Science is no substitute for virtue; the heart is as necessary for a good life as the head. — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
“To endure uncertainity is difficult, but so are most of the other virtues.” — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
An ethical person ought to do more than he's required to do and less than he's allowed to do — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is not to make people happy. — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
The first essential character [of civilization], I should say, is forethought. This, I would say, is what distinguishes men from brutes and… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
The first essential character [of civilization], I should say, is forethought. This, indeed, is what mainly distinguishes men from brutes and adults… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
Self-respect will keep a man from being abject when he is in the power of enemies, and will enable him to feel… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
“We need a morality based upon love of life, upon pleasure in growth and positive achievement, not upon repression and prohibition.” — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
Moral progress has consisted in the main of protest against cruel customs, and of attempts to enlarge human sympathy. — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
We know that the exercise of virtue should be its own reward, and it seems to follow that the enduring of it… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
Humanistic ethics is based on the principle that only humans themselves can determine the criterion for virtue and not an authority transcending… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
When I was a child . . . Only virtue was prized, virtue at the expense of intellect, health, happiness, and every mundane good. — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
The fundamental defect of Christian ethics consists in the fact that it labels certain classes of acts 'sins' and others 'virtue' on… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
“To preach an altruistic morality appears to me somewhat useless, because it will appeal only to those who already have altruistic desires.… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
“Our nominal morality has been formulated by priests and mentally enslaved women. It is time that men who have to take a… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
...the nonexistence of God makes more difference to some of us than to others. To me, it means that there is no… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
The harm that theology has done is not to create cruel impulses, but to give them the sanction of what professes to… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
“The less rational a man is, the oftener he will fail to perceive how what injures others also injures him, because hatred… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
Modern technique has made it possible for leisure, within limits, to be not the prerogative of small privileged classes, but a right… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
“Over a billion people believe in Allah without truly knowing what Allah supposedly stands for or what he really demands of them.… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
[The church] is in its major part an opponent still of progress and improvement in all the ways that diminish suffering in… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
“Having come to a sound egoistic decision by the help of the unconscious, a man proceeds to invent, or adopt from others,… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
The fact that a belief has a good moral effect upon a man is no evidence whatsoever in favor of its truth.… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
“not because the moral law enjoins unselfishness, but because, given the society in which they live, it is the way in which… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
I mean by intellectual integrity the habit of deciding vexed questions in accordance with the evidence, or of leaving them undecided where… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
The widespread interest in gossip is inspired, not by a love of knowledge but by malice: no one gossips about other people's… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
“Ages of prolonged uncertainty, while they are compatible with the highest degree of saintliness in a few, are inimical to the prosaic… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
“We have two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice and another which we practice… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
By self-interest, Man has become gregarious, but in instinct he has remained to a great extent solitary; hence the need of religion… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
The first step in wisdom, as well as in morality, is to open the windows of the ego as wide as possible. — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
There is an element of the busybody in our conception of virtue: unless a man makes himself a nuisance to a great… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
Among human beings, the subjection of women is much more complete at a certain level of civilization than it is among savages.… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
Moral indignation is one of the most harmful forces in the modern world, the more so as it can always be diverted… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
We have in fact, two kinds of morality, side by side: one which we preach, but do not practice, and another which… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
“There are a great many ways in which, the church, by its insistence upon what it chooses to call morality, inflicts upon… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
“Liberation from the tyranny of the body contributes to greatness, but just as much to greatness in sin as to greatness in… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share Image
If the State does not acquire supremacy over [vast private] enterprises, it becomes their puppet, and they become the real State. — Bertrand Russell Copy Share
That the world is in a bad shape is undeniable, but there is not the faintest reason in history to suppose that Christianity offers… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share
Those who advocate common usage in philosophy sometimes speak in a manner that suggests the mystique of the 'common man.' — Bertrand Russell Copy Share
“Such, in outline, but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which Science presents for our belief. Amid such a world,… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share
Dr. Arnold . . . the admired reformer of public schools, came across some cranks who thought it a mistake to flog boys. Anyone… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share
Of all evils of war the greatest is the purely spiritual evil: the hatred, the injustice, the repudiation of truth, the artificial conflict. — Bertrand Russell Copy Share
Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share
If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share
I cannot escape from the conclusion that the great ages of progress have depended upon a small number of individuals of transcendent ability. — Bertrand Russell Copy Share
I think it would be just to say the most essential characteristic of mind is memory, using this word in its broadest sense to… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share
The newspapers at one time said that I was dead but after carefully examining the evidence I came to the conclusion that this statement… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share
“Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion.” — Bertrand Russell Copy Share
“Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share
There is no greater reason for children to honour parents than for parents to honour children except, that while the children are young, the… — Bertrand Russell Copy Share