Political Ideals Quotes

“You may kill an artist or a thinker, but you cannot acquire his art or his thought.”
― Bertrand Russell, Political Ideals

“Liberty demands self-government, but not the right to interfere with others.”
― Bertrand Russell, Political Ideals

“The object of education ought not to be to make all men think alike, but to make each think in the way which is the fullest expression of his own.”
― Bertrand Russell, Political Ideals

“You may kill an artist or a thinker, but you cannot acquire his art or his thought. You may put a man do death because he loves his fellow-men, but you will not by so doing acquire the love which made his happiness.”
― Bertrand Russell, Political Ideals

“The best life is the one in which the creative impulses play the largest part and the possessive impulses the smallest. This is no new discovery. The Gospel says: “Take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?” The thought we give to these things is taken away from matters of more importance. And what is worse, the habit of mind engendered by thinking of these things is a bad one; it leads to competition, envy, domination, cruelty, and almost all the moral evils that infest the world. In particular, it leads to the predatory use of force. Material possessions can be taken by force and enjoyed by the robber. Spiritual possessions cannot be taken in this way.”
― Bertrand Russell, Political Ideals

“There can be no final goal for human institutions; the best are those that most encourage progress towards others still better. Without effort and change, human life cannot remain good. It is not a finished Utopia that we ought to desire, but a world where imagination and hope are alive and active.”
― Bertrand Russell, Political Ideals

“What we shall desire for individuals is now clear: strong creative impulses, overpowering and absorbing the instinct of possession; reverence for others; respect for the fundamental creative impulse in ourselves. A certain kind of self-respect or native pride is necessary to a good life; a man must not have a sense of utter inward defeat if he is to remain whole, but must feel the courage and the hope and the will to live by the best that is in him, whatever outward or inward obstacles it may encounter. So far as it lies in a man’s own power, his life will realize its best possibilities if it has three things: creative rather than possessive impulses, reverence for others, and respect for the fundamental impulse in himself.”
― Bertrand Russell, Political Ideals

“Political and social institutions are to be judged by the good or harm that they do to individuals. Do they encourage creativeness rather than possessiveness? Do they embody or promote a spirit of reverence between human beings? Do they preserve self-respect? In”
― Bertrand Russell, Political Ideals

“Not only teachers, but all commonplace persons in authority,
desire in their subordinates that kind of uniformity
which makes their actions easily predictable and never inconvenient.
The result is that they crush initiative and individuality
when they can, and when they cannot, they quarrel with it.”
― Bertrand Russell, Political Ideals

“People believe that what a man needs is work. This, of course, is absurd. What he needs is the goods produced by work, and the less work involved in making a given amount of goods, the better.”
― Bertrand Russell, Political Ideals