Bertrand Russell Quotes

• 

  The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

  Bertrand Russell

  Education, Confidence, Wisdom

  578 Copy quote

• The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other.

  Bertrand Russell

  Intelligent, Men, Emotional

  Bertrand Russell, John Greer Slater, Peter Köllner (1996). “A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42”, p.441, Psychology Press

  335 Copy quote

• If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Deep Life, Opinion

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.99, Routledge

  67 Copy quote
• 

  Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.

  Bertrand Russell

  Education, Stupid, School

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition”, p.578, Routledge

  201 Copy quote

• The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

  Bertrand Russell

  Inspirational, Life, Happiness

  270 Copy quote
• 

  Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

  Bertrand Russell

  Inspirational, Motivational, Fear

  Unpopular Essays (1950) "Outline of Intellectual Rubbish"

  212 Copy quote

• Religion is based ... mainly upon fear ... fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race.

  Bertrand Russell

  Atheist, Race, Views

  299 Copy quote

• The most valuable things in life are not measured in monetary terms. The really important things are not houses and lands, stocks and bonds, automobiles and real state, but friendships, trust, confidence, empathy, mercy, love and faith.

  Bertrand Russell

  Love, Real, Things In Life

  75 Copy quote

• I dislike Communism because it is undemocratic, and capitalism because it favors exploitation.

  Bertrand Russell

  Favors, Communism, Exploitation

  "Unarmed Victory". Book by Bertrand Russell, p. 14, 1963.

  26 Copy quote

• The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was “given” by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new state. The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict their numbers increased. How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty?

  Bertrand Russell

  Country, Numbers, People

  Bertrand Russell, Ray Perkins (Jr.) (2002). “Yours Faithfully, Bertrand Russell: A Lifelong Fight for Peace, Justice, and Truth in Letters to the Editor”, p.411, Open Court Publishing

  60 Copy quote

• Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth - more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid ... Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.

  Bertrand Russell

  Courage, Men, Light

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Why Men Fight”, p.107, Routledge

  83 Copy quote

• To understand the actual world as it is, not as we should wish it to be, is the beginning of wisdom.

  Bertrand Russell

  Wisdom, Wish, World

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Mortals and Others”, p.318, Routledge

  92 Copy quote

• So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.

  Bertrand Russell

  Death, Atheist, Religion

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “Education and the Social Order”, p.73, Routledge

  59 Copy quote

• In the visible world, the Milky Way is a tiny fragment; within this fragment, the solar system is an infinitesimal speck, and of this speck our planet is a microscopic dot. On this dot, tiny lumps of impure carbon and water, of complicated structure, with somewhat unusual physical and chemical properties, crawl about for a few years, until they are dissolved again into the elements of which they are compounded.

  Bertrand Russell

  Years, Water, Elements

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.19, Psychology Press

  13 Copy quote

• When you want to teach children to think, you begin by treating them seriously when they are little, giving them responsibilities, talking to them candidly, providing privacy and solitude for them, and making them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the beginning. That’s if you want to teach them to think.

  Bertrand Russell

  Education, Children, Teaching

  145 Copy quote

• What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, Science, Opposites

  "Sceptical Essays". Book by Bertrand Russell, Ch. 12: Free Thought and Official Propaganda, 1928.

  12 Copy quote
• 

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

  Bertrand Russell

  Play, Creative, Life Is

  Bertrand Russell, Richard A. Rempel (1995). “Pacifism and Revolution, 1916-18”, p.228, Psychology Press

  42 Copy quote

• A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.

  Bertrand Russell

  Clever, Smart, Stupid

  102 Copy quote

• War doesn't determine who's right, it determines who's left

  Bertrand Russell

  War, Determine, Left

  55 Copy quote

• Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false.

  Bertrand Russell

  Humility, Men, People

  Bertrand Russell (1996). “Unpopular Essays”, p.176, Psychology Press

  39 Copy quote

• Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who'll get the blame.

  Bertrand Russell

  Freedom, Humorous, Men

  33 Copy quote

• People seem good while they are oppressed, but they only wish to become oppressors in their turn: life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.

  Bertrand Russell

  People, Competition, Wish

  Bertrand Russell (2002). “The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell: The Public Years, 1914-1970”, p.215, Psychology Press

  59 Copy quote

• I once saw a photograph of a large herd of wild elephants in Central Africa Seeing an airplane for the first time, and all in a state of wild collective terror... As, however, there were no journalists among them, the terror died down when the airplane was out of sight.

  Bertrand Russell

  Funny, Airplane, Elephants

  14 Copy quote

• Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.

  Bertrand Russell

  Xenophobia, Fear, Racism

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.70, Routledge

  117 Copy quote

• Organized people are just too lazy to look for things

  Bertrand Russell

  People, Lazy, Looks

  22 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Gottlob Frege

Alfred North Whitehead

David Hume

Russell Crowe

G. H. Hardy

Immanuel Kant

Jean-Paul Sartre