Russel Quotes & Sayings

I think I have fairly heard and fairly weighed the evidence on both sides, and I remain an utter disbeliever in almost all that you consider the most sacred truths [ ... ] I can see much to admire in all religions [ ... ] But whether there be a God and whatever be His nature; whether we have an immortal soul or not, or whatever may be our state after death, I can have no fear of having to suffer for the study of nature and the search for truth. — Alfred Russel Wallace

In less than eight years "The Origin of Species" has produced conviction in the minds of a majority of the most eminent living men of science. New facts, new problems, new difficulties as they arise are accepted, solved, or removed by this theory; and its principles are illustrated by the progress and conclusions of every well established branch of human knowledge. — Alfred Russel Wallace

You know, we lose more homes every year to flooding than we do any other event in America. — Russel Honore

The intellectually-inclined biographers stray from the point that the message is directed through the spoken word at the broad masses and not writing to an inbred, self-adoring intellectual elite."
--Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny, pp. 30-31 — Russel H.S. Stolfi

And, as I said before, there are exceptions to the white norm: people who are white on the outside, but not white inside. I'm not sure what term should be applied to them other than "human beings. — Russel Means

You were born free by accident. You live free by choice. To die free is your responsibility. — Russel Honore

Our mastery over the forces of nature has led to a rapid growth of population, and a vast accumulation of wealth; but these have brought with them such an amount of poverty and crime, and have fostered the growth of so much sordid feeling and so many fierce passions, that it may well be questioned, whether the mental and moral status of our population has not on the average been lowered, and whether the evil has not overbalanced the good. — Alfred Russel Wallace

People need to be cautious because anything built by man can be destroyed by Mother Nature. — Russel Honore

In my solitude I have pondered much on the incomprehensible subjects of space, eternity, life and death. — Alfred Russel Wallace

Tell me about yourself, Miss Russel."
I started to give him the obligatory response, first the demurral and then the reluctant flat autobiography, but some slight air of polite inattention in his manner stopped me. Instead, I found myself grinning at him.
"Why don't you tell me about myself, Mr. Holmes? — Laurie R. King

Russel Wright was the most responsible for the shift in taste toward modern in the late 1930s. — George Nelson

Although characterized as uncultured and unread, Hitler comes off in his demands to create a monumental signature for a Greater Germany as historically and artistically gifted."
-- Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny, p. 32 — Russel H.S. Stolfi

Why do some die and some live? The answer was clearly, that on the whole the best fitted live. From the effects of disease the most healthy escaped; from enemies, the strongest, swiftest, or the most cunning; from famine, the best hunters or those with the best digestion; and so on. Then it suddenly flashed upon me that this self-acting process would necessarily improve the race, because in every generation the inferior would inevitably be killed off and the superior would remain-that is, the fittest would survive. — Alfred Russel Wallace

Do you mind?' He inquired politely as he lowered himself into the chair.

'Do I mind what?' She examined his ears as if they were curious phenomena. 'Rabies, dogs, aged relatives or standing around in the rain?'

'Do you mind me sitting here?'

'I can please myself whether or not I endure it. That's freedom, isn't it? — Eric Frank Russell

The National Guard has served America as both a wartime force and the first military responders in times of domestic crisis. Hundreds of times each year, the nation's governors call upon their Guard troops to respond to fires, floods, hurricanes and other natural disasters. — Russel Honore

In one of my latest conversations with Darwin he expressed himself very gloomily on the future of humanity, on the ground that in our modern civilization natural selection had no play, and the fittest did not survive. Those who succeed in the race for wealth are by no means the best or the most intelligent, and it is notorious that our population is more largely renewed in each generation from the lower than from the middle and upper classes. — Alfred Russel Wallace

In his thoughtful and complex style of analysis, Hitler continued on to note the following: "Since the newspapers in question did not enjoy an outstanding reputation ... I regarded them more as the products of anger and envy than the [representation] of a principled, though perhaps mistaken, point of view." In the lines above, we see Hitler begin to wrestle with anti- Semitism, flatly reject religious anti-Semitism as unworthy of Austrian cultural tradition, and suspect that the arguments of the anti-Semitic press and gutter pamphlets were exaggerated beyond credibility by too much subjective and too little objective and principled argument. The view of virtually every Hitler biographer that he based his anti-Semitism on arguments derived from the gutter press and pamphlets of Vienna does not hold up in the face of the words above. To the contrary, we see Hitler take the measure of that literature.

--Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny, pp. 103-104 — Russel H.S. Stolfi

The joy we feel has little to do with the circumstances of our lives and everything to do with the focus of our lives. — Russel M. Nelson

{Letter to his brother, 1861}

... I remain an utter disbeliever in almost all that you consider the most sacred truths... But whether there be a God and whatever be His nature; whether we have an immortal soul or not, or whatever may be our state after death, I can have no fear of having to suffer for the study of nature and the search for truth, or believe that those will be better off in a future state who have lived in the belief of doctrines inculcated from childhood, and which are to them rather a matter of blind faith than intelligent conviction. — Alfred Russel Wallace

I am decidedly of the opinion that in very many instances we can trace such a necessary connexion, especially among birds, and often with more complete success than in the case which I have here attempted to explain. — Alfred Russel Wallace

This is a Disaster. This isn't something somebody can control. We ain't stuck on stupid. — Russel Honore

To expect the world to receive a new truth, or even an old truth, without challenging it, is to look for one of those miracles which do not occur. — Alfred Russel Wallace

RUSSEL. I may very well find her satisfactory - if she's on my level, of course. I've always wanted to meet a girl on my level. Let's see how sharp you are: define "supererogatory".
BONGI. Superfluous; unnecessary.
RUSSEL. Probably luck. What does "comminution" mean?
BONGI. I don't know. What?
RUSSEL. It means pulverization; reduction to fine powder. Define "umbilicate".
BONGI. I give.
RUSSEL. That was an easy one. What's the word sounds like? Obviously, it means having an umbilicus. I'll give you one more chance. Define "wimple".
BONGI. I haven't the vaguest.
RUSSEL. It is...
(He hesitates, surreptitiously pulls a two by five card from his pocket, glances hastily at it and puts it back).
...it means ripple. Well, don't feel to badly; you got the first one right; besides, you're not too bad looking, or, at least, you wouldn't be if you'd put a skirt on and look like a woman. — Valerie Solanas

Civilisation has ever accompanied emigration and conquest - the conflict of opinion, of religion, or of race. — Alfred Russel Wallace

The foregoing considerations lead us to the very important conclusion, that matter is essentially force, and nothing but force; that matter, as popularly understood, does not exist, and is, in fact, philosophically inconceivable. — Alfred Russel Wallace

There is, I conceive, no contradiction in believing that mind is at once the cause of matter and of the development of individualised human minds through the agency of matter. — Alfred Russel Wallace

I think American industry has lost perspective about their products. — Russel Honore

If this is not done, future ages will certainly look back upon us as a people so immersed in the pursuit of wealth as to be blind to higher considerations. — Alfred Russel Wallace

As concerns the question of the psychological engine that drove Hitler, the conventional interpretation of lusting after power is, in final analysis, the refuge of lack of comprehension."
-- Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny, p. 27 — Russel H.S. Stolfi

The only true forms of equality are equality at the Last Judgment and equality before a just court of law; all other attempts at levelling must lead, at best, to social stagnation. — Russel Kirk

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

I can't swing a dead cat without hitting a reporter. — Russel Honore

There is a tendency in nature to the continued progression of certain classes of varieties further and further from the original type. — Alfred Russel Wallace

I am thankful I can see much to admire in all religions. — Alfred Russel Wallace

Virtually every literary piece written about Adolf Hitler in more than half a century since 1945 has been based on antipathy.
-- Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny, p. 11 — Russel H.S. Stolfi

This survival of the fittest implies multiplication of the fittest.

{The phrase 'survival of the fittest' was not originated by Charles Darwin, though he discussed Spencer's 'excellent expression' in a letter to Alfred Russel Wallace (Jul 1866).} — Herbert Spencer

(...)it seems more probable that his anti-Semitism was less emotional and more objective than has been assumed to the present."
-- Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny, p. 37 — Russel H.S. Stolfi

When I met you, Peri, I thought this girl doesn't know it but she carries the three passion of Bertrand Russel: the longing for love, the search for knowledge and unbearable compassion for the suffering of mankind. — Elif Shafak

I spent, as you know, a year and a half in a clergyman's family and heard almost every Tuesday the very best, most earnest and most impressive preacher it has ever been my fortune to meet with, but it produced no effect whatever on my mind. — Alfred Russel Wallace

There might have been a hundred or a thousand life-bearing planets, had the course of evolution of the universe been a little different, or there might have been none at all. They would probably add, that, as life and man have been produced, that shows that their production was possible; and therefore, if not now then at some other time, if not here then in some other planet of some other sun, we should be sure to have come into existence; or if not precisely the same as we are, then something a little better or a little worse. — Alfred Russel Wallace

Modification of form is admitted to be a matter of time. — Alfred Russel Wallace

You can't vote that water out of the city of New Orleans. — Russel Honore

We were both [ with Russel Crowe] hand-plucked to do [The Quick and the Death]. He had done Romper Stomper and I had done Gilbert Grape and so we were hand- plucked to do this big budget film. So we were both very bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. — Leonardo DiCaprio

