Bertrand Russell Quotes

870 quotes in 7310 categories

• That the world is in a bad shape is undeniable, but there is not the faintest reason in history to suppose that Christianity offers a…
• I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove that Satan is a fiction. The Christian…
• If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important.
• But if thought is to become the possession of many, not the privilege of the few, we must have done with fear. It is fear…
• This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the second chance were offered me.
• One must expect a war between U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. which will begin with the total destruction of London. I think the war will last 30…
• Power is sweet; it is a drug, the desire for which increases with a habit.
• The desire to understand the world and the desire to reform it are the two great engines of progress, without which human society would stand…
• Life is just one cup of coffee after another, and don't look for anything else.
• Almost all education has a political motive: it aims at strengthening some group, national or religious or even social, in the competition with other groups.…
• Drunkeness is temporary suicide: the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness.
• Either man will abolish war, or war will abolish man.
• Hatred of enemies is easier and more intense than love of friends. But from men who are more anxious to injure opponents than to benefit…
• All human activity is prompted by desire.
• To fear love is to fear life....
• I am as drunk as a lord, but then, I am one, so what does it matter ?
• Human nature is so constructed that it gives affection most readily to those who seem least to demand it.
• It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living.
• No great achievement is possible without persistent work.
• Our use of phrase 'The Dark ages' to cover the period from 699 to 1,000 marks our undue concentration on Western Europe...

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