Marriage and Morals Quotes

“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widely spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“Love can flourish only as long as it is free and spontaneous; it tends to be killed by the thought of duty. To say that it is your duty to love so-and-so is the surest way to cause you to hate him of her.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“The use of self control is like the use of brakes on train. It is useful when you find yourself in wrong direction but merely harmful when the direction is right”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives. There is a deep-seated fear, in most people, of the cold world and the possible cruelty of the herd; there is a longing for affection, which is often concealed by roughness, boorishness or a bullying manner in men, and by nagging and scolding in women. Passionate mutual love while it lasts puts an end to this feeling; it breaks down the hard walls of the ego, producing a new being composed of two in one.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“So long as there is death there will be sorrow, and so long as there is sorrow it can be no part of the duty of human beings to increase its amount, in spite of the fact that a few rare spirits know how to transmute it.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“...love must feel the ego of the beloved person as important as one's own ego, and must realize the other's feelings and wishes as though they were one's own.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“When a child reaches adolescence, there is very apt to be a conflict between parents and child, since the latter considers himself to be by now quite capable of managing his own affairs, while the former are filled with parental solicitude, which is often a disguise for love of power. Parents consider, usually, that the various moral problems which arise in adolescence are peculiarly their province. The opinions they express, however, are so dogmatic that the young seldom confide in them, and usually go their own way in secret.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“If children learn of sex as a relation between their parents to which they owe their own existence, they learn of it in its best form and in connection with its biological purpose.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“For the inexperienced, however, it is very difficult to distinguish passionate love from mere sex hunger; especially is this the case with well-brought-up girls, who have been taught that they could not possibly like to kiss a man unless they loved him.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“In the modern world, however, love has another enemy more dangerous than religion, and that is the gospel of work and economic success. It is generally held, especially in America, that a man should not allow love to interfere with his career, and that if he does, he is silly. But in this as in all human matters a balance is necessary.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“The instinct is not completely satisfied unless a man's whole being, mental quite as much as physical, enters into the relation. Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give; unconsciously, if not consciously, they feel this and the resulting disappointment inclines them towards envy, oppression, and cruelty.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“Both men and women who have children as a rule regulate their lives largely with reference to them, and children cause perfectly ordinary men and women to act unselfishly in certain ways, of which perhaps life insurance is the most definite and measurable.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“There is another more psychological obstacle to the full development of love in the modern world, and that is the fear that many people feel of not preserving their individuality in tact. This is a foolish and rather modern terror. Individuality is not an end in itself; it is something that must enter into fructifying contact with the world, and in so doing must lose its separateness. An individuality which is kept in a glass case withers, whereas on e that is freely expended in human contacts becomes enriched.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“Perhaps the greatest importance of the family, in these days of contraceptives, is that it preserves the habit of having children.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“The heterosexual emotions of young children can find a natural, wholesome and innocent outlet with other children; in this form they are a part of play, and like all play, they afford a preparation for adult activities.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“The decay of the family in quite recent times is undoubtedly to be attributed in the main to the industrial revolution, but it had already begun before that event, and its beginnings were inspired by individualistic theory. Young”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“So long as small children could work in factories, they remained a source of livelihood to their parents until they died of overwork; but the Factory Acts put an end to this form of exploitation, in spite of the protests of those who lived on it. From being a means of livelihood, children came to be a financial burden. At this stage, contraceptives became known, and the fall in the birth-rate began. There”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“Most men do not realise that a process of wooing is necessary after marriage, and many well-brought-up women do not realise what harm they do to marriage by remaining reserved and physically aloof.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“Religion has existed since before the dawn of history, while science has existed for at most four centuries; but when science has become old and venerable, it will control our lives as much as religion has ever done. I foresee the time when all who care for the freedom of the human spirit will have to rebel against a scientific tyranny.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“The belief in the immense value of the lady is a psychological effect of the difficulty of obtaining her, and I think it may be laid down that when a man has no difficulty in obtaining a woman, his feeling towards her does not take the form of romantic love.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“I regard love as one of the most important things in human life, and I regard any system as bad which interferes unnecessarily with its free development.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“The primary motive of sexual ethics as they have existed in Western civilisation since pre-Christian times has been to secure that degree of female virtue without which the patriarchal family becomes impossible, since paternity is uncertain.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“...we are confronted by the dangers facing mankind if science advances while international anarchy continues. Science enables us to realise our purposes, and if our purposes are evil, the result is disaster. If the world remains filled with malevolence and hate, the more scientific it becomes the more horrible it will be. To diminish the virulence of these passions is, therefore, an essential of human progress. To a very great extent their existence has been brought about by a wrong sexual ethic and a bad sexual education. For the future of civilisation a new and better sexual ethic is indispensable. It is this fact that makes the reform of sexual morality one of the vital needs of our time.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“It is not difficult for an unwise mother quite unintentionally to centre the heterosexual feelings of a young son upon herself, and it is true that, if this is done, the evil consequences pointed out by Freud will probably ensue. This is, however, much less likely to occur if the mother's sexual life is satisfying to her, for in that case she will not look to her child for a type of emotional satisfaction which ought to be sought only from adults. The parental impulse in its purity is an impulse to care for the young, not to demand affection from them, and if a woman is happy in her sexual life she will abstain spontaneously from all improper demands for emotional response from her child.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three-parts dead

الخوفُ من الحبِّ يعني الخوفَ من الحياةِ، وأولئكَ الذينَ يخافونَ الحياةَ هم بالفعلِ ثلاثة أرباع موتى!”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“the Puritans did not succeed in subduing the purely corporeal part of our human nature, since what they took away from sex they added to gluttony”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“No civilised man, and no savage that I have ever heard of, is satisfied in his instinct by the bare sexual act. If the impulse which leads to the act is to be satisfied, there must be courtship, there must be love, there must be companionship. Without these, while the physical hunger may be appeased for the moment, the mental hunger remains unabated, and no profound satisfaction can be obtained.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“The impulses that lead to the complex desires of adult life can be arranged under a few simple heads. Power, sex, and parenthood appear to me to be the source of most of the things that human beings do, apart from what is necessary for self-preservation.”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals

“American Conservatives maintain that the finished character of a grown man is mainly due to congenital characteristics, while American Radicals maintain, on the contrary, that education is everything and heredity nothing. I cannot agree with either of these two extreme positions, nor”
― Bertrand Russell, Marriage and Morals