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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
Conventional people are roused to fury
by departure from convention,
largely because they regard such departure
as a criticism of themselves.
- Bertrand Russell
A widespread belief is more often likely
to be foolish than sensible.
- Bertrand Russell
To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
- Bertrand Russell
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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
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown
is the belief that one's work is terribly important.
- 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
The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.
- 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
It is the things for which there is no evidence
that are believed with passion.
- 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
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
Talent is God-given; be humble.
Fame is man-given; be thankful.
Conceit is self-given; be careful.
- John Wooden
No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.
- Anonymous (often attributed to Abraham Lincoln)
Every child comes with the message
that God is not yet discouraged of man.
- Rabindranath Tagore
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)
Circumstance does not make the man: it reveals him to himself.
- James Allen
Nearly all men can stand adversity,
but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.
- Abraham Lincoln
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
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.
Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
- Oscar Wilde
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
Adventure is not outside man; it is within.
- George Eliot
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
A man is not old until his regrets take the place of his dreams.
- Yiddish Proverb
The eyes of the cheerful and of the melancholy man
are fixed upon the same creation;
but very different are the aspects which it bears to them.
- Albert Pike
A man is as unhappy as he has convinced himself he is.
- Seneca
Circumstances make man, not man circumstances.
- Mark Twain
As long as a man stands in his own way,
everything seems to be in his way.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Two things a man should never be angry at:
what he can help,
and what he cannot help.
- Thomas Fuller
It is what a man thinks of himself
that really determines his fate.
- Henry David Thoreau
A man who is a master of patience is master of everything else.
- George Savile
A man can do only what he can do.
But if he does that each day he can sleep at night
and do it again the next day.
- Albert Schweitzer
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.
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.
One man with courage makes a majority.
- old saying probably repeated by Andrew Jackson
(falsely attributed to Jefferson)
Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth,
and if a man does not know what a thing is,
it is at least an increase in knowledge
if he knows what it is not.
- Carl Jung
Nothing can stop the man with the right
mental attitude from achieving his goal;
nothing on earth can help the man
with the wrong mental attitude.
- Thomas Jefferson
Each man is the architect of his own fate.
- Appius Claudius
When I look back on all these worries,
I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed
that he had had a lot of trouble in his life,
most of which had never happened.
- Winston Churchill
As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.
- The Bible
I submit to you that if a man hasn't
discovered something that he will die for,
he isn't fit to live.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
You cannot teach a man anything;
you can only help him find it within himself.
- Galileo Galilei
Anger is a killing thing:
it kills the man who angers,
for each rage leaves him less than he had been before -
it takes something from him.
- Louis L'Amour
Non-violence requires a double faith,
faith in God and also faith in man.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
That man is rich whose pleasures are the cheapest.
- Henry David Thoreau
There is a sufficiency in the world
for man's need but not for man's greed.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
Only a man's character is the real criterion of worth.
- Eleanor Roosevelt
He is a wise man who does not grieve
for the things which he has not,
but rejoices for those which he has.
- Epictetus
If you would convince a man that he does wrong, do right.
Men will believe what they see.
- Henry David Thoreau
Many a man curses the rain that falls upon his head,
and knows not that it brings abundance
to drive away the hunger.
- Saint Basil
Non-violence is a powerful and just weapon which cuts without wounding
and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
A man in debt is so far a slave.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man is but the product of his thoughts -
what he thinks, he becomes.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands
in moments of comfort and convenience,
but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The gem cannot be polished without friction,
nor man perfected without trials.
- Confucius
Is the babe young? When I behold it,
it seems more venerable than the oldest man.
- Henry David Thoreau
The more a man can forget, the greater the number
of metamorphoses which his life can undergo,
the more he can remember, the more divine his life becomes.
- Soren Kierkegaard
No man has a good enough memory to be a successful liar.
- Abraham Lincoln
A great man is always willing to be little.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
The quality of a man's life is in direct proportion
to his commitment to excellence,
regardless of his chosen field of endeavor.
- Vince Lombardi
We like a man to come right out and say what he thinks-
if we agree with him.
- Mark Twain
I wept because I had no shoes
until I met a man who had no feet.
- old Persian Proverb
How could man rejoice in victory
and delight in the slaughter of men?
- Lao Tzu
You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers.
You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions.
- Naguib Mahfouz
To measure the man, measure his heart.
- Malcolm S. Forbes
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
During the first period of a man's life
the greatest danger is not to take the risk.
- Soren Kierkegaard
Many a man fails as an original thinker
simply because his memory is too good.
- Nietzsche
I am the wisest man alive, for I know one thing,
and that is that I know nothing.
- Socrates
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