"All moral rules must be tested by examining whether they 
    tend to realize ends that we desire. I say ends that we
    desire, not ends that we _ought_ to desire. What we "ought"
    to desire is merely what someone else wishes us to desire."

   "Knowledge and love are both indefinitely extensible; 
    therefore, however good a life may be, a better life can
    be imagined. Neither love without knowledge nor knowledge
    without love can produce a good life."

   "No man who believes that all is for the best in this
    suffering world can keep his ethical values unimpaired, 
    since he is always having to find excuses for pain and 
    misery."

   "Optimism and pessimism, as cosmic philosophies, show the
    same naive humanism; the great world, so far as we know it
    from the philosophy of nature, is neither good nor bad, 
    and is not concerned to make us happy or unhappy."

    - Bertrand Russell, Essays

   "...although we cannot set up in any detail an idea of character 
    which is to be universally applicable - although we cannot say, 
    for instance, that all men ought to be industrious, or 
    self-sacrificing, or fond of music - there are some broad 
    principles which can be used to guide our estimates as to what 
    is possible or desirable."

   "You may put a man to death because he loves his fellow-men, but 
    you will not by so doing acquire the love which made his happiness. 
    Force is impotent in such matters; it is only as regards material 
    goods that it is effective. For this reason the men who believe 
    in force are the men whose thoughts and desires are preoccupied 
    with material goods."

   "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."

    -Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), Political Ideals (1917)