Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time. – Bertrand Russell
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic. – Bertrand Russell
Organic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the philosopher, and this development, we are assured, is indubitably an advance. Unfortunately it is the philosopher, not the protozoon, who gives us this assurance. – Bertrand Russell
Conventional people are roused to fury by departures from convention, largely because they regard such departures as a criticism of themselves. – Bertrand Russell
My desire to curtail undue freedom of speech extends only to such public areas as restaurants, airports, streets, hotel lobbies, parks, and department stores. Verbal exchanges between consenting adults in private are as of little interest to me as they probably are to them. – Fran Lebowitz