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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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- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown
is the belief that one's work is terribly important.
- Bertrand Russell
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
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
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
It is the things for which there is no evidence
that are believed with passion.
- 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
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)
No man stands so tall as when he stoops to help a child.
- Anonymous (often attributed to Abraham Lincoln)
Talent is God-given; be humble.
Fame is man-given; be thankful.
Conceit is self-given; be careful.
- John Wooden
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
Adventure is not outside man; it is within.
- George Eliot
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
A man's pride shall bring him low,
but honor shall uphold the humble in spirit.
- Proverbs 29:23
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
Faith is a living and unshakable confidence,
a belief in the grace of God so assured that
a man would die a thousand deaths for its sake.
- Martin Luther
Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.
Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
- Oscar Wilde
A man who was completely innocent,
offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others,
including his enemies,
and became the ransom of the world.
It was a perfect act.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
A man wrapped up in himself makes a very small bundle.
- Benjamin Franklin
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
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
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.
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.
The man who has no imagination has no wings.
- Muhammad Ali
Man does not weave this web of life.
He is merely a strand of it.
Whatever he does to the web,
he does to himself.
- Chief Seattle (attributed)
If the stars should appear
but one night every thousand years
how man would marvel and stare.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
An honest man is always a child.
- Socrates
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
For man with no forgiveness in heart,
life worse punishment than death.
- Miyagi: character in the movie Karate Kid 2
Two things a man should never be angry at:
what he can help,
and what he cannot help.
- Thomas Fuller
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]
As to marriage or celibacy, let a man
take which course he will,
he will be sure to repent.
- Socrates
Man's enemies are not demons, but human beings like himself.
- Lao Tzu
Each man is the architect of his own fate.
- Appius Claudius
Dear Father in heaven, I'm not a praying man,
but if you're up there and you can hear me ...
show me the way... show me the way.
- It's a Wonderful Life (1946 movie)
I wept because I had no shoes
until I met a man who had no feet.
- old Persian Proverb
This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.
- William Shakespeare
I learned that courage was not the absence of fear,
but the triumph over it.
The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid,
but he who conquers that fear.
- Nelson Mandela
Whenever a man or women is truly inspired,
it is because the same One Universal Spirit
is doing the inspiring.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie
No man ever prayed heartily without learning something.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
A hero is no braver than an ordinary man,
but he is brave five minutes longer.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Circumstance does not make the man: it reveals him to himself.
- James Allen
Wherever a man turns he can find someone who needs him.
- Albert Schweitzer
The highest revelation is that God is in every man.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Every man must decide whether he will
walk in the light of creative altruism
or in the darkness of destructive selfishness.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
The fear of death follows from the fear of life.
A man who lives fully, is prepared to die at any time.
- Mark Twain
There is One Infinite Mind,
which of necessity includes all that is,
whether it be the intelligence in man,
the life in the animal,
or the invisible Presence which is God.
- Ernest Holmes
He is a wise man who does not grieve
for the things which he has not,
but rejoices for those which he has.
- Epictetus
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
The Divine Plan is one of Freedom.
The inherent nature of man is ever seeking
to express itself in terms of freedom,
because freedom is the birthright of every living soul.
- Ernest Holmes
The mind of man is continuously unfolding
into a greater recognition of its real plan
in the creative order of the Universe.
- Ernest Holmes
If you talk to a man in a language he understands,
that goes to his head.
If you talk to him in his language,
that goes to his heart.
- Nelson Mandela
Before the throne of the Almighty,
man will be judged not by his acts but by his intentions.
For God alone reads our hearts.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
All God wants of man is a peaceful heart.
- Meister Eckhart
Behind an able man there are always other able men.
- Chinese proverb
Jesus said: "A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho,
when he fell into the hands of robbers.
They stripped him of his clothes, beat him
and went away, leaving him half dead.
A priest happened to be going down the same road,
and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.
So too, a Levite [religious leader],
when he came to the place and saw him,
passed by on the other side.
But a Samaritan [Samaritans and Jews generally disliked
and were suspicious of each other] came where the man was;
and when he saw him, he took pity on him.
He went to him and bandaged his wounds ... and ...
took him to an inn and took care of him. ...
Jesus [said] "Go and do likewise."
- Luke 10:25-37 (The Parable of the Good Samaritan)
I cannot trust a man to control others
who cannot control himself.
- Robert E. Lee
The value of a man should be seen in what he gives
and not in what he is able to receive.
- Albert Einstein
The wise man looks back into the past,
and does not grieve over what is far off,
nor rejoice over what is near;
for he knows that time is without end.
- Lao Tzu
There is a sufficiency in the world
for man's need but not for man's greed.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi
A man who won't die for something is not fit to live.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
Is the babe young? When I behold it,
it seems more venerable than the oldest man.
- Henry David Thoreau
Nothing is enough for the man to whom enough is too little.
- Epicurus
Give a man a fish and he will eat for a day,
teach a man to fish and he will eat for a lifetime.
- Chinese Proverb
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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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