Bertrand Russell Quotes

"The man who suffers from a sense of sin is suffering from a particular kind of self-love. In all this vast universe the thing that appears to him of most importance is that he himself should be virtuous. It is a grave defect in certain forms of traditional religion that they have encouraged this particular kind of self-absorption."
-Bertrand Russell

"I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong."
-Bertrand Russell in Belief quotes.

"Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day."
-Bertrand Russell

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

"In the part of this universe that we know there is great injustice, and often the good suffer, and often the wicked prosper, and one hardly knows which of those is the more annoying."
-Bertrand Russell in Suffering quotes.

"The human race may well become extinct before the end of the century."
-Bertrand Russell

"If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way."
-Bertrand Russell in Instinct quotes.

"It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this."
-Bertrand Russell in Mankind quotes.

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

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

"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
-Bertrand Russell in Wisdom quotes.

"Too little liberty brings stagnation and too much brings chaos."
-Bertrand Russell

"The thing that I should wish to obtain from money would be leisure with security."
-Bertrand Russell

"It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves great results. The wish to preserve the past rather that the hope of creating the future dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young."
-Bertrand Russell

"Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed."
-Bertrand Russell

"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."
-Bertrand Russell in Philosophy quotes.

"It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won't go."
-Bertrand Russell

"Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality."
-Bertrand Russell in Uncertainty quotes.

"There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it."
-Bertrand Russell

"A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand."
-Bertrand Russell

"Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country."
-Bertrand Russell

"When he followed the instincts which God had transmitted to him from his ancestry of beasts of prey, he called it sin and asked God to forgive him."
-Bertrand Russell

"Patriots always talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country."
-Bertrand Russell

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt."
-Bertrand Russell

"Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty - a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture."
-Bertrand Russell in Mathematics quotes.

"A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not be endured with patient resignation."
-Bertrand Russell

"The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and not merely as means to other things, are knowledge, art, instinctive happiness, and relations of friendship or affection."
-Bertrand Russell