E.S. Russell Quotes

Real life is to most men ... a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible.

The central problem of our age is how to act decisively in the absence of certainty.

It is only in marriage with the world that our ideals can bear fruit divorced from it they remain barren.

Those who fear life are already three parts dead.

The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.

Mathematics possesses not only truth but supreme beauty - a beauty cold and austere like that of a sculpture.

Many people when they fall in love look for a little haven of refuge from the world where they can be sure of being admired when they are not admirable and praised when they are not praiseworthy.

Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.

Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist since at least half of the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.

'Change' is scientific 'progress' is ethical change is indubitable whereas progress is a matter of controversy.

Man needs for his happiness not only the enjoyment of this or that but hope and enterprise and change.

Every man wherever he goes is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions which move with him like flies on a summer day.

Cynicism such as one finds very frequently among the most highly educated young men and women of the West results from the combination of comfort and powerlessness.

Most people would die sooner than think in fact they do.

Nothing is so exhausting as indecision and nothing is so futile.

To teach how to live with uncertainty yet without being paralyzed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy can do.

Drunkenness is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative a momentary cessation of unhappiness.

The true spirit of delight the exultation the sense of being more than Man which is the touchstone of the highest excellence is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.

To be able to use leisure intelligently will be the last product of an intelligent civilization.

What hunger is in relation to food zest is in relation to life.

Fear is the main source of superstition and one of the main sources of cruelty.

If we were all given by magic the power to read each other's thoughts I suppose the first effect would be to dissolve all friendships.

A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked not endured with patient resignation.

If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.

Continuity of purpose is one of the most essential ingredients of happiness in the long run and for most men this comes chiefly through their work.

A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.

Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person nation or creed.

Extreme hopes are born of extreme misery.

A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked not be endured with patient resignation.

In all affairs love religion politics or business it's a healthy idea now and then to hang a question mark on things you have long taken for granted.

Real life is to most men a long second best a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible.

The good life as I conceive it is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.

To fear love is to fear life and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

The secret of happiness is this: Let your interests be as wide as possible and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

There was never any reason to believe in any innate superiority of the male except his superior muscle.

We have two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice and the other which we practice but seldom preach.

One should respect public opinion in so far as it is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.

Beggars do not envy millionaires though of course they will envy other beggars who are more successful.

It is preoccupation with possession more than anything else that prevents men from living freely and nobly.

The fundamental defect of fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them.

Science is what you know philosophy is what you don't know.

To teach how to live with uncertainty and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy in our age can still do for those who study it.

Three passions simple but overwhelmingly strong have governed my life: the longing for love the search for knowledge and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is very important.

What men want is not knowledge but certainty.

Self-respect will keep a man from being abject when he is in the power of enemies and will enable him to feel that he may be in the right when the world is against him.

Men who are unhappy like men who sleep badly are always proud of the fact.

Unless a man has been taught what to do with success after getting it the achievement of it must inevitably leave him a prey to boredom.

Whenever one finds oneself inclined to bitterness it is a sign of emotional failure.

No matter how eloquently a dog may bark he cannot tell you that his parents were poor but honest.