Quotes By Bertrand Russell

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

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.

The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.

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

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.

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.

When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief which he finds in himself.

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.

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

If any philosopher had been asked for a definition of infinity, he might have produced some unintelligible rigmarole, but he would certainly not have been able to give a definition that had any meaning at all.

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

Sin is geographical.

War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.

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

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.

Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.

Many people when they fall in love look for a little haven of refuge from the world, where they can be sure of being admired when they are not admirable, and praised when they are not praiseworthy.

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

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.

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.

Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know.

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.

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.

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

All movements go too far.

Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.

The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.

Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted.

Right discipline consists, not in external compulsion, but in the habits of mind which lead spontaneously to desirable rather than undesirable activities.