Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 8

• Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

  Bertrand Russell

  Inspirational, Children, Pain

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Autobiography”, p.3, Routledge

  43 Copy quote

• There is something feeble, and a little contemptible, about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are myths and that he believes them only because they are comforting. But he dare not face this thought, and he therefore cannot carry his own reflection to any logical conclusion.

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, Men, Comforting

  "Human Society in Ethics and Politics".

  17 Copy quote

• When you are studying any matter or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only: what are the facts, and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted by what you wish to believe, but look only and surely at what are the facts.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Believe, Wish

  BBC interview on "Face to Face", 1959.

  12 Copy quote

• If one man offers you democracy and another offers you a bag of grain, at what stage of starvation do you prefer the grain to the vote?

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Democracy, Bags

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.82, Routledge

  7 Copy quote

• 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 god may exist; so may the gods of Olympus, or of ancient Egypt, or of Babylon. But no one of these hypotheses is more probable than any other: they lie outside the region of even probable knowledge, and therefore there is no reason to consider any of them.

  Bertrand Russell

  Christian, Atheist, Fear

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

  12 Copy quote

• If I were granted omnipotence, and millions of years to experiment in, I should not think Man much to boast of as the final result of all my efforts.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Thinking, Years

  Bertrand Russell (1935). “Religion and science”

  23 Copy quote

• Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable.

  Bertrand Russell

  Inspirational, Learning, Shining

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Fact and Fiction”, p.153, Routledge

  38 Copy quote

• I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young, and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting.

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, Love Life, Ego

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “What I Believe”, p.22, Routledge

  12 Copy quote

• The world that we must seek is a world in which the creative spirit is alive, in which life is an adventure full of joy and hope, based rather upon the impulse to construct than upon the desire to retain what we possess or to seize what is possessed by others.

  Bertrand Russell

  Adventure, Creative, Joy

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “Roads to Freedom”, p.154, Routledge

  19 Copy quote

• Really high-minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially other people's.

  Bertrand Russell

  Happiness, Eugenics, People

  Bertrand Russell (2012). “The Impact of Science on Society”, p.117, Routledge

  30 Copy quote

• I am sometimes shocked by the blasphemies of those who think themselves pious.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Intelligence, Sometimes

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.73, Routledge

  51 Copy quote

• I do not believe that science per se is an adequate source of happiness, nor do I think that my own scientific outlook has contributed very greatly to my own happiness, which I attribute to defecating twice a day with unfailing regularity.

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, Thinking, Adequate

  Bertrand Russell (1998). “Autobiography”, p.440, Psychology Press

  20 Copy quote

• Change is one thing, progress is another.

  Bertrand Russell

  Progress, One Thing

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.396, Psychology Press

  6 Copy quote

• Science tells us what we can know but what we can know is little and if we forget how much we cannot know we become insensitive of many things of very great importance. Theology, on the other hand induces a dogmatic belief that we have knowledge where in fact we have ignorance and by doing so generates a kind of impertinent insolence towards the universe. Uncertainty in the presence of vivid hopes and fears is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales.

  Bertrand Russell

  Ignorance, Hands, Support

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition”, p.2, Routledge

  18 Copy quote

• When we look at a rock what we are seeing is not the rock, but the effect of the rock upon us.

  Bertrand Russell

  Rocks, Looks, Effects

  8 Copy quote

• When Benjamin Franklin invented the lightning-rod, the clergy, both in England and America, with enthusiastic support of George III, condemned it as an impious attempt to defeat the will of God.

  Bertrand Russell

  England And America, Support, Lightning

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.92, Routledge

  8 Copy quote

• Men who allow their love of power to give them a distorted view of the world are to be found in every asylum: one man will think he is the Governor of the Bank of England, another will think he is the King, and yet another will think he is God. Highly similar delusions, if expressed by educated men in obscure language, lead to professorships of philosophy; and if expressed by emotional men in eloquent language, lead to dictatorships.

  Bertrand Russell

  Kings, Philosophy, Men

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Power: A New Social Analysis”, p.220, Routledge

  55 Copy quote

• The thing that I should wish to obtain from money would be leisure with security.

  Bertrand Russell

  Wish, Would Be, Leisure

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.26, Lulu Press, Inc

  5 Copy quote

• Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that is happiness.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Paradise, Fool

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.554, Routledge

  36 Copy quote

• We know too much and feel too little. At least, we feel too little of those creative emotions from which a good life springs.

  Bertrand Russell

  Life, Spring, Creative

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Authority and the Individual”, p.38, Routledge

  10 Copy quote

• While economics is about how people make choice, sociology is about how they don't have any choice to make.

  Bertrand Russell

  People, Choices, Economics

  10 Copy quote

• Philosophy, from the earliest times, has made greater claims, and achieved fewer results, than any other branch of learning.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Branches, Claims

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Our Knowledge of the External World”, p.1, Routledge

  8 Copy quote

• Fervent religious believers sacrifice pleasures of the body, but instead enjoy pleasures of the mind, including the joy of knowing that those men who didn't follow their religion would be tortured for eternity.

  Bertrand Russell

  Religious, Sacrifice, Men

  14 Copy quote

• It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.

  Bertrand Russell

  Birthday, Doors, Dragons

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.47, Simon and Schuster

  25 Copy quote

• No satisfaction based upon self-deception is solid, and however unpleasant the truth may be, it is better to face it once and for all, to get used to it, and to proceed to build your life in accordance with it.

  Bertrand Russell

  Self, Deception, May

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.72, Lulu Press, Inc

  6 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