Bertrand Russell: Trending quotes

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Bertrand Russell: 1124 quotes605 likes

“Owing to the identification of religion with virtue, together with the fact that the most religious men are not the most intelligent, a religious education gives courage to the stupid to resist the authority of educated men, as has happened, for example, where the teaching of evolution has been made illegal. So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence; and in this respect ministers of religion follow gospel authority more closely than in some others.”

Bertrand Russell

Source: 1930s, Education and the Social Order (1932), p. 110

“In the past, there was a small leisure class and a larger working class. The leisure class enjoyed advantages for which there was no basis in social justice; this necessarily made it oppressive, limited its sympathies, and caused it to invent theories by which to justify its privileges.”

Bertrand Russell book In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays

Source: 1930s, In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935), Ch. 1: In Praise of Idleness, p. 13 https://books.google.com/books?id=CnlbMP_vBmgC&pg=PA13

“Cock-sure certainty is the source of much that is worst in our present world, and it is something of which the contemplation of history ought to cure us, not only or chiefly because there were wise men in the past, but because so much that was thought wisdom turned out to be folly – which suggests that much of our own supposed wisdom is no better. I do not mean to maintain that we should lapse into a lazy scepticism. We should hold our beliefs, and hold them strongly. Nothing great is achieved without passion, but underneath the passion there should always be that large impersonal survey which sets limits to actions that our passions inspire.”

Bertrand Russell

History as an Art (1954), p. 9
1950s

“It is normal to hate what we fear, and it happens frequently, though not always, that we fear what we hate. I think it may be taken as the rule among primitive men, that they both fear and hate whatever is unfamiliar. They have their own herd, originally a very small one. And within one herd, all are friends, unless there is some special ground of enmity. Other herds are potential or actual enemies; a single member of one of them who strays by accident will be killed. An alien herd as a whole will be avoided or fought according to circumstances. It is this primitive mechanism which still controls our instinctive reaction to foreign nations. The completely untravelled person will view all foreigners as the savage regards a member of another herd. But the man who has travelled, or who has studied international politics, will have discovered that, if his herd is to prosper, it must, to some degree, become amalgamated with other herds.”

Bertrand Russell

1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)

“Better red than dead.”

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell, attributes this phrase to 'West German friends of peace' but adopted this slogan for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament he helped found http://books.google.com/books?id=c4UoX6-Sv1AC&pg=PA49 William Safire, Safire's Political Dictionary, (2008) p. 49–50 <br class="br">Misattributed

“All movements go too far.”

Bertrand Russell

1950s, Unpopular Essays (1950)

“"I don't want to! Why should I?"
"Because more people will be happier if you do than if you don't."
"So what? I don't care about other people."
"You should."
"But why?"
"Because more people will be happier if you do than if you don't."”

Bertrand Russell

Dialogue between Russell and his daughter Katharine, as quoted in My Father – Bertrand Russell (1975)
Attributed from posthumous publications

“Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.”

Bertrand Russell

Source: 1910s, Our Knowledge of the External World (1914), p. 167

“Thank you for your letter and for the enclosure which I return herewith. I have been wondering whether there is any means of preventing the confusion between you and me, and I half-thought that we might write a joint letter to The Times in the following terms: Sir, To prevent the continuation of confusions which frequently occur, we beg to state that neither of us is the other. Do you think this would be a good plan?”

Bertrand Russell

Letter to Lord Russell of Liverpool, February 18, 1959
1950s

“Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of mind.”

Bertrand Russell

Source: 1910s, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays http://archive.org/stream/mysticism00russuoft/mysticism00russuoft_djvu.txt (1918), Ch. 4: The Study of Mathematics

“The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself.”

Bertrand Russell

An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (1940), Introduction, p. 15
1940s

“Drunkenness is temporary suicide.”

Bertrand Russell

1930s, The Conquest of Happiness (1930)

“A dog cannot relate his autobiography; however eloquently he may bark, he cannot tell you that his parents were honest but poor.”

Bertrand Russell

Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948), part II, chapter 1, p. 74
1940s

“We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.”

Bertrand Russell

Source: 1920s, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 12: Free Thought and Official Propaganda