Bertrand Russell - Quotes

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.
Russell, Bertrand. The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell. 1967.

As a lover of truth, the national propaganda of all the belligerent nations sickened me. As a lover of civilization, the return to barbarism appalled me.
Russell, Bertrand. The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell. 1967.

I once devised a test question which I put to many people to discover whether they were pessimists. The question was: "If you had the power to destroy the world, would you do so?"
Russell, Bertrand. The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell. 1967.

And all this madness, all this rage, all this flaming death of our civilization and our hopes, has been brought about because a set of official gentlemen, living luxurious lives, mostly stupid, and all without imagination or heart, have chosen that it should occur rather than that any one of them should suffer some infinitesimal rebuff to his country’s pride.
Russell, Bertrand. The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell. 1967.

The world is full of conflicts; and, overshadowing all minor conflicts, the titanic struggle between Communism and anti-Communism. Almost everybody who is politically conscious has strong feelings about one or more of these issues; but we want you, if you can, to set aside such feelings and consider yourselves only as members of a biological species which has had a remarkable history, and whose disappearance none of us can desire.
Russell, Bertrand. The Russell-Einstein Manifesto. 1955.

There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom. Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels? We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.
Russell, Bertrand. The Russell-Einstein Manifesto. 1955.

To modern educated people, it seems obvious that matters of fact are to be ascer­tained by observation, not by consulting ancient authorities. But this is an entirely modern conception, which hardly existed before the seventeenth century. Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.
Russell, Bertrand. The Impact of Science on Society. 1951.

Some things are believed because people feel as if they must be true, and in such cases an immense weight of evi­dence is necessary to dispel the belief.
Russell, Bertrand. The Impact of Science on Society. 1951.

What went wrong formerly was that people had read in books that man is a rational animal, and framed their arguments on this hypothesis. We now know that limelight and a brass band do more to persuade than can be done by the most elegant train of syllogisms.
Russell, Bertrand. The Impact of Science on Society. 1951.

Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible. Even if all are miserable, all will believe themselves happy, because the government will tell them that they are so.
Russell, Bertrand. The Impact of Science on Society. 1951.

Science offers the possibility of far greater well-being for the human race than has ever been known before. It offers this on certain conditions: abolition of war, even distribution of ultimate power, and limitation of the growth of population.
Russell, Bertrand. The Impact of Science on Society. 1951.

The chief causes of large-scale violence are: love of power, competition, hate and fear.
Russell, Bertrand. The Impact of Science on Society. 1951.

All human activity is prompted by desire.
Russell, Bertrand. What Desires Are Politically Important? 1950.

Man differs from other animals in one very important respect, and that is that he has some desires which are, so to speak, infinite, which can never be fully gratified, and which would keep him restless even in Paradise. The boa constrictor, when he has had an adequate meal, goes to sleep, and does not wake until he needs another meal. Human beings, for the most part, are not like this.
Russell, Bertrand. What Desires Are Politically Important? 1950.

Acquisitiveness, although it is the mainspring of the capitalist system, is by no means the most powerful of the motives that survive the conquest of hunger. Rivalry is a much stronger motive.
Russell, Bertrand. What Desires Are Politically Important? 1950.

One of the troubles about vanity is that it grows with what it feeds on. The more you are talked about, the more you will wish to be talked about.
Russell, Bertrand. What Desires Are Politically Important? 1950.

The devil has many forms, some designed to deceive the young, some designed to deceive the old and serious. If it is the devil that tempts the young to enjoy themselves, is it not, perhaps, the same personage that persuades the old to condemn their enjoyment?
Russell, Bertrand. What Desires Are Politically Important? 1950.

If men were actuated by self-interest, which they are not — except in the case of a few saints — the whole human race would cooperate. There would be no more wars, no more armies, no more navies, no more atom bombs.
Russell, Bertrand. What Desires Are Politically Important? 1950.

Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.
Russell, Bertrand. Unpopular Essays. 1950.

The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. So long as men are not trained to withhold judgment in the absence of evidence, they will be led astray by cocksure prophets, and it is likely that their leaders will be either ignorant fanatics or dishonest charlatans. To endure uncertainty is difficult, but so are most of the other virtues.
Russell, Bertrand. Unpopular Essays. 1950.

