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Bertrand Russell

Explore inspiring quotes by Bertrand Russell, a remarkable figure whose words continue to inspire and motivate people around the world.

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Featured Quotes by Bertrand Russell

Some of the most memorable quotes from this author

"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."

— Bertrand Russellage

"It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion."

— Bertrand Russellage

"Admiration of the proletariat, like that of dams, power stations, and aeroplanes, is part of the ideology of the machine age."

— Bertrand Russellage

"Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself."

— Bertrand Russellart

"Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change."

— Bertrand Russellchange

"Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one."

— Bertrand Russellcourage

All Quotes by Bertrand Russell

Browse all quotes from this author

"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."

-Bertrand Russell

"It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion."

-Bertrand Russell

"Admiration of the proletariat, like that of dams, power stations, and aeroplanes, is part of the ideology of the machine age."

-Bertrand Russell

"Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself."

-Bertrand Russell

"Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change."

-Bertrand Russell

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"Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one."

-Bertrand Russell

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"The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf."

-Bertrand Russell

"The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them."

-Bertrand Russell

"The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour."

-Bertrand Russell

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"Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education."

-Bertrand Russell

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"We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought."

-Bertrand Russell

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"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."

-Bertrand Russell

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"In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word experience have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word."

-Bertrand Russell

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"The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf."

-Bertrand Russell

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"To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead."

-Bertrand Russell

"To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom."

-Bertrand Russell

"Boredom is... a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it."

-Bertrand Russell

"Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom."

-Bertrand Russell

"Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd."

-Bertrand Russell

"Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric."

-Bertrand Russell

"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."

-Bertrand Russell

"None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear."

-Bertrand Russell

"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."

-Bertrand Russell

"We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought."

-Bertrand Russell

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"Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires."

-Bertrand Russell

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"Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure."

-Bertrand Russell

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"Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time."

-Bertrand Russell

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"I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong."

-Bertrand Russell

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"The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper."

-Bertrand Russell

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"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."

-Bertrand Russell

"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."

-Bertrand Russell

"The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge."

-Bertrand Russell

"Anything you're good at contributes to happiness."

-Bertrand Russell

"Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires."

-Bertrand Russell

"The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell."

-Bertrand Russell

"Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones."

-Bertrand Russell

"The most savage controversies are about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way."

-Bertrand Russell

"Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure."

-Bertrand Russell

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"The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history."

-Bertrand Russell

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"A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live."

-Bertrand Russell

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"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."

-Bertrand Russell

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"The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men."

-Bertrand Russell

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"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."

-Bertrand Russell

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"To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness."

-Bertrand Russell

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"Anything you're good at contributes to happiness."

-Bertrand Russell

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"Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change."

-Bertrand Russell

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"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."

-Bertrand Russell

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"The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible."

-Bertrand Russell

happinessView Quote

"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."

-Bertrand Russell

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"Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people's happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race."

-Bertrand Russell

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"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."

-Bertrand Russell

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"If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give."

-Bertrand Russell

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"Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness."

-Bertrand Russell

happinessView Quote

"The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history."

-Bertrand Russell

historyView Quote

"Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic."

-Bertrand Russell

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"Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change."

-Bertrand Russell

"Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines."

-Bertrand Russell

intelligenceView Quote

"We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought."

-Bertrand Russell

intelligenceView Quote

"So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence."

-Bertrand Russell

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"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge."

-Bertrand Russell

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"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."

-Bertrand Russell

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"The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge."

-Bertrand Russell

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"Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance."

-Bertrand Russell

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"The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts."

-Bertrand Russell

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"The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge."

-Bertrand Russell

"To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead."

-Bertrand Russell

"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."

-Bertrand Russell

"To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead."

-Bertrand Russell

"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."

-Bertrand Russell

"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."

-Bertrand Russell

"The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge."

-Bertrand Russell

"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."

-Bertrand Russell

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