Although both love and knowledge are necessary, love is in a sense more fundamental, since it will lead intelligent people to seek knowledge, in order to find out how to benefit those whom they love. But if people are not intelligent, they will be content to believe what they have been told, and may do harm in spite of the most genuine benevolence.
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.
To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already 3-parts dead.
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.
Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.
The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
We know too much and feel too little. At least, we feel too little of those creative emotions from which a good life springs.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
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.
Passive acceptance of the teacher's wisdom is easy to most boys and girls. It involves no effort of independent thought, and seems rational because the teacher knows more than his pupils; it is moreover the way to win the favour of the teacher unless he is a very exceptional man. Yet the habit of passive acceptance is a disastrous one in later life. It causes man to seek and to accept a leader, and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that position.
Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know.
It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain options makes it impossible to earn a living.
The most valuable things in life are not measured in monetary terms. The really important things are not houses and lands, stocks and bonds, automobiles and real state, but friendships, trust, confidence, empathy, mercy, love and faith.
The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.
Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.
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.
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.
Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.
The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Government can easily exist without laws, but law cannot exist without government.
The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and not merely as a means to other account, and not merely as a means to other things, are knowledge, art instinctive happiness, and relations of friendship or affection.
Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.
Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives.
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly.
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.
The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
We know too much and feel too little. At least, we feel too little of those creative emotions from which a good life springs.
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
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.
Passive acceptance of the teacher's wisdom is easy to most boys and girls. It involves no effort of independent thought, and seems rational because the teacher knows more than his pupils; it is moreover the way to win the favour of the teacher unless he is a very exceptional man. Yet the habit of passive acceptance is a disastrous one in later life. It causes man to seek and to accept a leader, and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that position.
Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know.
It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain options makes it impossible to earn a living.
The most valuable things in life are not measured in monetary terms. The really important things are not houses and lands, stocks and bonds, automobiles and real state, but friendships, trust, confidence, empathy, mercy, love and faith.
The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.
Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.
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.
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.
Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.
The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Government can easily exist without laws, but law cannot exist without government.
The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and not merely as a means to other account, and not merely as a means to other things, are knowledge, art instinctive happiness, and relations of friendship or affection.
Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.
Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives.
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly.
In all stages of education the influence of superstition is disastrous. A certain percentage of children have the habit of thinking; one of the aims of education is to cure them of this habit. Inconvenient questions are met with ‘hush, hush’, or with punishment.
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder