History is invaluable in increasing our knowledge of human nature because it shows how people may be expected to behave in new situations. Many prominent men and women are completely ordinary in character and only exceptional in their circumstances.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Understanding History, And Other Essays, “How to Read and Understand History” (1957)
Quotations by:
Russell, Bertrand
Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?” (1947)
(Source)
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 (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish,” Unpopular Essays (1950)
Also in "Atheism and Agnosticism," Essays in Skepticism (1962).
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish,” Unpopular Essays (1950)
As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish,” Unpopular Essays (1950)
Be very wary of opinions that flatter your self-esteem.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish,” Unpopular Essays (1950)
Man is a rational animal — so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favor of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish,” Unpopular Essays (1950)
More cranks take up unfashionable errors than unfashionable truths.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish,” Unpopular Essays (1950)
To avoid the various foolish opinions to which mankind are prone, no superhuman genius is required. A few simple rules will keep you, not from all error, but from silly error. If the matter is one that can be settled by observation, make the observation yourself. 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. He did not do so because he thought he knew. Thinking that you know when in fact you don’t is a fatal mistake, to which we are all prone. I believe myself that hedgehogs eat black beetles, because I have been told that they do; but if I were writing a book on the habits of hedgehogs, I should not commit myself until I had seen one enjoying this unappetizing diet.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish,” Unpopular Essays (1950)
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 (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish” (1943)
When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Atheism and Agnosticism,” Essays in Skepticism (1962)
A life which goes excessively against natural impulse is […] likely to involve effects of strain that may be quite as bad as indulgence in forbidden impulses would have been. People who live a life which is unnatural beyond a point are likely to be filled with envy, malice and uncharitableness.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Authority and the Individual”
There are large parts of the Christian ethic which are universally admitted to be too good for this wicked world. We have in fact, two kinds of morality, side by side: one that we preach, but do not practice, and another that we practice, but seldom preach.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Eastern and Western Ideals of Happiness,” Sceptical Essays (1928)
Why do people read? The answer, as regards the great majority, is: “They don’t.”
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Flight from Reality,” New York American (2 Mar 1932)
(Source)
It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Free Thought and Official Propaganda,” lecture, South Place Institute, London (24 Mar 1922)
It is clear that the most elementary condition, if thought is to be free, is the absence of legal penalties for the expression of opinions. No great country has yet reached to this level, although most of them think they have. The opinions which are still persecuted strike the majority as so monstrous and immoral that the general principle of toleration can not be held to apply to them. But this is exactly the same view as that which made possible the tortures of the Inquisition. There was a time when Protestantism seemed as wicked as Bolshevism seems now.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Free Thought and Official Propaganda,” lecture, South Place Institute, London (24 Mar 1922)
Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Freedom and Government” (1940)
The essence of good manners consists in making it clear that one has no wish to hurt. When it is clearly necessary to hurt, it must be done in such a way as to make it evident that the necessity is felt to be regrettable.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Good Manners and Hypocrisy,” New York American (14 Dec 1934)
(Source)
One of the most interesting and harmful delusions to which men and nations can be subjected is that of imagining themselves special instruments of the Divine Will.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Ideas That Have Harmed Mankind,” Unpopular Essays (1950)
The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Ideas That Have Harmed Mankind,” Unpopular Essays (1951)
I have often wondered what turkeys would think of Christmas if they were capable of thought. I am afraid they would hardly regard it as a season of peace and goodwill.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“If animals could talk,” New York American (14 Sep 1932)
(Source)
There is no impersonal reason for regarding the interests of human beings as more important than those of animals. We can destroy animals more easily than they can destroy us; that is the only solid basis of our claim to superiority. We value art and science and literature, because these are things in which we excel. But whales might value spouting, and donkeys might maintain that a good bray is more exquisite than the music of Bach. We cannot prove them wrong except by the exercise of arbitrary power. All ethical systems, in the last analysis, depend upon weapons of war.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“If animals could talk,” New York American (14 Sep 1932)
(Source)
The instinct of conventionality, the horror of uncertainty, and vested interests, all militate against the acceptance of a new idea.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Individual Liberty and Public Control,” Atlantic (Jul 1917)
Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Is There a God?” (1952)
Full essay
Manners consist in pretending that we think as well of others as of ourselves. Manners are necessary because, as a rule, there is a pretence; when our good opinion of others is genuine, manners look after themselves. Perhaps instead of teaching manners, parents should teach the statistical probability that the person you are speaking to is just as good as you are. It is difficult to believe this; very few of us do, in our instincts, believe it. One’s own ego seems so incomparably more sensitive, more perceptive, wiser and more profound than other people’s. Yet there must be very few of whom this is true, and it is not likely that oneself is one of those few. There is nothing like viewing oneself statistically as a means both to good manners and to good morals.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“On Being Insulting,” New York American (21 Dec 1934)
(Source)
All movements go too far.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“On Being Modern-Minded,” The Nation (9 Jan 1937)
(Source)
A physician would not cure his patients more effectually if he were angry with them for being ill, and the criminal law is not more effective when it is inspired by anger against the criminal. The criminal presents a problem, psychological, educational, sociological, and economic; this difficult problem is not best handled in a state of blind rage. All arguments for corporal punishment spring from anger, not from scientific understanding. As men become more scientific, such barbaric practices will be no longer tolerated.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“On corporal punishment,” New York American (7 Sep 1932)
(Source)
Neither acquiescence in skepticism nor acquiescence in dogma is what education should produce. What it should produce is a belief that knowledge is attainable in a measure, though with difficulty; that much of what passes for knowledge at any given time is likely to be more or less mistaken, but that the mistakes can be rectified by care and industry.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“On Education, Especially in Early Childhood” (1926)
Knowledge, like other good things, is difficult, but not impossible; the dogmatist forgets the difficulty, the skeptic denies the possibility. Both are mistaken, and their errors, when widespread, produce social disaster.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“On Education, Especially in Early Childhood” (1926)
In acting upon our beliefs, we should be very cautious where a small error would mean disaster; nevertheless it is upon our beliefs that we must act.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“On Education, Especially in Early Childhood” (1926)
Expect of the young the very best of which they are capable, and you will get it. Expect less, and it is only too likely that you will get no more than you expect.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“On National Greatness,” New York American (20 Jan 1932)
(Source)
Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“On Scientific Method in Philosophy,” Mysticism and Logic (1918)
All the higher animals have methods of expressing pleasure, but human beings alone express pleasure when they do not feel it. This is called politeness and is reckoned among the virtues.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“On smiling,” New York American (17 Aug 1932)
(Source)
One of the most disconcerting things about infants is that they only smile when they are pleased. They stare at visitors with round grave eyes, and when the visitors try to amuse them, they display astonishment at the foolish antics of adults. But as soon as possible, their parents teach them to seem pleased by the company of people to whom they are utterly indifferent.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“On smiling,” New York American (17 Aug 1932)
(Source)
The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“On the Value of Scepticism” (1928)
We are now again in an epoch of wars of religion, but a religion is now called an “ideology.”
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Philosophy and Politics” (1946)
The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Philosophy and Politics” (1946)
(Source)
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 (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Philosophy for Laymen,” Unpopular Essays (1950)
Science is what we know, and philosophy is what we don’t know.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Philosophy for Laymen,” Unpopular Essays (1950)
The widespread interest in gossip is inspired, not by a love of knowledge, but by malice: no one gossips about other people’s secret virtues, but only about their secret vices. Accordingly most gossip is untrue, but care is taken not to verify it. Our neighbour’s sins, like the consolations of religion, are so agreeable that we do not stop to scrutinize the evidence closely.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“The Aims of Education” (1929)
(Source)
Usually shortened to "No one gossips about other people's secret virtues."
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“The Best Answers to Fanaticism,” New York Times, “A Liberal Decalogue,” Commandment 7 (16 Dec 1951)
Full text.
