Bertrand Russell Quotes

We live in a world of things, and our only connection with them is that we know how to manipulate or to consume them.

I don't think people today need to derive security from possessions.

But to believe that getting stuff is the purpose and aim of life is madness.

We are so obsessed with doing that we have no time and no imagination left for being. As a result, men are valued not for what they are but for what they do or what they have - for their usefulness.

Too many people today know the price of everything and the value of nothing.

We are not the sum of our possessions.

And yet, in a culture like ours, which is given to material comforts, and addicted to forms of entertainment that offer immediate gratification, it is surprising that so much poetry is written.

The modern dogma is comfort at any cost.

Too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we’ve discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning.

A materialist age makes neurotics of those who measure their life in minutes. Teetotalling totalitarians know the cost of life, but not the value.

We live in such a self-gratifying nation, and everything is instantaneous.

We do not want to think. We do not want to hear. We do not care about anything. Only give us a good dinner and plenty of money, and let us outshine our neighbors. There is the Nineteenth Century Gospel.

If the handbag could think, it would have a terrific inferiority feeling, because, not having been bought, it would feel useless.

Contemporaries live from second hand to mouth.

Pride is what you can afford or think you can afford.

I think that in the past, in the '50s and '60s, after the existentialists and beatniks and hippie movements, the big deal was, Don't sell out. We live in a society that by virtue of the speed we communicate and sell, everything sells. The danger is buying in; that your concern becomes success, rather than fulfillment. They're two different beasts, and my feeling is that you should seek fulfillment. You should not measure your worth in how much you have or how popular you are, but how happy you are with what you do.

I honestly don't think that I am cool enough or important enough that anyone would care about what I am doing at all hours of the day like "I just had a latte from Starbucks and now I am going to Barney's. Love me some shoes!

People sometimes strive after and think they will find deep satisfaction for their psyches in wealth, sex or drugs, but then find that ultimately these things do not satisfy human longings.

Reason is a bee, and exists only on what it makes; his usefulness takes the place of beauty.

What do you think it is that drives people to want far more than they could ever use or need? I frankly think it's insecurity. How do we let the world know that the trappings of this life are not the things that are ultimately important for being accepted?

Discipline is never an end in itself, only a means to an end.

When you always want the next thing, every human being becomes a means to an end.

Man today being concerned with production and consumption as ends in themselves, has very little engergy time to devote himself to the true religious experience.

I'm not perfect, but I think that I've done good to stay focused on what I'm called to do.

I think the Playboy philosophy is very, very connected to the American dream.