Mars, therefore, is not only uninhabited by intelligent beings such as Mr. Lowell postulates, but is absolutely uninhabitable. — Alfred Russel Wallace

The preparations are what they are. We're here. The storm is coming. We are as best prepared as we can be as the eye of the storm approaches. — Russel Honore

An ideal marriage is a true partnership between two imperfect people, each striving to complement the other, to keep the commandments, and to do the will of the Lord ["Our Sacred Duty to Honor Woman," Ensign, May 1999). — Russel M. Nelson

What birds can have their bills more peculiarly formed than the ibis, the spoonbill, and the heron? — Alfred Russel Wallace

Who is affected more when it's cold? Poor people. Who is affected more when it's hot? Poor people. Who is affected more when it's wet? Poor people. Who is most affected when the economy is bad? Poor people. Poor people are the most fragile. — Russel Honore

You do look a little pale," the army woman said. "I thought maybe it was air sickness."
"Pure hunger"
She gave him a professional smile. "I'll see what I can rustle up."
Russel? the gunslinger thought dazedly. In his own world 'to russel' was a slang verb meaning to take a woman by force. Never mind, food would come. — Stephen King

The publication of the Darwin and Wallace papers in 1858, and still more that of the 'Origin' in 1859, had the effect upon them of the flash of light, which to a man who has lost himself in a dark night, suddenly reveals a road which, whether it takes him straight home or not, certainly goes his way. That which we were looking for, and could not find, was a hypothesis respecting the origin of known organic forms, which assumed the operation of no causes but such as could be proved to be actually at work. We wanted, not to pin our faith to that or any other speculation, but to get hold of clear and definite conceptions which could be brought face to face with facts and have their validity tested. The 'Origin' provided us with the working hypothesis we sought. — Thomas Henry Huxley

There is a great deal more to evolutionary biology than survival of the fittest - although that's all anyone seems to remember. One of Darwin's contemporaries was Alfred Russel Wallace, who had even more profound lessons about evolution - that humans are social creatures. That we coevolve with other species as part of a fabric of interwoven and interdependent life-forms. The world isn't entirely about competition and dominance. And species that cooperate with others succeed better than those who do not. That's what civilization is, cooperation." "And — Daniel Suarez

The great biographers take excessive liberties in denigrating his person, and, in doing so, they make it difficult to comprehend him."
-- Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny, p. 17 — Russel H.S. Stolfi

They went into stores to get food to stay alive. Looting isn't the right word. I call it survival. — Russel Honore

To say that mind is a product or function of protoplasm, or of its molecular changes, is to use words to which we can attach no clear conception. — Alfred Russel Wallace

In the military, as in any organization, giving the order might be the easiest part. Execution is the real game. — Russel Honore

When you form a team, why do you try to form a team? Because teamwork builds trust and trust builds speed. — Russel Honore

I fully agree with all that you say on the advantages of H. Spencer's excellent expression of 'the survival of the fittest.' This, however, had not occurred to me till reading your letter. It is, however, a great objection to this term that it cannot be used as a substantive governing a verb; and that this is a real objection I infer from H. Spencer continually using the words, natural selection.
(Letter to A. R. Wallace July 1866) — Charles Darwin

To the mass of mankind religion of some kind is a necessity. — Alfred Russel Wallace

RUSSEL. When he grows up I want to be able to point to him and say: "There goes my son -- the man". I want to live in a masculine culture.
BONGI. That's a contradiction in terms. — Valerie Solanas

[I]t is indisputably the mediocre, if not the low, both as regards morality and intelligence, who succeed in life and multiply the fastest. — Alfred Russel Wallace

[Russel] might not make it, he might die on the ice, but he would not die with fear. He would die working not to die... — Gary Paulsen

On the spiritual theory, man consists essentially of a spiritual nature or mind intimately associated with a spiritual body or soul, both of which are developed in and by means of a material organism. — Alfred Russel Wallace

Before Katrina, it was a longstanding tradition in our country for political officials to wait until the last minute to warn, to take action, to evacuate. No more. With Irene, you had mass evacuations - mandatory ones - issued days ahead of time. That was the right thing to do. — Russel Honore

Truth is born into this world only with pangs and tribulations, and every fresh truth is received unwillingly. — Alfred Russel Wallace

I told myself I'd stay in until I reached major, and then go on and do something else. — Russel Honore

To comprehend the Hitler of 1919 is to comprehend the Hitler of the entire period from 1919 through 1945."
--Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny, p. 35 — Russel H.S. Stolfi

Leadership means forming a team and working toward common objectives that are tied to time, metrics, and resources. — Russel Honore

