Bertrand Russell - AustralianPolitics.com

Political Quotations – Set 9

Aug 10, 2009

One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways. – Bertrand Russell, English mathematician-philosopher (1872-1970)
Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world. – Percy Bysshe Shelley, poet (1792-1822)

Death comes equally to us all, and makes us all equal when it comes. – John Donne, poet (1573-1631)
Cheer up! The worst is yet to come! – Philander Chase Johnson, American author (1866-1939)
Do not look back. And do not dream about the future, either. It will neither give you back the past, nor satisfy your other daydreams. Your duty, your reward – your destiny – are here and now. – Dag Hammarskjold, United Nations Secretary-General (1905-1961)

Mar 09, 2009

Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people. – Admiral Hyman G. Rickover, “father” of America’s nuclear navy (1900-1986)
What experience and history teach is this: that people and governments have never learned anything from history. – Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, German philosopher (1770-1831)
More persons, on the whole, are humbugged by believing nothing, than by believing too much. – P.T. Barnum, American showman (1810-1891)
The law that will work is merely the summing up in legislative form of the moral judgment that the community has already reached. – Woodrow Wilson, American president (1856-1924)
The crisis you have to worry about most is the one you don’t see coming. – Mike Mansfield, American statesman (1903-2001)
[Read more…]

Dec 08, 2008

The greatest of faults, I should say, is to be conscious of none. – Thomas Carlyle, writer (1795-1881)
Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great. – Mark Twain (1835-1910)
It is impossible to defeat an ignorant man in argument. – William G. McAdoo, American government official (1863-1941)
An elder Cherokee Native American was teaching his grandchildren about life. He said to them, “A fight is going on inside me…It is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves. One wolf represents fear, anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, pride and superiority. The other wolf stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. This same fight is going on inside of you and every other person too.” They thought about it for a minute and then one child asked his grandfather, “Which wolf will win?” The old Cherokee simply replied…”The one I feed.”
If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us. – Herman Hesse, German novelist (1877-1962)