Bertrand Russell quotes
In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.
To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.
I've made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite.
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
War does not determine who is right - only who is left.
Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.
To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short.
Against my will, in the course of my travels, the belief that everything worth knowing was known at Cambridge gradually wore off. In this respect my travels were very useful to me.
All movements go too far.
Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attributable to science, which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century.
Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.
Boredom is... a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.
Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.
Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who'll get the blame.
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
God is a reality of spirit... He cannot... be conceived as an object, not even as the very highest object. God is not to be found in the world of objects.
I believe in using words, not fists. I believe in my outrage knowing people are living in boxes on the street. I believe in honesty. I believe in a good time. I believe in good food. I believe in sex.
I did not know I loved you until I heard myself telling so, for one instance I thought, "Good God, what have I said?" and then I knew it was true.
I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe - because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return.
I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.
I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years.
In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.
It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals.
Italy, and the spring and first love all together should suffice to make the gloomiest person happy.
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.
Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.
Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
Marriage is for women the commonest mode of livelihood, and the total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution.
Mathematics takes us into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual word, but every possible word, must conform.
Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.
Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.
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.
Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.
No one gossips about other people's secret virtues.
No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?
None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.
Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.
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.
Order, unity, and continuity are human inventions, just as truly as catalogues and encyclopedias.
Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.
Religions that teach brotherly love have been used as an excuse for persecution, and our profoundest scientific insight is made into a means of mass destruction.
Right discipline consists, not in external compulsion, but in the habits of mind which lead spontaneously to desirable rather than undesirable activities.
Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know.
Sin is geographical.
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
That which exists through itself is called The Eternal. The Eternal has neither name nor shape. It is the one essence, the one primal spirit. Essence and life cannot be seen. They are contained in the light of heaven. The light of heaven cannot be seen. It is contained in the two eyes.
The coward wretch whose hand and heart Can bear to torture aught below, Is ever first to quail and start From the slightest pain or equal foe.
The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts.
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.
The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic.
The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself.
The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.
The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.
The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.
The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.
The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.
Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, Thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought is great and swift and free.
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.
We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do so.