In all works on Natural History, we constantly find details of the marvellous adaptation of animals to their food, their habits, and the localities in which they are found. — Alfred Russel Wallace

Superstorm Sandy inflicted havoc and heartache throughout the Northeast, hitting the Big Apple and its surrounding coastal towns hard. — Russel Honore

The five cells are silky-white within, and are filled with a mass of firm, cream-coloured pulp, containing about three seeds each. This pulp is the eatable part, and its consistence and flavour are indescribable. A rich custard highly flavoured with almonds gives the best general idea of it, but there are occasional wafts of flavour that call to mind cream-cheese, onion-sauce, sherry-wine, and other incongruous dishes. Then there is a rich glutinous smoothness in the pulp which nothing else possesses, but which adds to its delicacy. It is neither acid nor sweet nor juicy; yet it wants neither of these qualities, for it is in itself perfect. It produces no nausea or other bad effect, and the more you eat of it the less you feel inclined to stop. In fact, to eat Durians is a new sensation worth a voyage to the East to experience. — Alfred Russel Wallace

As well might it be said that, because we are ignorant of the laws by which metals are produced and trees developed, we cannot know anything of the origin of steamships and railways. — Alfred Russel Wallace

But naturalists are now beginning to look beyond this, and to see that there must be some other principle regulating the infinitely varied forms of animal life. — Alfred Russel Wallace

It has been generally the custom of writers on natural history to take the habits and instincts of animals as the fixed point, and to consider their structure and organization as specially adapted to be in accordance with them. — Alfred Russel Wallace

During the aftermath of Katrina, National Guard troops were positioned on every block to establish a sense of safety and source of help for the people in need. They did not leave communities until people were safe and sound. — Russel Honore

Politics for Hitler must be seen as a distant, prophetic vision to be fulfilled and not as an exercise in personal power. There was no political theory for Hitler and no necessity for adherence to any political programs. There was only tactical political flexibility in the service of seizure of power and the establishment of a Greater Germany in Europe."
-- Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny, p. 40 — Russel H.S. Stolfi

You cannot depend on a sandbag dike to save your life. You put it up to try to save your property. — Russel Honore

Hitler took the action of pitiless massacre as a last resort in the face of a perceived irreconcilable enemy."
--Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny, p. 39 — Russel H.S. Stolfi

And in contrast to the Communist revolution in Russia and the Communist attempts at revolution in Germany from 1918 through 1923, Hitler's were virtually bloodless."
-- Hitler: Beyond Evil and Tyranny, p. 44 — Russel H.S. Stolfi

Don't Trust Blindly
If in shark infested waters, don't assume the fin coming toward you is a dolphin. — Mary Russel

RUSSEL. I want a strong, virile environment.
BONGI. Why don't you hang out at the YMCA gym? — Valerie Solanas

I hold with Henry George, that at the back of every great social evil will be found a great political wrong. — Alfred Russel Wallace

Leadership is working with goals and vision; management is working with objectives. — Russel Honore

I believe with religious intensity that good design is for everyone. — Russel Wright

America needs to get over it. We can't control everything. We can't control the storms. — Russel Honore

The white men in our colonies are too frequently the savages — Alfred Russel Wallace

By-and-large, these are families that are just waiting to get out of here. They are frustrated; I would be, too. I get frustrated at the cash register counter when the paper runs out. — Russel Honore

We [ with Russel Crowe] had an Arabic coach there [ in the Body of Lies] that was really helpful, because it was more so than any accent. You have to be so exact, and there's different dialects of Arabic from country to country so it was really, really difficult to tell you the truth. And one of the hardest things I've ever had to do language-wise, because it comes from the throat. It's different. And also learning about the customs and the culture and all that, so we had advisors for that sort of thing. — Leonardo DiCaprio

If I'm a leader, I have a mission. — Russel Honore

Simon and Garfunkel were prophetic. The Sound of Silence certainly applies today with so many people communicating through electronic devices. It isn't uncommon to see kids standing side by side talking without speaking. We bow and pray to the back-lit gods we made. — Mary Russel

What we need are not prohibitory marriage laws, but a reformed society, an educated public opinion which will teach individual duty in these matters. — Alfred Russel Wallace

It's hot as a barbecue the smog is pressed up against the foothills so that you can't even see them. everyone is irritated, but noone argues because noone can breathe. i laid on the couch in my bikini and watched His Girl Friday. I have decided that i will be a journalist like Josland Russel (in the movie) and not take any flak for anyone unless they look and act like Cary Grant. — Kelly Easton

Hurricane Sandy was one of the most vicious storm systems to hit the New York City area in nearly two centuries. — Russel Honore

I have since wandered among men of many races and many religions. — Alfred Russel Wallace