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Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation
by 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

Related topics: Life Human-Nature Psychology Positive Fear Political

Conventional people are roused to fury
by departure from convention,
largely because they regard such departure
as a criticism of themselves.
- Bertrand Russell

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown
is the belief that one's work is terribly important.
- Bertrand Russell

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
- Bertrand Russell

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Thank you for joining me on this journey we call life,
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

A widespread belief is more often likely
to be foolish than sensible.
- 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

Collective fear stimulates herd instinct,
and tends to produce ferocity toward
those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
- Bertrand Russell

The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.
- Bertrand Russell

I am firm; YOU are obstinate; HE is a pig-headed fool.
- 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

It is the things for which there is no evidence
that are believed with passion.
- Bertrand Russell

The whole problem with the world is that
fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves,
but wiser people so full of doubts.
- Bertrand Russell

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

Life is best when I wish neither to hurry the future nor to slow it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

People often say that motivation doesn't last.
Well, neither does bathing - that's why we recommend it daily.
- Zig Ziglar

They who can give up essential liberty
to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin

True love is a process of co-creation
in which neither feels ownership or superiority.
Jealousy is a highly destructive force
for love and relationships.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

The snow goose need not bathe to make itself white.
Neither need you do anything but be yourself.
- Lao Tzu

It is neither good nor bad, but thinking makes it so.
- William Shakespeare

Neither blame or praise yourself.
- Plutarch

Neither a borrower nor a lender be,
For loan oft loses both itself and friend,
And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.
- William Shakespeare

I was taught that the way of progress
is neither swift nor easy.
- Marie Curie

Neither should a ship rely on one small anchor,
nor should life rest on a single hope.
- Epictetus

Service which is rendered without joy
helps neither the servant nor the served.
But all other pleasures and possessions
pale into nothingness before service
which is rendered in a spirit of joy.
- Mohandas (Mahatma) Gandhi

We're never so vulnerable than when we trust someone -
but paradoxically, if we cannot trust,
neither can we find love or joy.
- Walter Anderson

Know that life is most joyful when you
neither attempt to hurry the future nor to slow it.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

No stream rises higher than its source.
Whatever man might build, could never
express or reflect more than he was.
He could record neither more nor less
than he had learned of life.
- Frank Lloyd Wright

To accuse others for one's own misfortunes
is a sign of want of education.
To accuse oneself shows that one's education has begun.
To accuse neither oneself nor others
shows that one's education is complete.
- Epictetus

Where there is charity and wisdom,
there is neither fear nor ignorance.
- St. Francis of Assisi

It is neither wealth nor splendor;
but tranquility and occupation which give you happiness.
- Thomas Jefferson

Far better is it to dare mighty things,
to win glorious triumphs,
even though chequered by failure,
than to take rank with those poor spirits
who neither enjoy much nor suffer much,
because they live in the grey twilight
that knows not victory or defeat.
- Theodore Roosevelt

Friendship is all about Mutuality,
neither Individuality nor Singularity.
- Aparna Chatterjee

Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable...
Every step toward the goal of justice
requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle;
the tireless exertions and
passionate concern of dedicated individuals.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort
of feeling safe with a person;
having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words,
but to pour them all out, just as they are,
chaff and grain together,
knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them,
keep what is worth keeping, and then,
with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away.
- George Eliot

The "stories" we choose to tell about our past
are never what a video camera would have recorded.
We can tell a sad story or a happy story,
and neither story is either
more accurate or "better" than the other story.
The difference is that one story causes us to suffer,
while the other brings us joy. I choose joy.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Expediency asks the question - is it politic?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position
that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular;
but one must take it BECAUSE it is right.
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone,
"it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
- Lewis Carroll

Cheer for endings - whether goals have been met or not -
whether the ending is tidy or ragged.
Without endings, there would be neither the opportunity
nor the incentive to think new thoughts,
and to begin great new projects.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Meditation is neither shutting things out nor off.
It is seeing things clearly,
and deliberately positioning yourself differently in relationship to them.
- Jon Kabat-Zinn

The unpredictable and irregular happenings
of life's cycles are an inherent part of their nature.
There are droughts and heat waves, injuries occur.
The lion eats the zebra -
one is nourished, one dies - neither failed.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Use heroes as a springboard for inquiry
into the identity and nature of admirably human qualities.
Do not judge heroes -
neither to put them unquestioningly on a pedestal
nor to unkindly probe their flaws.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Prayer does not use up artificial energy,
doesn't burn up any fossil fuel, doesn't pollute.
Neither does song, neither does love, neither does the dance.
- Margaret Mead

I am neither bitter nor cynical but I do wish
there was less immaturity in political thinking.
- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Marriage is neither heaven nor hell,
it is simply purgatory.
- Abraham Lincoln

You are not your mind. You, a Spiritual BEing,
are neither your mind nor your body.
Mind and body are your tools - to use as you choose.
Sometimes your body appears to have a will of its own,
as when it twitches or pains.
Likewise, your mind often appears to have its own will.
That incessant chattering of regret, disappointment, guilt,
shame, foreboding, worry, and fear
is your Rattlesnake Mind striking off on its own.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down
on the tracks of history
to wait for the train of the future to run over him.
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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

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

Man is least himself when he talks in his own person.
Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.
- Oscar Wilde

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.

Every child comes with the message
that God is not yet discouraged of man.
- Rabindranath Tagore

Two things a man should never be angry at:
what he can help,
and what he cannot help.
- Thomas Fuller

If there is anything that a man can do well,
I say let him do it. Give him a chance.
- Abraham Lincoln

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

A man can succeed at almost anything
for which he has unlimited enthusiasm.
- Charles M. Schwab

A man is truly ethical only when he obeys
the compulsion to help all life which he is able to assist,
and shrinks from injuring anything that lives.
- Albert Schweitzer

When I am getting ready to reason with a man,
I spend one-third of my time thinking about myself
and what I am going to say
and two-thirds about him and what he is going to say.
- Abraham Lincoln

Many a man fails as an original thinker
simply because his memory is too good.
- Nietzsche

I submit to you that if a man hasn't
discovered something that he will die for,
he isn't fit to live.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

A man who as a physical being
is always turned toward the outside,
thinking that his happiness lies outside him,
finally turns inward and
discovers that the source is within him.
- Soren Kierkegaard

The more a man can forget, the greater the number
of metamorphoses which his life can undergo,
the more he can remember, the more divine his life becomes.
- Soren Kierkegaard

Money has never made man happy, nor will it,
there is nothing in its nature to produce happiness.
The more of it one has the more one wants.
- Benjamin Franklin

A man can fail many times,
but he isn't a failure until
he begins to blame somebody else.
- John Burroughs

Mistakes are, after all, the foundations of truth,
and if a man does not know what a thing is,
it is at least an increase in knowledge
if he knows what it is not.
- Carl Jung

The gem cannot be polished without friction,
nor man perfected without trials.
- Confucius

Non-violence is a powerful and just weapon which cuts without wounding
and ennobles the man who wields it. It is a sword that heals.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Man must evolve for all human conflict,
a method which rejects
revenge, aggression and retaliation.
The foundation of such a method is love.
- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The ultimate test of a man's conscience
may be his willingness to sacrifice something today
for future generations whose words of thanks will not be heard.
- Gaylord Nelson

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May the world be kind to you, and may your own thoughts be gentle upon yourself.
- Jonathan Lockwood Huie