May Quotes by Bertrand Russell

Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.

— Bertrand Russell

Orthodoxy is the grave of intelligence, no matter what orthodoxy it may be.

— Bertrand Russell

The human race may well become extinct before the end of the century.

— Bertrand Russell

Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.

— Bertrand Russell

Bad philosophers may have a certain influence; good philosophers, never.

— Bertrand Russell

We may often do as we please - but we cannot please as we please.

— Bertrand Russell

There may be no good reasons for very many opinions that are held with passion.

— Bertrand Russell

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

— Bertrand Russell

It is likely that America will be more important during the next century or two, but after that it may well be…

— Bertrand Russell

Aristotle's metaphysics, roughly speaking, may be described as Plato diluted by common sense. He is difficult because Plato and common sense do…

— Bertrand Russell

The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.

— Bertrand Russell

If everything has a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just…

— Bertrand Russell

There is little of the true philosophic spirit in Aquinas. He does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever…

— Bertrand Russell

Boys and young men acquire readily the moral sentiments of their social milieu, whatever these sentiments may be.

— Bertrand Russell

it [is] possible to suppose that, if Russia is allowed to have peace, an amazing industrial development may take place, making Russia…

— Bertrand Russell

The human race may well become extinct before the end of the century. Speaking as a mathematician, I should say the odds…

— Bertrand Russell

You may, if you are an old-fashioned schoolmaster, wish to consider yourself full of universal benevolence and at the same time derive…

— Bertrand Russell

The Church no longer contends that knowledge is in itself sinful, though it did so in its palmy days; but the acquisition…

— Bertrand Russell

[There are m]oral precepts that we consider really important, such as 'don't pick your nose' or 'don't eat peas with a knife'.…

— Bertrand Russell

On the one hand, philosophy is to keep us thinking about things that we may come to know, and on the other…

— Bertrand Russell

No satisfaction based upon self-deception is solid, and however unpleasant the truth may be, it is better to face it once and…

— Bertrand Russell

The man who is unhappy will, as a rule, adopt an unhappy creed, while the man who is happy will adopt a…

— Bertrand Russell

A logical theory may be tested by its capacity for dealing with puzzles, and it is a wholesome plan, in thinking about…

— Bertrand Russell

The life of man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a…

— Bertrand Russell

A man who has once perceived, however temporarily and however briefly, what makes greatness of soul, can no longer be happy if…

— Bertrand Russell

Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, more than elsewhere, the love of truth may…

— Bertrand Russell

If the youth is content to abandon his previous associates and to throw in his lot whole-heartedly with the rulers, he may,…

— Bertrand Russell

What makes a free thinker is not his beliefs, but the way in which he holds them. If he holds them because…

— Bertrand Russell

Gradually, ... the aspect of science as knowledge is being thrust into the background by the aspect of science as the power…

— Bertrand Russell

The true function of logic ... as applied to matters of experience ... is analytic rather than constructive; taken a priori, it…

— Bertrand Russell

More and more people are becoming unable to accept traditional [religious] beliefs. If they think that, apart from these beliefs, there is…

— Bertrand Russell

An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God. The Christian holds that we…

— Bertrand Russell

Fundamental happiness depends more than anything else upon what may be called a friendly interest in persons and things.

— Bertrand Russell

Envy, in fact, is one form of a vice, partly moral, partly intellectual, which consists in seeing things never in themselves, but…

— Bertrand Russell

Science, by itself, cannot supply us with an ethic. It can show us how to achieve a given end, and it may…

— Bertrand Russell

One eminently orthodox Catholic divine laid it down that a confessor may fondle a nun's breasts, provided he does it without evil…

— Bertrand Russell

It is obviously possible that what we call waking life may only be an unusual and persistent nightmare.

— Bertrand Russell

Cruelty is, in theory, a perfectly adequate ground for divorce, but it may be interpreted so as to become absurd.

— Bertrand Russell

Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are…

— Bertrand Russell

No matter how eloquently a dog may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were poor, but honest.

— Bertrand Russell