“A life devoted to science is therefore a happy life, and its happiness is derived from the very best sources that are open to dwellers on this troubled and passionate planet.”
Source: 1910s, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays http://archive.org/stream/mysticism00russuoft/mysticism00russuoft_djvu.txt (1918), Ch. 2: The Place of Science in a Liberal Education
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Bertrand Russell 562
logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and politi… 1872–1970Related quotes
“I feel that I've had a happy life, not a very useful life, but a happy one.”
As quoted in his obituary in The Independent (11 July 2003) http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article36741.ece
“It is from books that wise people derive consolation in the troubles of life.”
Quoted in A Dictionary of Quotations, in Most Frequent Use by D.E. Macdonnel (1809) translated from French: Le bonheur de l'homme en cette vi ne consiste pas á être sans passions: il consiste à en être le maître.
Misattributed
“Satisfaction of one's curiosity is one of the greatest sources of happiness in life.
Linus Pauling”
De Docta Ignorantia (On Learned Ignorance) (1440)
“Very little is needed to make a happy life.”
ἐν ὀλιγίστοις κεῖται τὸ εὐδαιμόνως βιῶσαι
VII, 67
Source: Meditations (c. 121–180 AD), Book VII
The Natural History of Intellect (1893) http://www.rwe.org/natural-history-of-intellect.html
“Every age has its happiness and troubles.”
Source: Jeanne Calment: From Van Gogh's Time to Ours : 122 Extraordinary Years, 1998, p. 48: response to the question whether the birth of her daughter was the happiest time of her life
"The Reaction in Germany" (1842)
Often paraphrased as, "The urge to destroy is also a creative urge"
Context: We exhort the compromisers to open their hearts to truth, to free themselves of their wretched and blind circumspection, of their intellectual arrogance, and of the servile fear which dries up their souls and paralyzes their movements.
Let us therefore trust the eternal Spirit which destroys and annihilates only because it is the unfathomable and eternal source of all life. The passion for destruction is a creative passion, too!