Bertrand Russell Good Bad Quotes & Sayings

Nations are like men - growing old, never young. My son had the misfortune to be a young man of an old nation. — Gene Wolfe

In his youth, Wordsworth sympathized with the French Revolution, went to France, wrote good poetry and had a natural daughter. At this period, he was a bad man. Then he became good, abandoned his daughter, adopted correct principles and wrote bad poetry. — Bertrand Russell

The great world, so far as we know it from philosophy of nature, is neither good nor bad, and is not concerned to make us happy or unhappy. All such philosophies spring from self-importance, and are best corrected by a little astronomy. — Bertrand Russell

Broadly speaking, Protestants like to be good and have invented theology in order to keep themselves so, whereas Catholics like to be bad and have invented theology in order to keep their neighbors good. Hence, the social character of Catholicism and the individual character of Protestantism. — Bertrand Russell

To the primitive mind, everything is either friendly or hostile; but experience has shown that friendliness and hostility are not the conceptions by which the world is to be understood. — Bertrand Russell

When you write, you're supposed to go stand somewhere else for a while, see things from a perspective that's not in line with your own reflexive truths. — Catherine Brady

Good and bad, and even the higher good that mysticism finds everywhere, are the reflections of our own emotions on other things, not part of the substance of things as they are in themselves. — Bertrand Russell

Each act of cruelty is eternally a part of the universe; nothing that happens later can make that act good rather than bad, or can confer perfection on the whole of which it is a part. — Bertrand Russell

When it comes to remaking my own films in the English language, I can only imagine that it is a very boring process, I wouldn't ever dream of it. — Park Chan-wook

One's work is never so bad as it appears on bad days, nor so good as it appears on good days. — Bertrand Russell

A physicist looks for causes; that does not necessarily imply that there are causes everywhere. A man may look for gold without assuming that there is gold everywhere; if he finds gold, well and good, if he doesn't he's had bad luck. The same is true when the physicists look for causes. — Bertrand Russell

While the morality of slavery alone might have eventually led to a showdown, it was America's sprawling growth that made the issue explosive. — Robert L. O'Connell

Bad philosophers may have a certain influence; good philosophers, never. — Bertrand Russell

The closer you come to your authentic self, the simpler everything becomes. Listen to your intuition. It will tell you who you are. — Vironika Tugaleva

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

Your writing is never as good as you hoped; but never as bad as you feared. — Bertrand Russell

According to Bertrand Russell, the virtuous stoic was one whose will was in agreement with the natural order. He described the basic idea like this: In the life of the individual man, virtue is the sole good; such things as health, happiness, possessions, are of no account. Since virtue resides in the will, everything really good or bad in a man's life depends only upon himself. He may become poor, but what of it? He can still be virtuous. A tyrant may put him in prison, but he can still persevere in living in harmony with Nature. He may be sentenced to death, but he can die nobly, like Socrates. Therefore every man has perfect freedom, provided he emancipates himself from mundane desires. — Piper Kerman