Religion Quotes by Bertrand Russell

I don't like the spirit of socialism - I think freedom is the basis of everything.

— Bertrand Russell

The true spirit of delight...is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.

— Bertrand Russell

Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear.

— Bertrand Russell

I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue.

— Bertrand Russell

No opinion has ever been too errant to become a creed.

— Bertrand Russell

Faith: a firm belief for which there is no evidence.

— Bertrand Russell

Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.

— Bertrand Russell

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

— Bertrand Russell

Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in…

— Bertrand Russell

Historically, it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all, and if He did we do not know anything about Him.

— Bertrand Russell

In order to be happy we require all kinds of supports to our self-esteem. We are human beings, therefore human beings are…

— Bertrand Russell

HELL: A place where the police are German, the motorists French and the cooks English.

— Bertrand Russell

Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion go hand in hand.

— Bertrand Russell

And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be…

— 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

One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am…

— Bertrand Russell

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view…

— Bertrand Russell

I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: "The bigs…

— 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

Throughout the long period of religious doubt, I had been rendered very unhappy by the gradual loss of belief, but when the…

— Bertrand Russell

The more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has…

— Bertrand Russell

Science can teach us, and I think our hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supporters, no longer…

— Bertrand Russell

“We shall be compelled to renounce the hope of finding philosophical proofs of religious beliefs. ...Hence, once more, the value of philosophy…

— 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

If you think your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument rather than by persecution, and will abandon…

— Bertrand Russell

Almost all education has a political motive: it aims at strengthening some group, national or religious or even social, in the competition…

— 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

Owing to the identification of religion with virtue, together with the fact that the most religious men are not the most intelligent,…

— Bertrand Russell

A religious creed differs from a scientific theory in claiming to embody eternal and absolutely certain truth, whereas science is always tentative,…

— 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

Modern American politicians have the same cowardice about denying an equally bloodthirsty even sillier god, Jehovah. None of us would seriously consider…

— Bertrand Russell

Prison is a severe and terrible punishment; but for me, thanks to Arthur Balfour, this was not so. I was much cheered…

— Bertrand Russell

“The best life is the one in which the creative impulses play the largest part and the possessive impulses the smallest. This…

— Bertrand Russell

“When you come to look into this argument from design, it is a most astonishing thing that people can believe that this…

— Bertrand Russell

“Religion is based primarily upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly as the wish to feel that…

— Bertrand Russell

“That is the idea -- that we should all be wicked if we did not hold to the Christian religion. It seems…

— Bertrand Russell

“What would have happened if Einstein had advanced something equally new in the sphere of religion or politics? English people would have…

— Bertrand Russell

“When Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning-rod, the clergy, both in England and America, with the enthusiastic support of George III, condemned it…

— Bertrand Russell

All religions are both harmful and untrue.

— Bertrand Russell

There can't be a practical reason for believing something that is not true.

— Bertrand Russell