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Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people's happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race.

Bertrand Russell

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Bertrand Russell
Age: 97 †
Born: 1872
Born: May 18
Died: 1970
Died: February 2
Analytic Philosopher
Autobiographer
Epistemologist
Essayist
Journalist
Logician
Mathematician
Metaphysician
Peace Activist
Philosopher
Tryleg
Bertrand Arthur William Russell
Russell
Bertrand Russell
3rd Earl Russell
Bertrand Russell
Earl Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell
3rd Earl Russell
Happiness
Human
Humans
Elegant
People
Disguise
Contempt
Hatred
Usually
Race

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.
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The man who is unhappy will, as a rule, adopt an unhappy creed, while the man who is happy will adopt a happy creed each may attribute his happiness or unhappiness to his beliefs, while the real causation is the other way round.
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Punctuality is a quality the need of which is bound up with social co-operation. It has nothing to do with the relation of the soul to God, or with mystic insight, or with any of the matters with which the more elevated and spiritual moralists are concerned.
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The essence of good manners consists in making it clear that one has no wish to hurt. When it is clearly necessary to hurt, it must be done in such a way as to make it evident that the necessity is felt to be regrettable.
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Sir Arthur Eddington deduces religion from the fact that atoms do not obey the laws of mathematics. Sir James Jeans deduces it from the fact that they do.
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The world in which we live can be understood as a result of muddle and accident but if it is the outcome of deliberate purpose, the purpose must have been that of a fiend. For my part, I find accident a less painful and more plausible hypothesis.
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The supreme maxim in scientific philosophising is this: wherever possible, logical constructions are to be substituted for inferred entities.
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The fundamental defect of Christian ethics consists in the fact that it labels certain classes of acts 'sins' and others 'virtue' on grounds that have nothing to do with their social consequences.
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I've always thought respectable people scoundrels, and I look anxiously at my face every morning for signs of my becoming a scoundrel.
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A smile happens in a flash, but its memory can last a lifetime.
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Literature is inexhaustible, with every book a homage to infinity
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Mysticism is, in essence, little more than a certain intensity and depth of feeling in regard to what is believed about the universe.
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The best life is the one in which the creative impulses play the largest part and the possessive impulses the smallest.
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Perhaps the best hope for the future of mankind is that ways will be found of increasing the scope and intensity of sympathy.
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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.
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For love of domination we must substitute equality for love of victory we must substitute justice for brutality we must substitute intelligence for competition we must substitute cooperation. We must learn to think of the human race as one family.
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The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.
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The examination system, and the fact that instruction is treated mainly as a training for a livelihood, leads the young to regard knowledge from a purely utilitarian point of view as the road to money, not as the gateway to wisdom.
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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
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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.
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