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Bertrand Russell

78 quotes

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, and social critic. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950 for his varied and significant writing championing humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought. Russell is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy.

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

— Bertrand Russell

Freedom

All Quotes by Bertrand Russell

“To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”

— Bertrand Russell

Fear

“Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attributable to science, which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century.”

— Bertrand Russell

Science

“Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.”

— Bertrand Russell

Education

“Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives.”

— Bertrand Russell

Love

“So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.”

— Bertrand Russell

Intelligence

“The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men.”

— Bertrand Russell

Great

“If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.”

— Bertrand Russell

Happiness

“Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.”

— Bertrand Russell

Power

“The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.”

— Bertrand Russell

Happiness

“I've made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite.”

— Bertrand Russell

Happiness

“The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics.”

— Bertrand Russell

Power

“Against my will, in the course of my travels, the belief that everything worth knowing was known at Cambridge gradually wore off. In this respect my travels were very useful to me.”

— Bertrand Russell

Respect

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

— Bertrand Russell

Happiness

“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

Age

“Machines are worshipped because they are beautiful and valued because they confer power they are hated because they are hideous and loathed because they impose slavery.”

— Bertrand Russell

Power

“To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”

— Bertrand Russell

Happiness

“Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one.”

— Bertrand Russell

Courage

“Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself.”

— Bertrand Russell

Art

“If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years.”

— Bertrand Russell

Happiness

“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.”

— Bertrand Russell

Fear