If we spent half an hour every day in silent immobility, I am convinced that we should conduct all our affairs, personal, national, and international, far more sanely than we do at present.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“The Decay of Meditation,” New York American (4 Nov 1931)
(Source)
Most people learn nothing from experience, except confirmation of their prejudices.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“The Lessons of Experience,” New York American (23 Sep 1931)
(Source)
One who believes as I do, that free intellect is the chief engine of human progress, cannot but be fundamentally opposed to Bolshevism as much as to the Church of Rome. The hopes which inspire communism are, in the main, as admirable as those instilled by the Sermon on the Mount, but they are held as fanatically and are as likely to do as much harm.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism” (1920)
Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of the mind.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“The Study of Mathematics,” Mysticism and Logic (1918)
(Source)
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933)
(Source)
Often paraphrased, "The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure, and the intelligent are full of doubt." See also Yeats and Bukowski.
More examination of this quotation: The Best Lack All Conviction While the Worst Are Full of Passionate Intensity – Quote Investigator.
It is generally admitted that most grown-up people, however regrettably, will try to have a good time.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
“Who May Use Lipstick?” New York American (14 Sep 1931)
(Source)
The degree of one’s emotions varies inversely with one’s knowledge of the facts — the less you know the hotter you get.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
(Attributed)
In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
(Attributed)
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
(Misattributed)
Attributed to many modern authors, including John Lennon,  T. S. Elliot, Lawrence J. Peter, and  Soren Kierkegaard. Most often attributed to Russell. it is actually a comment/interpretation by Peter in Peter's Quotations about a different Russell quote ("The thing that I should wish to obtain from money would be leisure with security"). In turn, the words were not original with Peter. More information.
A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says is never accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something that he can understand.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
A History of Western Philosophy, Bk. I, Part II, ch. 11 “Socrates” (1945)
The worse your logic, the more interesting the consequences to which it gives rise.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
A History of Western Philosophy, Book Three, part II, ch. 22 “Hegel” (1945)
There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (1943)
Progress […] requires the utmost scope for personal initiative that is compatible with social order.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Authority and the Individual, ch. 6 (1949)
I was told that the Chinese said they would bury me by the Western Lake and build a shrine to my memory. I have some slight regret that this did not happen as I might have become a god, which would have been very chic for an atheist.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Autobiography (1968)
Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, ch. 1 “What Makes People Unhappy?” (1930)
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, ch. 2 “Byronic Unhappiness” (1930)
Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, ch. 6 “Envy” (1930)
One should respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, ch. 9 “Fear of Public Opinion” (1930)
Conventional people are roused to fury by departures from convention, largely because they regard such departures as a criticism of themselves.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, ch. 9 “Fear of Public Opinion” (1930)
It should be quite unnecessary to point the moral; the right telling of the story should be sufficient. Do not moralize, but let the facts produce their own moral in the child’s mind.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Education and the Good Life, ch. 11 (1926)
(Source)
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.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948)
Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives’ mouths.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Impact of Science on Society (1952)
No nation was ever so virtuous as each believes itself, and none was ever so wicked as each believes the other.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Justice in War-Time (1916)
Righteousness cannot be born until self-righteousness is dead.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Justice in War-Time (1916)
It seems to me that science has a much greater likelihood of being true in the main than any philosophy hitherto advanced (I do not, of course, except my own). In science there are many matters about which people are agreed; in philosophy there are none. Therefore, although each proposition in a science may be false, and it is practically certain that there are some that are false, yet we shall be wise to build our philosophy upon science, because the risk of error in philosophy is pretty sure to be greater than in science. If we could hope for certainty in philosophy, the matter would be otherwise, but so far as I can see such a hope would be chimerical.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Logical Atomism (1924)
Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Look (23 Feb 1954)
Morality in sexual situations, when it is free from superstition, consists essentially of respect for the other person, and unwillingness to use that person solely as a means of personal gratification, without regard to his or her desires.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Marriage and Morals, ch. 11 (1929)
To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Marriage and Morals, ch. 19 “Sex and Individual Well-Being” (1929)
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Marriage and Morals, ch. 5 “Christian Ethics” (1929)
Nine-tenths of the appeal of pornography is due to the indecent feelings concerning sex which moralists inculcate in the young; the other tenth is physiological, and will occur in one way or another whatever the state of the law may be. On these grounds, although I fear that few will agree with me, I am firmly persuaded that there ought to be no law whatsoever on the subject of obscene publications.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Marriage and Morals, ch. 8 “The Taboo on Sex Knowledge” (1929)
