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| BERTRAND RUSSELL |
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| All forms of fear produce fatigue. Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to open her mouth. Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist sicne half the sins of mankind are caused by fear of it. If one man offers you democracy and another offers you a bag of grain, at what stage of starvation will you prefer the grain to the vote? 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. In all things it is a good idea to hang a question mark now and then on the things we have taken for granted. It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living. It is only intellect that keeps me sane; perhaps this makes me overvalue intellect against feeling. It is the preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly. Male domination has had some very unfortunate effects. It has made the most intimate of human relations, that of marriage, one of master and slave, instead of one between equal partners. Mankind has become so much one family that we cannot insure our own prosperity except by insuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy... Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people's happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race. Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so. On one occasion I remarked... that democracy had at least one merit, namely, that a Member of Parliament cannot be stupider than his constituents, for the more stupid he is, the more stupid they were to elect him. One of the symptons of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important. |
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