of human life on this planet.
”
”
Bertrand Russell
β€œ
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
β€œ
Dalek: I will talk to the Doctor. The Doctor: Oh will you? That's nice. Hello! Dalek: The Dalek strategem nears completion. The fleet is almost ready. You will not intervene. The Doctor: Oh really? Why's that, then? Dalek: We have your associate. You will obey or she will be exterminated. The Doctor: No. Dalek: Explain yourself. The Doctor: I said, "No." Dalek: What is the meaning of this negative? The Doctor: It means, "No." Dalek: But she will be destroyed! The Doctor: No! 'Cause this is what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna rescue her. I'm gonna save Rose Tyler from the middle of the Dalek fleet, and then I'm gonna save the Earth. And thenβ€”just to finish offβ€”I'm gonna wipe every last stinking Dalek out of the sky! Dalek: But you have no weapons, no defenses, no plan. The Doctor: Yeah! And doesn't that scare you to death? Rose? Rose: Yes, Doctor? The Doctor: I'm coming to get you.
”
”
Russell T. Davies
β€œ
I travelled across the world. From the ruins of New York, to the fusion mills of China, right across the radiation pits of Europe. And everywhere I went I saw people just like you, living as slaves! But if Martha Jones became a legend then that's wrong, because my name isn't important. There's someone else. The man who sent me out there, the man who told me to walk the Earth. And his name is The Doctor. He has saved your lives so many times and you never even knew he was there. He never stops. He never stays. He never asks to be thanked. But I've seen him, I know him... I love him... And I know what he can do. - Martha Jones
”
”
Russell T. Davies
β€œ
There's an old Jewish story that says in the beginning God was everywhere and everything, a totality. But to make creation, God had to remove Himself from some part of the universe, so something besides Himself could exist. So He breathed in, and in the places where God withdrew, there creation exists." So God just leaves?" No. He watches. He rejoices. He weeps. He observes the moral drama of human life and gives meaning to it by caring passionately about us, and remembering." Matthew ten, verse twenty-nine: Not one sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it." But the sparrow still falls.
”
”
Mary Doria Russell (The Sparrow (The Sparrow, #1))
β€œ
The Doctor: Hello, I've come to see the Lord Mayor. Idris Hopper: Have you got an appointment? The Doctor: No, just an old friend passing by, bit of a surprise. Can't wait to see her face! Idris Hopper: Well, she's just having a cup of tea. The Doctor: Just go in there and tell her "the Doctor" would like to see her. Idris Hopper: "The Doctor" who? The Doctor: Just "The Doctor". Tell her exactly that, "The Doctor". Idris Hopper: Hang on a tic. [Idris goes inside. There is the sound of a teacup smashing and Idris returns.] Idris Hopper: The Lord Mayor says "thank you f-for popping by." She'd love to have a chat, but, um, she's up to her eyes in paperwork. Perhaps you would like to make an appointment for next week... The Doctor: [happily] She's climbing out the window, isn't she? Idris Hopper: Yes, she is.
”
”
Russell T. Davies
β€œ
That is the idea -- that we should all be wicked if we did not hold to the Christian religion. It seems to me that the people who have held to it have been for the most part extremely wicked. You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so-called ages of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with all its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burned as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion. You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. 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. You may think that I am going too far when I say that that is still so. I do not think that I am. Take one fact. You will bear with me if I mention it. It is not a pleasant fact, but the churches compel one to mention facts that are not pleasant. Supposing that in this world that we live in today an inexperienced girl is married to a syphilitic man; in that case the Catholic Church says, 'This is an indissoluble sacrament. You must endure celibacy or stay together. And if you stay together, you must not use birth control to prevent the birth of syphilitic children.' Nobody whose natural sympathies have not been warped by dogma, or whose moral nature was not absolutely dead to all sense of suffering, could maintain that it is right and proper that that state of things should continue. That is only an example. There are a great many ways in which, at the present moment, the church, by its insistence upon what it chooses to call morality, inflicts upon all sorts of people undeserved and unnecessary suffering. And of course, as we know, it is in its major part an opponent still of progress and improvement in all the ways that diminish suffering in the world, because it has chosen to label as morality a certain narrow set of rules of conduct which have nothing to do with human happiness; and when you say that this or that ought to be done because it would make for human happiness, they think that has nothing to do with the matter at all. 'What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is not to make people happy.
”
”
Bertrand Russell (Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects)
β€œ
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. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair. I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found. With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved. Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer. This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
”
”
Bertrand Russell