Bertrand Russell

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

— Bertrand Russell

The resistance to a new idea increases by the square of its importance.

— Bertrand Russell

I feel life is so small unless it has windows into other worlds.

— Bertrand Russell

[One] must look into hell before one has any right to speak of heaven.

— Bertrand Russell

“The habit of thinking in terms of comparison is a fatal one.”

— Bertrand Russell

I am sometimes shocked by the blasphemies of those who think themselves pious.

— Bertrand Russell

Some people would rather die than think.

— Bertrand Russell

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

— Bertrand Russell

Government can easily exist without laws, but law cannot exist without government.

— Bertrand Russell

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

— Bertrand Russell

Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.

— Bertrand Russell

A marriage is likely to be called happy if neither party ever expected to get much happiness out of it.

— Bertrand Russell

The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading

— Bertrand Russell

Drunkeness is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness.

— Bertrand Russell

Africans had to be taught that nudity is wicked; this was done very cheaply by missionaries.

— Bertrand Russell

When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than…

— Bertrand Russell

Those who in principle oppose birth control are either incapable of arithmetic or else in favour of war, pestilence and famine as…

— Bertrand Russell

We all have a tendency to think that the world must conform to our prejudices. The opposite view involves some effort of…

— Bertrand Russell

There is in Aristotle an almost complete absence of what may be called benevolence or philanthropy. The sufferings of mankind . .…

— Bertrand Russell

The "social contract," in the only sense in which it is not completely mythical, is a contract among conquerors, which loses its…

— Bertrand Russell

Some 'advanced thinkers' are of the opinion that anyone who differs from the conventional opinion must be in the right. This is…

— Bertrand Russell

In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not…

— Bertrand Russell

The first essential character [of civilization], I should say, is forethought. This, I would say, is what distinguishes men from brutes and…

— Bertrand Russell

The immense majority of intellectually eminent men disbelieve in the Christian religion, but they conceal the fact in public, because they are…

— Bertrand Russell

“Religious toleration, to a certain extent, has been won, because people have ceased to consider religion so important as it was once…

— Bertrand Russell

“I think of sense, and of thoughts built on sense, as windows, not as prison bars. I think that we can, however…

— Bertrand Russell

If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subsciously aware of having no…

— Bertrand Russell

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy – ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest…

— Bertrand Russell

There is something feeble, and a little contemptible, about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of…

— Bertrand Russell

Some care is needed in using Descartes' argument. "I think, therefore I am" says rather more than is strictly certain. It might…

— Bertrand Russell

It may seem to your conceited to suppose that you can do anything important toward improving the lot of mankind. But this…

— Bertrand Russell

“It is a commonplace that happiness is not best achieved by those who seek it directly; and it would seem that the…

— Bertrand Russell

Grasshopper always wrong in argument with chicken.

— Bertrand Russell

To think I have spent my life on absolute muck.

— Bertrand Russell

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

— Bertrand Russell

Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens.

— Bertrand Russell

Psychology often becomes the disease of which it should be the cure.

— Bertrand Russell

Obviousness is always the enemy of correctness.

— Bertrand Russell

Ironclads and Maxim guns must be the ultimate arbiters of metaphysical truth.

— Bertrand Russell

Why repeat the old errors, if there are so many new errors to commit?

— Bertrand Russell