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| Bertrand Russell Quotes |
Bertrand Russell Biography
- Full Name : Bertrand Arthur William Russell
- Born : May 18, 1872 (Trellech, Monmouthshire, Wales, United Kingdom)
- Dead : February 2, 1970 (Penrhyndeudraeth, Merionethshire, Wales, United Kingdom)
- Nationality : United Kingdom
- Profession : Author, Philosopher, Mathematician, Political Activist
- University : University of Chicago, University of California.
- Spouse : Alys Pearsall Smith
- Awards :
- Nobel Prize in Literature.
- Sylvester Medal.
- Kalinga Prize.
- De Morgan Medal
Books by Bertrand Russell :
- The Problems of Philosophy.
- The Principles of Mathematics.
- Why Men Fight.
- My Philosophical Development.
- Glossary of Principia Mathematica.
- A History of Western Philosophy.
Facts About Bertrand Russell :
- Russell’s parents died when he was very young, and he was raised by his grandmother, Lady Russell.
- Russell’s son Conrad was named after novelist Joseph Conrad.
- Bertrand Russell was arrested and jailed twice for political activism.
Bertrand Russell Quotes
1. “ 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
2. “ The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge ”
— Bertrand Russell
3. “ The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution. ”
— Bertrand Russell
4. “ Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. ”
— Bertrand Russell
5. “ To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness. ”
— Bertrand Russell
6. “ Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. ”
— Bertrand Russell
7. “ The secret of happiness is this: let your interest be as wide as possible and let your reactions to the things and persons who interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile. ”
— Bertrand Russell
8. “ Your writing is never as good as you hoped; but never as bad as you feared. ”
— Bertrand Russell
9. “ The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. ”
— Bertrand Russell
10. “ I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine. ”
— Bertrand Russell
11. “ We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power. ”
— Bertrand Russell
12. “ So far as I can remember there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence. ”
— Bertrand Russell
13. “ Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attibutable to science, which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century. ”
— Bertrand Russell
14. “ Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness. ”
— Bertrand Russell
15. “ I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. ”
— Bertrand Russell
16. “ Patriots always talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country. ”
— Bertrand Russell
17. “ The secret of happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible. ”
— Bertrand Russell
18. “ 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
19. “ To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already 3-parts dead. ”
— Bertrand Russell
20. “ Mathematics rightly viewed possesses not only truth but supreme beauty. ”
— Bertrand Russell
21. “ Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear. ”
— Bertrand Russell
22. “ I consider the official Catholic attitude on divorce, birth control, and censorship exceedingly dangerous to mankind. ”
— Bertrand Russell
23. “ I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.”
— Bertrand Russell
24. “ When considering marriage one should ask oneself this question; 'will I be able to talk with this person into old age?' Everything else is transitory, the most time is spent in conversation. ”
— Bertrand Russell
25. “ The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. ”
— Bertrand Russell
26. “ Philosophy, from the earliest times, has made greater claims, and achieved fewer results, than any other branch of learning. ”
— Bertrand Russell
27. “ In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. ”
— Bertrand Russell
28. “ Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure. ”
— Bertrand Russell
29. “ Belief in God and a future life makes it possible to go through life with less of stoic courage than is needed by skeptics. ”
— Bertrand Russell
30. “ Anything you're good at contributes to happiness. ”
— Bertrand Russell
31. “ Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed. ”
— Bertrand Russell
32. “ The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. ”
— Bertrand Russell
33. “ A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.”
— Bertrand Russell
34. “ Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination. ”
— Bertrand Russell
35. “ Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed. ”
— Bertrand Russell
36. “ Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact. ”
— Bertrand Russell
37. “ Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim. ”
— Bertrand Russell
38. “ 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
39. “ To like many people spontaneously and without effort is perhaps the greatest of all sources of personal happiness. ”
— Bertrand Russell
40. “ What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
”
— Bertrand Russell
41. “ I believe in using words, not fists. I believe in my outrage knowing people are living in boxes on the street. I believe in honesty. I believe in a good time. I believe in good food. I believe in sex. ”
— Bertrand Russell
42. “ One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important. ”
— Bertrand Russell
43. “ Really high-minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially other people's. ”
— Bertrand Russell
44. “ Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery. ”
— Bertrand Russell
45. “ It is the preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else that prevents us from living freely and nobly. ”
— Bertrand Russell
46. “ No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues. ”
— Bertrand Russell
47. “ It's easy to fall in love. The hard part is finding someone to catch you. ”
— Bertrand Russell
48. “ Love can flourish only as long as it is free and spontaneous; it tends to be killed by the thought of duty. To say that it is your duty to love so-and-so is the surest way to cause you to hate him of her. ”
— Bertrand Russell
49. “ Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.”
— Bertrand Russell
50. “ Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality. ”
— Bertrand Russell
51. “ We love our habits more than our income, often more than our life. ”
— Bertrand Russell
52. “ Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so. ”
— Bertrand Russell
53. “ It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won't go. ”
— Bertrand Russell
54. “ One of the most powerful of all our passions is the desire to be admired and respected. ”
— Bertrand Russell
55. “ 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
56. “ The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.”
— Bertrand Russell
57. “ 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
58. “ Dogmatism is the greatest of mental obstacles to human happiness. ”
— Bertrand Russell
59. “ 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
60. “ To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it. ”
— Bertrand Russell
61. “ Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false. ”
— Bertrand Russell
62. “ 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
63. “ There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action. ”
— Bertrand Russell
64. “ A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation. ”
— Bertrand Russell
65. “ 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 paradise in a few years. ”
— Bertrand Russell