Bertrand Russell: Trending quotes

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“The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and not merely as means to other things, are knowledge, art, instinctive happiness, and relations of friendship or affection.”

Bertrand Russell

“To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.”

Bertrand Russell

“Boredom is therefore a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.”

Bertrand Russell book The Conquest of Happiness

Source: The Conquest of Happiness

“No nation was ever so virtuous as each believes itself, and none was ever so wicked as each believes the other.”

Bertrand Russell

Justice in War-Time (1916), p. 70
1910s

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

Bertrand Russell

Attributed to Russell in Prochnow's Speakers Handbook of Epigrams and Witticisms (1955), p. 132
Disputed

“The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things, or, if it is night, about nothing at all.”

Bertrand Russell book The Conquest of Happiness

Source: The Conquest of Happiness

“Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile.”

Bertrand Russell book The Conquest of Happiness

Source: The Conquest of Happiness

“One of the most powerful of all our passions is the desire to be admired and respected.”

Bertrand Russell

Source: Sceptical Essays

“The use of self control is like the use of brakes on train. It is useful when you find yourself in wrong direction but merely harmful when the direction is right”

Bertrand Russell book Marriage and Morals

Source: Marriage and Morals

“I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.”

Bertrand Russell

"The Moral Problem"
1920s, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)
Source: Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects
Context: There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ's moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.

“It seems to me a fundamental dishonesty, and a fundamental treachery to intellectual integrity to hold a belief because you think it's useful and not because you think it's true.”

Bertrand Russell

“Whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.”

Bertrand Russell The Problems of Philosophy

Source: The Problems of Philosophy

“Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.”

Bertrand Russell

1940s, A History of Western Philosophy (1945)

“We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side; one which we preach but do not practise, and another which we practise but seldom preach.”

Bertrand Russell

Source: 1920s, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 8: Eastern and Western Ideals of Happiness

“I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached.”

Bertrand Russell

“Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.”

Bertrand Russell

1930s, The Conquest of Happiness (1930)

“There was a footpath leading across fields to New Southgate, and I used to go there alone to watch the sunset and contemplate suicide. I did not, however, commit suicide, because I wished to know more of mathematics.”

Bertrand Russell

“It is not what the man of science believes that distinguishes him, but how and why he believes it. His beliefs are tentative, not dogmatic; they are based on evidence, not on authority or intuition.”

Bertrand Russell

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

Bertrand Russell book The Conquest of Happiness

Source: The Conquest of Happiness