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Favourite quotes (21448)

“Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1960s, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1967-1969)
Context: Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

“And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Bertrand Russell's Best: Silhouettes in Satire (1958), "On Religion".
1950s
Context: I observe that a very large portion of the human race does not believe in God and suffers no visible punishment in consequence. And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt his existence.

“To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1920s, Marriage and Morals (1929)

“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.”

Bertrand Russell book The Conquest of Happiness

Source: 1930s, The Conquest of Happiness (1930)

“There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

1930s, The Conquest of Happiness (1930)

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

Bertrand Russell book Why I Am Not a Christian

1920s, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)

“The facts of science, as they appeared to him [Heraclitus], fed the flame in his soul, and in its light, he saw into the depths of the world.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: 1910s, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays http://archive.org/stream/mysticism00russuoft/mysticism00russuoft_djvu.txt (1918), Ch. 1: Mysticism and Logic

“We used to think that Hitler was wicked when he wanted to kill all the Jews, but what Kennedy and Macmillan and others both in the East and in the West pursue policies which will probably lead to killing not only all the Jews but all the rest of us too. They are much more wicked than Hitler and this idea of weapons of mass extermination is utterly and absolutely horrible and it is a thing which no man with one spark of humanity can tolerate and I will not pretend to obey a government which is organising the massacre of the whole of mankind. I will do anything I can to oppose such Governments in any non-violent way that seems likely to be fruitful, and I should exhort all of you to feel the same way. We cannot obey these murderers. They are wicked and abominable. They are the wickedest people that ever lived in the history of man and it is our duty to do what we can.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

"On Civil Disobedience", April 15th, 1961
1960s

“It seems that sin is geographical. From this conclusion, it is only a small step to the further conclusion that the notion of "sin" is illusory, and that the cruelty habitually practised in punishing it is unnecessary.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42 (1996), p. 283
Attributed from posthumous publications

“We all have a tendency to think that the world must conform to our prejudices. The opposite view involves some effort of thought, and most people would die sooner than think – in fact they do so.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

The ABC of Relativity (1925), p. 166
1920s
Variant: "Most people would rather die than think; many do."

“We need a science to save us from science.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

NY Times Magazine, as reported in High Points in the Work of the High Schools of New York City, Vol. 34 (1952), p. 46
1950s

“You will have seen that my brother died suddenly in Marseilles. I inherit from him a title, but not a penny of money, as he was bankrupt. A title is a great nuisance to me, and I am at a loss what to do, but at any rate I do not wish it employed in connection with any of my literary work. There is, so far as I know, only one method of getting rid of it, which is to be attainted of high treason, and this would involve my head being cut off on Tower Hill. This method seems to me perhaps somewhat extreme…”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Letter to W. W. Norton, 11 March, 1931
1930s

“All the time that he can spare from the adornment of his person, he devotes to the neglect of his duties.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Of Sir Richard Jebb, Some Cambridge Dons of the Nineties (1956)
1950s

“I consider the official Catholic attitude on divorce, birth control, and censorship exceedingly dangerous to mankind.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Source: Dear Bertrand Russell: A Selection of His Correspondence with the General Public 1950-68

“Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

“There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our thoughts.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

“Sin is geographical.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

“Often and often, a marriage hardly differs from prostitution except by being harder to escape from.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Ch VIII: The World As It Could Be Made, p. 129-130
1910s, Proposed Roads To Freedom (1918)
Context: One of the most horrible things about commercialism is the way in which it poisons the relations of men and women. The evils of prostitution are generally recognized, but, great as they are, the effect of economic conditions on marriage seems to me even worse. There is not infrequently, in marriage, a suggestion of purchase, of acquiring a woman on condition of keeping her in a certain standard of material comfort. Often and often, a marriage hardly differs from prostitution except by being harder to escape from. The whole basis of these evils is economic. Economic causes make marriage a matter of bargain and contract, in which affection is quite secondary, and its absence constitutes no recognized reason for liberation. Marriage should be a free, spontaneous meeting of mutual instinct, filled with happiness not unmixed with a feeling akin to awe: it should involve that degree of respect of each for the other that makes even the most trifling interference with liberty an utter impossibility, and a common life enforced by one against the will of the other an unthinkable thing of deep horror.

“Either Man will abolish war, or war will abolish Man.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

Fact and Fiction (1961), Part IV, Ch. 10: "Can War Be Abolished?", p. 276
1960s

“Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist