Bertrand Russell Quotes

I believe if you want to convey a complex philosophy, it's advisable to keep it simple: day-to-day lingo.

Since philosophy now criticizes everything it comes across, a critique of philosophy would be nothing less than a just reprisal.

The so-called Transcendentalists are not the only people who deal in Transcendentals. On the contrary, we seem to see that the Utilitarians,--the every-day world's people themselves, far transcend those inferior Transcendentalists by their own incomprehensible worldly maxims.

I'm interested in philosophy, I studied it, and I also admit I try to read things that are way above me. I have a limit: I take what I need from it, and I do find that some of my favourite philosophical writings tend to be poppier. I admire smart people who are able to describe things simply or in a human, readable way.

Only in the West did a philosophy develop that was not only no longer the love of wisdom but went so far as to deny the category of wisdom as a legitimate form of knowledge. The result was a hatred of wisdom that should more appropriately be called ‘misosophy’ (literarily hatred of Sophia, Wisdom) rather than philosophy.

...there ... remains a huge following [of Ayn Rand's philosophy] of those who ignore the indiscretions, infidelities, and moral inconsistencies of the founder and focus instead on the positive aspects of her philosophy. There is much in it to admire, if you do not have to accept the whole package... Criticism of the founder or followers of a philosophy does not, by itself, constitute a negation of any part of the philosophy... Criticism of part of a philosophy does not gainsay the whole.

I may not be as active in it as some people are, but I think that the church has taught me great life lessons.

If in Nietzsche's thinking the prior tradition of Western thought is gathered and completed in a decisive respect, then the confrontation with Nietzsche becomes one with all Western thought hitherto.

I had a moment when I first got on Supernatural when I was like, omg, people are paying attention to me and I have fans, maybe I should cultivate an image and like try to seem really cool. I had this sort of moment of being commercially self conscious, and it took me maybe a month to realize, no, this is just not fucking who I am... Here's a picture of me in drag, fuck it - which is, by the way, so much more liberating and relaxing... There's not a more surefire way to give a stifled boring empty vapid meaningless piece of interview. Everything that comes out of your mouth sucks if you're trying to say the right thing...

The only problem with seeing people you know is that they know you.

The Refinement of Shame. People are not ashamed to think something foul, but they are ashamed when they think these foul thoughts are attributed to them.

My people must be tried in all things, that they may be prepared to receive the glory that I have for them.

In metaphysics, the notion that earth and all that's on it is a mental construct is the product of people who spend their lives inside rooms. It is an indoor philosophy.

The philosopher will ask himself ... if the criticism we are now suggesting is not the philosophy which presses to the limit that criticism of false gods which Christianity has introduced into our history.

The Lord works from the inside out. The world works from the outside in. The world would take people out of the slums. Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums. The world would mold men by changing their environment. Christ changes men, who then change their environment. The world would shape human behavior, but Christ can change human nature.

My rational emotive behavior therapy (REBT) was one of the very few therapies that was originated partly or largely because I wanted to be brief and efficient. And therefore right from the start I was active and directive. I tried to show people some central masturbatory core to their philosophy and to get them to work at changing it cognitively, emotionally and behaviorally.

I have a philosophy that everything you write doesn't have to be good for everybody. There are going to be people that get irritated by some of the things I write-including my parents. And then there are going to be people that you draw in because of the pointedness of certain things.

Very little comes easily to our poor, benighted species (the first creature, after all, to experiment with the novel evolutionary inventions of self-conscious philosophy and art). Even the most "obvious," "accurate," and "natural" style of thinking or drawing must be regulated by history and won by struggle. Solutions must therefore arise within a social context and record the complex interactions of mind and environment that define the possibility of human improvement.

The only real people are the people who never existed.

There is no philosopher in the world so great but he believes a million things on the faith of other people and accepts a great many more truths than he demonstrates.

I really don't like showing people how I play things; it's a little embarrassing because it always looks so simple to me.

All that philosophers have handled for millennia has been conceptual mummies; nothing actual has ever escaped from their hands alive.

I feel like everything I do makes people feel really uncomfortable.

Jesus always pointed people towards a better version of themselves - particularly when they'd failed.

I find it very hard to believe that people would prefer an awkward picture with me than a normal conversation.