Quote

In adolescence, I hated life and was continually on the verge of suicide, from which, however, I was restrained by the desire to know more mathematics. Now, on the contrary, I enjoy life I might almost say that with every year that passes I enjoy it more.

Bertrand Russell

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

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
Life
However
Verge
Almost
Adolescence
Year
Continually
Enjoy
Passes
Desire
Hated
Might
Suicide
Every
Contrary
Years
Mathematics
Restrained

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

Image
God and Satan alike are essentially human figures, the one a projection of ourselves, the other of our enemies.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Conquer the world by intelligence, and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it.
Bertrand Russell
Image
None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The habit of looking to the future and thinking that the whole meaning of the present lies in what it will bring forth is a pernicious one. There can be no value in the whole unless there is value in the parts.
Bertrand Russell
Image
I am compelled to fear that science will be used to promote the power of dominant groups rather than to make men happy.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The Eugenic Society . . . is perpetually bewailing the fact that wage-earners breed faster than middle-class people.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attributable to science, which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century.
Bertrand Russell
Image
You could take up the line that some of the gnostics took up - a line which I often thought was a very plausible one - that as a matter of fact this world that we know was made by the devil at a moment when God was not looking. There is a good deal to be said for that, and I am not concerned to refute it.
Bertrand Russell
Image
What men really want is not knowledge but certainty.
Bertrand Russell
Image
That Plato's Republic should have been admired, on its political side, by decent people, is perhaps the most astonishing example of literary snobbery in all history.
Bertrand Russell
Image
When all experts agree, you need to watch out.
Bertrand Russell
Image
For the learning of every virtue there is an appropriate discipline, and for the learning of suspended judgment the best discipline is philosophy.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Happiness is not best achieved by those who seek it directly.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.
Bertrand Russell
Image
All movements go too far.
Bertrand Russell
Image
I feel life is so small unless it has windows into other worlds.
Bertrand Russell
Image
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.
Bertrand Russell
Image
I say people who feel they must have a faith or religion in order to face life are showing a kind of cowardice, which in any other sphere would be considered contemptible. But when it is in the religious sphere it is thought admirable, and I cannot admire cowardice whatever sphere it is in.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The doctrine (of) maintaining that the language of daily life, with words used in their ordinary meanings, suffices for philosophy . . . I find myself totally unable to accept . . . . Because it makes almost inevitable the perpetuation amongst philosophers of the muddle-headedness they have taken over from common sense.
Bertrand Russell