Bertrand Russell Quotes

We may often do as we please - but we cannot please as we please.

If you question any candid person who is no longer young, he is very likely to tell you that, having tasted life in this world, he has no wish to begin again as a "new boy" in another.

When the journey from means to end is not too long, the means themselves are enjoyed if the end is ardently desired.

For the learning of every virtue there is an appropriate discipline, and for the learning of suspended judgment the best discipline is philosophy.

Religions which have any very strong hold over men's actions have generally some instinctive basis.

Heretical views arise when the truth is uncertain, and it is only when the truth is uncertain that censorship is invoked.

Thee will find out in time that I have a great love of professing vile sentiments, I don't know why, unless it springs from long efforts to avoid priggery.

Is a man what he seems to the astronomer, a tiny lump of impure carbon and water crawling impotently on a small and unimportant planet? Or is he what he appears to Hamlet? Is he perhaps both as once?

The wise man will be as happy as circumstances permit, and if he finds the contemplation of the universe painful beyond a point, he will contemplate something else instead.

I believe that the abolition of private ownership of land and capital is a necessary step toward any world in which the nations are to live at peace with one another.

I do not think any reasonable person can doubt that in India, China and Japan, if the knowledge of birth control existed, the birthrate would fall very rapidly

I do so hate to leave this world.

When we have told how things behave when they are electrified, and under what circumstances they are electrified, we have told all there is to know

The Stoic assures us that what is happening now will happen over and over again. [If so, Providende would] ultimately grow weary through despair.

The teaching of Christ, as it appears in the Gospels, has had extraordinarily little to do with the ethics of Christians.

The white tails of rabbits, according to some theologians, have a purpose, namely to make it easier for sportsmen to shoot them.

Those who advocate common usage in philosophy sometimes speak in a manner that suggests the mystique of the 'common man.'

All knowledge, we feel, must be built up upon our instinctive beliefs; and if these are rejected, nothing is left.

Science has made unrestricted national sovereignty incompatible with human survival. The only possibilities are now world government or death.

To discover a system for the avoidance of war is a vital need of our civilisation.

Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle.

In considering irregular appearances, there are certain very natural mistakes which must be avoided.

Machines have altered our way of life, but not our instincts. Consequently, there is maladjustment.

Human nature being what it is, people will insist upon getting some pleasure out of life.

It is a natural propensity to attribute misfortune to someone's malignity.

We do not like to be robbed of an enemy; we want someone to hate when we suffer. It is so depressing to think that we suffer because we are fools; yet, taking mankind in the mass, that is the truth.

The first effect of emancipation from the Church was not to make men think rationally, but to open their minds to every sort of antique nonsense

[There has been] every kind of cruelty practiced upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.

On the one hand, philosophy is to keep us thinking about things that we may come to know, and on the other hand to keep us modestly aware of how much that seems like knowledge isn't knowledge

Abstract work, if one wishes to do it well, must be allowed to destroy one's humanity; one raises a monument which is at the same time a tomb, in which, voluntarily, one slowly inters oneself.

it [is] possible to suppose that, if Russia is allowed to have peace, an amazing industrial development may take place, making Russia a rival of the United States.

A European who goes to New York and Chicago sees the future... when he goes to Asia he sees the past.

The typical Westerner wishes to be the cause of as many changes as possible in his environment; the typical Chinaman wishes to enjoy as much and as delicately as possible.

I do wish I believed in the life eternal, for it makes me quite miserable to think man is merely a kind of machine endowed, unhappily for himself, with consciousness.

Moral progress has consisted in the main of protest against cruel customs, and of attempts to enlarge human sympathy.

There are still many people in America who regard depressions as acts of God. I think Keynes proved that the responsibility for these occurrences does not rest with Providence.

Orthodoxy is the death of intelligence.

Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or what you think could have beneficent social effects if it were believed; but look only and solely at what are the facts.

It appeared to me obvious that the happiness of mankind should be the aim of all action, and I discovered to my surprise that there were those who thought otherwise.

The twin conceptions of sin and vindictive punishment seem to be at the root of much that is most vigorous, both in religion and politics.

I am as drunk as a lord, but then, I am one, so what does it matter ?

It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living.

I do not believe that I am now dreaming, but I cannot prove that I am not. I am, however, quite certain that I am having certain experiences, whether they be those of a dream or those of waking life.

The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake.

The Eugenic Society . . . is perpetually bewailing the fact that wage-earners breed faster than middle-class people.

The newspapers at one time said that I was dead but after carefully examining the evidence I came to the conclusion that this statement was false.

The desire for legitimate offspring is, in fact, according to the Catholic Church, the only motive which can justify sexual intercourse.

Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found

To write tragedy, a man must feel tragedy. To feel tragedy, a man must be aware of the world in which he lives. Not only with his mind, but with his blood and sinews.

Philosophy is an unusually ingenious attempt to think fallaciously.