Character Quotes by Bertrand Russell

no one ever gossips about the virtues of others

— Bertrand Russell

An ethical person ought to do more than he's required to do and less than he's allowed to do

— Bertrand Russell

“To endure uncertainity is difficult, but so are most of the other virtues.”

— Bertrand Russell

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

— Bertrand Russell

What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is not to make people happy.

— Bertrand Russell

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

— Bertrand Russell

“We have two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice and another which we practice…

— Bertrand Russell

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

Humanistic ethics is based on the principle that only humans themselves can determine the criterion for virtue and not an authority transcending…

— Bertrand Russell

“We need a morality based upon love of life, upon pleasure in growth and positive achievement, not upon repression and prohibition.”

— Bertrand Russell

Moral progress has consisted in the main of protest against cruel customs, and of attempts to enlarge human sympathy.

— Bertrand Russell

We know that the exercise of virtue should be its own reward, and it seems to follow that the enduring of it…

— 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 less rational a man is, the oftener he will fail to perceive how what injures others also injures him, because hatred…

— Bertrand Russell

Modern technique has made it possible for leisure, within limits, to be not the prerogative of small privileged classes, but a right…

— Bertrand Russell

“Our nominal morality has been formulated by priests and mentally enslaved women. It is time that men who have to take a…

— Bertrand Russell

...the nonexistence of God makes more difference to some of us than to others. To me, it means that there is no…

— Bertrand Russell

The harm that theology has done is not to create cruel impulses, but to give them the sanction of what professes to…

— Bertrand Russell

Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs…

— Bertrand Russell

“To preach an altruistic morality appears to me somewhat useless, because it will appeal only to those who already have altruistic desires.…

— Bertrand Russell

The fundamental defect of Christian ethics consists in the fact that it labels certain classes of acts 'sins' and others 'virtue' on…

— Bertrand Russell

“not because the moral law enjoins unselfishness, but because, given the society in which they live, it is the way in which…

— Bertrand Russell

The fact that a belief has a good moral effect upon a man is no evidence whatsoever in favor of its truth.…

— Bertrand Russell

“Over a billion people believe in Allah without truly knowing what Allah supposedly stands for or what he really demands of them.…

— Bertrand Russell

[The church] is in its major part an opponent still of progress and improvement in all the ways that diminish suffering in…

— Bertrand Russell

“Having come to a sound egoistic decision by the help of the unconscious, a man proceeds to invent, or adopt from others,…

— Bertrand Russell

I mean by intellectual integrity the habit of deciding vexed questions in accordance with the evidence, or of leaving them undecided where…

— Bertrand Russell

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

Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease…

— Bertrand Russell

“Ages of prolonged uncertainty, while they are compatible with the highest degree of saintliness in a few, are inimical to the prosaic…

— Bertrand Russell

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

— Bertrand Russell

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

The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the…

— Bertrand Russell

Official morality has always been oppressive and negative: it has said "thou shalt not," and has not troubled to investigate the effect…

— Bertrand Russell

For the learning of every virtue there is an appropriate discipline, and for the learning of suspended judgment the best discipline is…

— Bertrand Russell

“There are a great many ways in which, the church, by its insistence upon what it chooses to call morality, inflicts upon…

— Bertrand Russell

“Liberation from the tyranny of the body contributes to greatness, but just as much to greatness in sin as to greatness in…

— Bertrand Russell

The fact that a belief has a good moral effect upon a man is no evidence whatsoever in favor of its truth.

— Bertrand Russell

The first step in wisdom, as well as in morality, is to open the windows of the ego as wide as possible.

— Bertrand Russell

There is an element of the busybody in our conception of virtue: unless a man makes himself a nuisance to a great…

— Bertrand Russell