Quotessence
Home / Authors / Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell Quotes

Philosopher

Filter quotes by topic

AllMenIfsWorldThinkingPeopleHumansPhilosophyShouldScienceMayReligionBeliefKnowsFactsBelieveHas BeensMathematicsDesireReasonAtheism

Famous Bertrand Russell Quotes

“So far I have been speaking of theoretical science, which is an attempt to understand the world. Practical science, which is an attempt to change the world, has been important from the first, and has continually increased in importance, until it has almost ousted theoretical science from men's thoughts.”

MenWorldFirstsHas BeensImportantImportancePracticalsChanging The WorldTheoretical
Book:History of Western Philosophy
Create image

“When white men first effect contact with some unspoilt race of savages, they offer them all kinds of benefits, from the light of the gospel to pumpkin pie. These, however, much as we may regret it, most savages receive with indifference. What they really value among the gifts that we bring to them is intoxicating liquor which enables them, for the first time in their lives, to have the illusion for a few brief moments that it is better to be alive than dead.”

MenFirstsKindMayMomentsLightValuesWhiteRaceAliveEffectsRegretOffersBenefitsIllusionFirst TimeContactAll KindsIndifferencePieSavagesWhite ManLiquorPumpkinBrief MomentsPumpkin Pie
Book:Human Society in Ethics and Politics
Create image

“Citizens as conceived by governments are persons who admire the status quo and are prepared to exert themselves for its preservation. Oddly enough, while all governments aim at producing men of this type to the exclusion of all other types, their heroes in the past are of exactly the sort that they aim at preventing in the present. Americans admire George Washington and Jefferson, but imprison those who share their political opinions.”

MenPersonsEnoughGovernmentPastPoliticalOpinionShareTypeHeroCitizensAimPreparedAdmirePreservationStatus QuoPreventingExclusionPolitical Opinions
Book:Education and the Social Order
Create image

“Very few men can be genuinely happy in a life involving continual self-assertion against the skepticism of the mass of mankind, unless they can shut themselves up in a coterie and forget the cold outer world. The man of science has no need of a coterie, since he is thought well of by everybody except his colleagues. The artist, on the contrary, is in the painful situation of having to choose between being despised and being despicable.”

MenWorldNeedsWellsSelfArtistForgetSituationMankindHe ManColdMassPainfulContrarySkepticismColleaguesAssertionInvolvingDespisedDespicableOuter WorldsPainful Situations
Book:The Conquest of Happiness
Create image

“Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; no fire, no heroism, no intensity of though and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave.”

MenEndsFeelingsIndividualBeliefCausesGrowthFireAchieveProductsGravesPreservesOutcomesIntensityAtomsHeroismHis LoveHopes And FearsIndividual LifeUnyieldingPrevision
Book:Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects
Create image

“The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. Even those of the intelligent who believe that they have a nostrum are too individualistic to combine with other intelligent men from whom they differ on minor points.”

MenWorldBelieveCausesDoubtTroubleModernStupidIntelligentFundamentalsMinorsModern WorldIntelligent ManIndividualistic
Book:Mortals and Others, Volume II: American Essays 1931-1935
Create image

“The fact that a belief has a good moral effect upon a man is no evidence whatsoever in favor of its truth. I'm not contending in a dogmatic way that there is not a God. What I'm contending is that we don't know that there is. I don't like the word "absolute." I don't think there is anything absolute whatever. The moral law, for example, is always changing. At one period in the development of the human race, almost everybody thought cannibalism was a duty.”

ThinkingKnowsMenWayHumansFactsLawBeliefRaceMoralEffectsExampleDutyDevelopmentPeriodsEvidenceAbsolutesFavorsHuman RaceDogmaticMoral LawCannibalismContendingGood Moral
Author:Bertrand Russell
Create image

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

MenMadeSchoolScienceBornEducationStupidIgnoranceEducationalStupidityIgnorantStupid PeopleSelf EducationSchooledHomeschoolingGreat EducationSchools And EducationNot StupidGreat EducationalIgnorant PeopleKnowledge And LearningKnowledge LearningStupidity And IgnoranceKnowledge And IgnoranceStupid MenPeople StupidityStupidity Of ManBeing IgnorantWestern PhilosophyIgnorance Is Not BlissIgnorant Masses
Book:History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition
Create image

“Every isolated passion, is, in isolation, insane; sanity may be defined as synthesis of insanities. Every dominant passion generates a dominant fear, the fear of its non-fulfillment. Every dominant fear generates a nightmare, sometimes in form of explicit and conscious fanaticism, sometimes in paralyzing timidity, sometimes in an unconscious or subconscious terror which finds expression only in dreams. The man who wishes to preserve sanity in a dangerous world should summon in his own mind a parliament of fears, in which each in turn is voted absurd by all the others.”

MenWorldShouldMindMaySometimesDreamFormTurnsPassionWishDangerousExpressionConsciousTerrorAbsurdInsaneDefinedPreservesFulfillmentInsanityIsolationUnconsciousNightmareSanityIsolatedDominantSubconsciousParliamentFanaticismExplicitTimiditySynthesisDangerous World
Author:Bertrand Russell
Create image

“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.”

MenBelieveLittlesHelpingFacesReligionOpinionAtheismComfortableDareMythRationalComfortingPerilFurious
Author:Bertrand Russell
Create image

“From that awful encounter of the soul with the outer world, enunciation, wisdom, and charity are born; and with their birth a new life begins. To take into the inmost shrine of the soul the irresistible forces whose puppets we seem to be - Death and change, the irrevocableness of the past, and the powerlessness of Man before the blind hurry of the universe from vanity to vanity - to feel these things and know them is to conquer them.”

KnowsMenWorldFeelsSoulSeemsPastUniverseForceBornBirthBlindCharityAwfulConquerVanityEncountersNew LifeIrresistiblePuppetsPowerlessnessShrinesOuter WorldsIrresistible Force
Book:Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays
Create image

“As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.”

IfsThinkingMenShouldHandsAudienceAtheismStreetsOughtProveOrdinaryArgumentAddAtheistPhilosopherImpressionAgnosticAgnosticismOrdinary ManPhilosophicDescribe Myself
Book:Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68
Create image