Religions, which condemn the pleasures of senses, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history, power has been the vice of the ascetic.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
New York Herald Tribune Magazine (6 May 1938)
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 paradise in a few years.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
New York Times (18 May 1961)
Every man would like to be God, if it were possible; some few find it difficult to admit the impossibility.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Power: A New Social Analysis, ch. 1 “The Impulse to Power” (1938)
Just as we teach children to avoid being destroyed by motor cars if they can, so we should teach them to avoid being destroyed by cruel fanatics, and to this end we should seek to produce independence of mind, somewhat sceptical and wholly scientific, and to preserve, as far as possible, the instinctive joy of life that is natural to healthy children. This is the task of a liberal education: to give a sense of the value of things other than domination, to help create wise citizens of a free community, and through the combination of citizenship with liberty in individual creativeness to enable men to give to human life that splendour which some few have shown that it can achieve.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Power: A New Social Analysis, ch. 18 “The Taming of Power” (1938)
Something of the hermit’s temper is an essential element in many forms of excellence, since it enables a man to resist the lure of popularity, to pursue important work in spite of general indifference or hostility, and arrive at opinions which are opposed to prevalent errors.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Power: A New Social Analysis, ch. 2 (1938)
It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Principles of Social Reconstruction [Why Men Fight], ch. 8 (1916)
The principal source of the harm done by the State is the fact that power is its chief end.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Principles of Social Reconstruction, ch. 2 (1916)
If the object were to make pupils think, rather than to make them accept certain conclusions, education would be conducted quite differently; there would be less … instruction and more discussion.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Principles of Social Reconstruction, ch. 5 (1916)
A religious creed differs from a scientific theory in claiming to embody eternal and absolutely certain truth, whereas science is always tentative, expecting that modification in its present theories will sooner or later be found necessary, and aware that its method is one which is logically incapable of arriving at a complete and final demonstration.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Religion and Science, ch. 1 “Ground of Conflict” (1935)
The sciences have developed in an order the reverse of what might have been expected. What was most remote from ourselves was first brought under the domain of law, and then, gradually, what was nearer: first the heavens, next the earth, then animal and vegetable life, then the human body, and last of all (as yet very imperfectly) the human mind.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Religion and Science, ch. 3 (1935)
While it is true that science cannot decide questions of value, that is because they cannot be intellectually decided at all, and lie outside the realm of truth and falsehood. Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Religion and Science, ch. 9 “Science of Ethics” (1935)
It is natural to most men to suppose that they have enemies and to find a certain fulfillment of their nature when they embark upon a contest. What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index to his desires — desires of which he himself is often unconscious. 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 with his instincts, he will accept it even on the slenderest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way, and much of what is currently believed in international affairs is no better than myth.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Roads to Freedom ch. 6 (1918)
The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder’s lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Sceptical Essays, Introduction (1928)
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Sceptical Essays, “Dreams and Facts” (1928)
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 (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Sceptical Essays, “Dreams and Facts” (1928)
Education should have two objects: first, to give definite knowledge, reading and writing, language and mathematics, and so on; secondly, to create those mental habits which will enable people to acquire knowledge and form sound judgments for themselves.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Sceptical Essays, 12 (1928)
It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Sceptical Essays, ch. 1, “The Value of Scepticism” (1928)
Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power. Consequently those who live under the dominion of Puritanism become exceedingly desirous of power.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Sceptical Essays, ch. 10 (1928)
We must be skeptical even of our skepticism.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Sceptical Essays, ch. 11 (1928)
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Sceptical Essays, ch. 12 “Free Thought and Official Propaganda” (1928)
Machines are worshipped because they are beautiful, and valued because they confer power; they are hated because they are hideous, and loathed because they impose slavery.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Sceptical Essays, ch. 6 (1928)
Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
The ABC of Relativity (1925)
Some sources give as "die sooner." Other variant: "Most people would rather die than think; many do."
I was much cheered upon my arrival (in prison), by the warden at the gate, who had to take particulars about me. He asked my religion, and I replied, ‘Agnostic.’ He asked how to spell it, and remarked with a sigh, “Well, there are many religions, but I suppose they all worship the same God.”
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell: 1914-1944 (1968)