Bertrand Russell Quotes

Remote from human passions, remote even from the pitiful facts of nature, the generations have gradually created an ordered cosmos [mathematics], where pure thought can dwell in its natural home.

War...seems a mere madness, a collective insanity.

Diversity is essential to happiness and in Utopia there is hardly any. This is a defect in all planned social systems.

The dictum that human nature cannot be changed is one of those tiresome platitudes that conceal from the ignorant the depths of their own ignorance.

Science is no substitute for virtue; the heart is as necessary for a good life as the head.

There was, I think, never any reason to believe in any innate superiority of the male, except his superior muscle.

All who are not lunatics are agreed about certain things : That it is better to be alive than dead, better to be adequately fed than starved, better to be free than a slave

All that passes for knowledge can be arranged in a hierarchy of degrees of certainty, with arithmetic and the facts of perception at the top.

A fanatical belief in democracy makes democratic institutions impossible.

A life devoted to science is therefore a happy life, and its happiness is derived from the very best sources that are open to dwellers on this troubled and passionate planet.

The tendency of our perceptions is to emphasise increasingly the objective elements in an impression, unless we have some special reason, as artists have, for doing the opposite.

When I was 4 years old ... I dreamt that I'd been eaten by a wolf, and to my great surprise I was in the wolf's stomach and not in heaven.

The above proposition is occasionally useful.

It must not be supposed that the subjective elements are any less 'real' than the objective elements; they are only less important... because they do not point to anything beyond ourselves.

It is in our hearts that evil lies, and it is from our hearts that it must be plucked out.

Man can be scientifically manipulated.

If the West can claim superiority in anything, it is . . . in science and scientific technique.

If we compare Europe with other continents, it is marked out as [another] persecuting continent.

In detective stories . . . I alternately identify myself with the murderer and the huntsman-detective, but . . . there are those to which this vicarious outlet is too mild.

[Industrialism's soon diminishing] capacity to supply human needs could be prevented if men exercised any restraint or foresight in their present frenzied exploitation.

Look at me. Look at me is one of the fundamental desires of human heart.

Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens.

My own view on religion is . . . It helped in early days to fix the calendar, and . . . to chronicle eclipses . . . These two services I am prepared to acknowledge.

Neither the Church nor modern public opinion condemns petting, provided it stops short at a certain point.

People who are vigorous and brutal often find war enjoyable.

When I was a child . . . Only virtue was prized, virtue at the expense of intellect, health, happiness, and every mundane good.

The human race may well become extinct before the end of the century.

Plato has dramatic strength ... but is quite unaware of the strength of the argument against his position ... and allows himself to be grossly unfair in arguing against it.

In spreading his ideas, Plato was willing to employ emotional appeals, state propaganda, and the use of force.

Aristotle's metaphysics, roughly speaking, may be described as Plato diluted by common sense. He is difficult because Plato and common sense do not mix easily.

Is the set of all sets which are not members of themselves a member of itself?

The evolution of our spirit is blazed on the dark background of eternity by our individual wakes. Every person can, if he/she wishes, leave a more or less brilliant wake behind them.

All serious innovation is only rendered possible by some accident enabling unpopular persons to survive.

Of course not. After all, I may be wrong.

Man can be stimulated by hope or driven by fear, but the hope and the fear must be vivid and immediate if they are to be effective without producing weariness.

Right conduct can never, except by some rare accident, be promoted by ignorance or hindered by knowledge.

There is no difference between someone who eats too little and sees Heaven and someone who drinks too much and sees snakes.

Much of the most important evils that mankind have to consider are those which they inflict upon each other through stupidity or malevolence or both.

Ideas and principles that do harm are as a rule, though not always, cloaks for evil passions.

All the conditions of happiness are realized in the life of the man of science.

Every living thing is a sort of imperialist, seeking to transform as much as possible of its environment into itself.

Uncertainty in the pressure of vivid hopes and fears is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales.

Bad philosophers may have a certain influence; good philosophers, never.

To expect a personality to survive the disintegration of the brain is like expecting a cricket club to survive when all of its members are dead.

Well, there are many religions, but I suppose they all worship the same God.

Hitler is an outcome of Rousseau.

You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go.

Great God in Boots! – the ontological argument is sound!

The first essential character [of civilization], I should say, is forethought. This, indeed, is what mainly distinguishes men from brutes and adults from children.

Zeno was concerned with three problems... These are the problem of the infinitesimal, the infinite, and continuity.