 Bertrand Russell Quotes 366 |
I find many men in our dangerous age who seem to be in love with misery and death, and who grow angry when hopes are suggested to them. They think that hope is irrational and that, in sitting down to lazy despair, they are merely facing facts. I cannot agree with these men. To preserve hope in our world makes calls upon our intelligence and our energy. In those who despair it is very frequently the energy that is lacking.
Source: Bertrand Russell: Reflections on My Eightieth Birthday: a broadcast on the BBC Home Service, 16 May 1952
In: Listener, v.47 (22 May 1952), pp.823-824.
Reprinted in: Portraits from Memory and Other Essays, 1956
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