"In regard to the past, where contemplation is……" — Bertrand Russell
"In regard to the past, where contemplation is not obscured by desire and the need for action, we see, more clearly than in the lives about us, the value for good and evil, of the aims men have pursued and the means they have adopted. It is good, from time to time, to view the present as already past, and to examine what elements it contains that will add to the world's store of permanent possessions, that will live and give life when we and all our generation have perished."
—
Bertrand Russell
★
★
★
★
★
0.0 avg (0 ratings)
824 Quotes by Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell has 824 quotes on this site.
A few more worth reading:
-
That the world is in a bad shape is undeniable, but there is not the faintest reason in history to…
-
I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove that Satan…
-
If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important.
-
But if thought is to become the possession of many, not the privilege of the few, we must have done…
-
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the second…
-
One must expect a war between U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. which will begin with the total destruction of London. I think…
-
Power is sweet; it is a drug, the desire for which increases with a habit.
-
The desire to understand the world and the desire to reform it are the two great engines of progress, without…
-
Life is just one cup of coffee after another, and don't look for anything else.
-
Almost all education has a political motive: it aims at strengthening some group, national or religious or even social, in…
-
Drunkeness is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness.
-
Either man will abolish war, or war will abolish man.
See all 824 quotes by Bertrand Russell »
More Action Quotes
This quote is filed under Action Quotes,
one of 8,300 quotes in that category. Here are a few more:
-
Forgiveness is the key to action and freedom.
— Hannah Arendt
-
Revolutionaries do not make revolutions. The revolutionaries are those who know when power is lying in the street and then…
— Hannah Arendt
-
Under conditions of tyranny it is far easier to act than to think.
— Hannah Arendt
-
Action without a name, a who attached to it, is meaningless.
— Hannah Arendt
-
All human actions have one or more of these seven causes: chance, nature, compulsions, habit, reason, passion, desire.
— Aristotle
-
Moral excellence comes about as a result of habit. We become just by doing just acts, temperate by doing temperate…
— Aristotle
-
Well begun is half done.
— Aristotle
-
A tragedy is a representation of an action that is whole and complete and of a certain magnitude. A whole…
— Aristotle
-
Thou wilt find rest from vain fancies if thou doest every act in life as though it were thy last.
— Aristotle
-
We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action.
— Aristotle
-
Every art and every inquiry, and similarly every action and choice, is thought to aim at some good; and for…
— Aristotle
-
What the statesman is most anxious to produce is a certain moral character in his fellow citizens, namely a disposition…
— Aristotle
See all 8,300 Action Quotes »
