Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 4

• Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Essentials, Doubt And Certainty

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “Why I Am Not a Christian”, p.21, Lulu Press, Inc

  50 Copy quote

• More important than the curriculum is the question of the methods of teaching and the spirit in which the teaching is given

  Bertrand Russell

  Teacher, Educational, Teaching

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “On Education”, p.181, Routledge

  108 Copy quote

• A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live.

  Bertrand Russell

  Happiness, Music, Happy Life

  34 Copy quote

• I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: "The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair." In these words he epitomized the history of the human race.

  Bertrand Russell

  Baby, Bullying, Anger

  "Education and the Social Order". Book by Bertrand Russell, p. 31, 1932.

  14 Copy quote

• When considering marriage one should ask oneself this question; 'will I be able to talk with this person into old age?' Everything else is transitory, the most time is spent in conversation.

  Bertrand Russell

  Age, Able, Should

  15 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

• War does not determine who is right - only who is left.

  Bertrand Russell

  Peace, Military, War

  195 Copy quote

• Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.

  Bertrand Russell

  Freedom, Thinking, Government

  Bertrand Russell, John Greer Slater, Peter Köllner (1996). “A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42”, p.443, Psychology Press

  21 Copy quote

• To realize the unimportance of time is the gate to wisdom.

  Bertrand Russell

  Time, Realizing, Gates

  Bertrand Russell (1981). “Mysticism and Logic, and Other Essays”, p.23, Rowman & Littlefield

  24 Copy quote

• Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed.

  Bertrand Russell

  Happiness, Depressing, Hate

  40 Copy quote

• The discipline in your life should be one determined by your own desires and your own needs, not put upon you by society or authority.

  Bertrand Russell

  Discipline, Desire, Needs

  Bertrand Russell (1987). “Bertrand Russell on ethics, sex, and marriage”

  32 Copy quote

• Human nature is so constructed that it gives affection most readily to those who seem least to demand it.

  Bertrand Russell

  Emotional, Giving, Feelings

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.101, Lulu Press, Inc

  25 Copy quote

• It's not what you have lost, but what you have left that counts.

  Bertrand Russell

  Losing, Lost, Left

  5 Copy quote

• Passive acceptance of the teacher's wisdom is easy to most boys and girls. It involves no effort of independent thought, and seems rational because the teacher knows more than his pupils; it is moreover the way to win the favour of the teacher unless he is a very exceptional man. Yet the habit of passive acceptance is a disastrous one in later life. It causes man to seek and to accept a leader, and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that position.

  Bertrand Russell

  Leadership, Girl, Teacher

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Why Men Fight”, p.106, Routledge

  73 Copy quote

• No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their own country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate?

  Bertrand Russell

  Country, Punishment, 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

  64 Copy quote

• Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of the world.

  Bertrand Russell

  Buddhism, Winning, Islam

  Bertrand Russell (2007). “The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism”, p.74, Cosimo, Inc.

  71 Copy quote

• Anything you're good at contributes to happiness.

  Bertrand Russell

  Happiness, Happy, Mind

  Bertrand Russell (1993). “The Quotable Bertrand Russell”

  16 Copy quote

• When a man tells you that he knows the exact truth about anything you are safe in inferring that he is an inexact man.

  Bertrand Russell

  Truth, Men, Safe

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Scientific Outlook”, p.42, Routledge

  47 Copy quote

• The more things a man is interested in, the more opportunities of happiness he has and the less he is at the mercy of fate, since if he loses one thing he can fall back upon another.

  Bertrand Russell

  Fall, Fate, Opportunity

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.59, W. W. Norton & Company

  32 Copy quote

• No man treats a motorcar as foolishly as he treats another human being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying behavior to sin; he does not say, 'You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go.' He attempts to find out what is wrong and to set it right.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Giving, Car

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.40, Simon and Schuster

  37 Copy quote

• An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God. The Christian holds that we can know there is a God; the atheist, that we can know there is not. The Agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial. At the same time, an Agnostic may hold that the existence of God, though not impossible, is very improbable; he may even hold it so improbable that it is not worth considering in practice. In that case, he is not far removed from atheism.

  Bertrand Russell

  Christian, Atheist, Practice

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.557, Routledge

  44 Copy quote

• If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.

  Bertrand Russell

  Truth, Believe, Men

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Proposed Roads to Freedom”, p.109, Booklassic

  16 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

• Gradually, by selective breeding, the congenital differences between rulers
  and ruled will increase until they become almost different species. A revolt
  of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organized insurrection of
  sheep against the practice of eating mutton.

  Bertrand Russell

  Sheep, Practice, Differences

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Impact of Science On Society”, p.44, Lulu Press, Inc

  69 Copy quote

• Worry is a form of fear, and all forms of fear produce fatigue. A man who has learned not to feel fear will find the fatigue of daily life enormously diminished.

  Bertrand Russell

  Fear, Men, Worry

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.31, W. W. Norton & Company

  7 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