Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something;
in the absence of good grounds for belief,
he will be satisfied with bad ones.
- Bertrand Russell
Related topics: Cynical Life Human-Nature Psychology
If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry,
that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware
of having no good reason for thinking as you do.
- Bertrand Russell
A widespread belief is more often likely
to be foolish than sensible.
- Bertrand Russell
Conventional people are roused to fury
by departure from convention,
largely because they regard such departure
as a criticism of themselves.
- Bertrand Russell
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One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown
is the belief that one's work is terribly important.
- Bertrand Russell
To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
- Bertrand Russell
The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.
- Bertrand Russell
Collective fear stimulates herd instinct,
and tends to produce ferocity toward
those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
- Bertrand Russell
Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation
can be trusted to act humanely
or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.
- Bertrand Russell
I am firm; YOU are obstinate; HE is a pig-headed fool.
- Bertrand Russell
One should respect public opinion insofar
as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison,
but anything that goes beyond this
is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
- Bertrand Russell
The whole problem with the world is that
fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves,
but wiser people so full of doubts.
- Bertrand Russell
It is the things for which there is no evidence
that are believed with passion.
- Bertrand Russell
Talent is God-given; be humble.
Fame is man-given; be thankful.
Conceit is self-given; be careful.
- John Wooden
Every child comes with the message
that God is not yet discouraged of man.
- Rabindranath Tagore
No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.
- Anonymous (often attributed to Abraham Lincoln)
All things share the same breath -
the beast, the tree, the man...
the air shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
- Chief Seattle (attributed)
The wise man in the storm prays God,
not for safety from danger,
but for deliverance from fear.
It is the storm within which endangers him,
not the storm without.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Adventure is not outside man; it is within.
- George Eliot
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.
Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
- Oscar Wilde
Nearly all men can stand adversity,
but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln
The wise man does not lay up his own treasures.
The more he gives to others, the more he has for his own.
- Lao Tzu
The full measure of a man is
not to be found in the man himself,
but in the colors and textures that
come alive in others because of him.
- Albert Schweitzer
Circumstance does not make the man: it reveals him to himself.
- James Allen
We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men
who walked through the huts comforting others,
giving away their last piece of bread...
They offer sufficient proof that everything
can be taken from a man but one thing:
to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances,
to choose one's own way.
- Viktor E. Frankl
The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was:
"If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?"
But... the good Samaritan reversed the question:
"If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?"
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Two things a man should never be angry at:
what he can help,
and what he cannot help.
- Thomas Fuller
If a man is called to be a street sweeper,
he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted,
or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.
He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts
of heaven and earth will pause to say,
here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
No man who is occupied in doing a very difficult thing,
and doing it very well, ever loses his self-respect.
- George Bernard Shaw
The wise man looks into space,
and does not regard the small as too little,
nor the great as too much;
for he knows that there is no limit to dimensions.
- Lao Tzu
Take a chance! All life is a chance.
The man who goes farthest is generally
the one who is willing to do and dare.
- Dale Carnegie
Every man and woman is born into the world
to do something unique and something distinctive;
and if he or she does not do it,
it will never be done.
- Benjamin E. Mays
A man does what he must - in spite of personal consequences,
in spite of obstacles and dangers and pressures -
and that is the basis of all human morality.
- John F. Kennedy
A man can fail many times,
but he isn't a failure until
he begins to blame somebody else.
- John Burroughs
If a man hasn't discovered something that he will die for,
he isn't fit to live.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Non-violence requires a double faith,
faith in God and also faith in man.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.
- Benjamin Franklin
Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.
- Epicurus
The man who has won millions at the cost of his conscience is a failure.
- B. C. Forbes
Non-violence means avoiding not only external physical violence
but also internal violence of spirit.
You not only refuse to shoot a man,
but you refuse to hate him.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance;
the wise grows it under his feet.
- J. Robert Oppenheimer
The man who is successful is the man who is useful.
- Bourke Cockran
As soon as man does not take his existence for granted,
but beholds it as something
unfathomably mysterious, thought begins.
- Albert Schweitzer
Well, I don't know what will happen now.
We've got some difficult days ahead.
But it doesn't matter with me now.
Because I've been to the mountaintop.
And I don't mind. Like any man,
I would like to live a long life.
Longevity has its place.
But I'm not concerned about that now.
I just want to do God's will.
And He's allowed me to go up to the mountain.
And I've looked over.
And I've seen the promised land.
I may not get there with you.
But I want you to know tonight, that we,
as a people, will get to the promised land.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
For man with no forgiveness in heart,
life worse punishment than death.
- Miyagi: character in the movie Karate Kid 2
When the tempest rages, when the thunders roar,
and the lightnings blaze around us
it is then that the truly brave man stands firm at his post.
- Luther Martin
Mystery creates wonder, and wonder is the basis
of man's desire to understand.
- Neil Armstrong
A man who as a physical being
is always turned toward the outside,
thinking that his happiness lies outside him,
finally turns inward and
discovers that the source is within him.
- Soren Kierkegaard
The true measure of a man is how he treats someone
who can do him absolutely no good.
- Samuel Johnson
How could man rejoice in victory
and delight in the slaughter of men?
- Lao Tzu
There is nothing with which every man is so afraid
as getting to know how enormously much
he is capable of doing and becoming.
- Soren Kierkegaard
You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers.
You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
- Naguib Mahfouz
All this worldly wisdom was once
the unamiable heresy of some wise man.
- Henry David Thoreau
Circumstances make man, not man circumstances.
- Mark Twain
Intent is what can make a man succeed
when his thoughts tell him that he is defeated.
- Carlos Castaneda
Feel Unity with Spirit and All Creation
All things share the same breath the
beast, the tree, the man... the air
shares its spirit with all the life it supports.
- Chief Seattle [actually written by screenwriter Ted Perry in 1972]
If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
- Henry David Thoreau
You have not converted a man because you have silenced him.
- John Morley
I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing,
and that is that I know nothing.
- Socrates
A man who is a master of patience is master of everything else.
- George Savile
You cannot teach a man anything;
you can only help him find it within himself.
- Galileo Galilei
Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him.
- Albert Schweitzer
As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.
- The Bible
The value of a man should be seen in what he gives
and not in what he is able to receive.
- Albert Einstein
Behind an able man there are always other able men.
- Chinese proverb
The man who has no imagination has no wings.
- Muhammad Ali
A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is.
- Seneca
A man is a success if he gets up in
the morning and gets to bed at night,
and in between he does what he wants to do.
- Bob Dylan
Non-violence is the greatest force at the disposal of mankind.
It is mightier than the mightiest weapon of destruction
devised by the ingenuity of man.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
A man is truly ethical only when he obeys
the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist,
and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.
- Albert Schweitzer
The fear of death follows from the fear of life.
A man who lives fully, is prepared to die at any time.
- Mark Twain
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May the world be kind to you,
and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
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