In a man whose reasoning powers are good, fallacious arguments are evidence of bias.
Russell, Bertrand. Unpopular Essays. 1950.

Pragmatists explained that Truth is what it pays to believe. Historians of morals reduced the Good to a matter of tribal custom. Beauty was abolished by artists in a revolt against the sugary insipidities of a philistine epoch and in a mood of fury in which satisfaction is to be derived only from what hurts. And so the world was swept clear not only of God as a person but of God's essence as an ideal to which man owed an ideal allegiance.
Russell, Bertrand. Unpopular Essays. 1950.

Man is a rational animal — so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favor of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three continents.
Russell, Bertrand. Unpopular Essays. 1950.

In America everybody is of opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors.
Russell, Bertrand. Unpopular Essays. 1950.

Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.
Russell, Bertrand. Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic? 1947.

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 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.
Russell, Bertrand. Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic? 1947.

All definite knowledge — so I should contend — belongs to science; all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology. But between theology and science there is a No Man’s Land, exposed to attack by both sides; this No Man’s Land is philosophy.
Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. 1945.

What happened in the great age of Greece happened again in Renaissance Italy: traditional moral restraints disappeared, because they were seen to be associated with superstition; the liberation from fetters made individuals energetic and creative, producing a rare florescence of genius; but the anarchy and treachery which inevitably resulted from the decay of morals made Italians collectively impotent, and they fell, like the Greeks, under domination of nations less civilized than themselves but not so destitute of social cohesion. The result, however, was less disastrous than in the case of Greece, because the newly powerful nations, with the exception of Spain, showed themselves as capable of great achievements as the Italians had been.
Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. 1945.

There came to be not one Protestantism, but a multitude of sects; not one philosophy opposed to scholasticism, but as many as there were philosophers; not, as in the thirteenth century, one Emperor opposed to the Pope, but a large number of heretical kings. The result, in thought as in literature, was a continually deepening subjectivism, operating at first as a wholesome liberation from spiritual slavery, but advancing steadily towards a personal isolation inimical to sanity.
Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. 1945.

Modern philosophy begins with Descartes, whose fundamental certainty is the existence of himself and his thoughts, from which the external world is to be inferred. This was only the first stage in a development, through Berkeley and Kant, to Fichte, for whom everything is only an emanation of the ego. This was insanity, and from this extreme, philosophy has been attempting, ever since, to escape into the world of every-day common sense.
Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. 1945.

Every community is exposed to two opposite dangers: ossification through too much discipline and reverence for tradition, on the one hand; and on the other, dissolution, or subjugation to foreign conquest, through the growth of an individualism and personal independence that makes co-operation impossible. In general, important civilizations start with a rigid and superstitious system, gradually relaxed, and leading, at a certain stage, to a period of brilliant genius, while the good of the old traditional remains and the evil inherent in its dissolution has not yet developed. But as the evil unfolds, it leads to anarchy, thence, inevitably, to a new tyranny, producing a new synthesis secured by a new system of dogma.
Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. 1945.

The doctrine of liberalism is an attempt to escape from this endless oscillation. The essence of liberalism is an attempt to secure a social order not based on irrational dogma, and insuring stability without involving more restraints than are necessary for the preservation of the community.
Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. 1945.

Most sciences, at their inception, have been connected with some form of false belief, which gave them a fictitious value. Astronomy was connected with astrology, chemistry with alchemy. Mathematics was associated with a more refined type of error. Mathematical knowledge appeared to be certain, exact, and applicable to the real world; moreover it was obtained by mere thinking, without the need for observation. Consequently, it was thought to supply an ideal, from which every-day empirical knowledge fell short. It was supposed, on the basis of mathematics, that thought is superior to sense, intuition to observation. If the world of sense does not fit the world of mathematics, so much the worse for the world of sense. In various ways, methods of approaching the mathematician's ideal were sought, and the resulting suggestions were the source of much that was mistaken in metaphysics and theory of knowledge. This form of philosophy begins with Pythagoras.
Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. 1945.

Mathematics is, I believe, the chief source of the belief in eternal and exact truth, as well as in a super-sensible world. Geometry deals with exact circles, but no sensible object is exactly circular; however carefully we use our compasses, there will be some imperfections and irregularities. This suggests the view that all exact reasoning applies to ideal as opposed to sensible objects; it is natural to go further, and to argue that thought is nobler than sense, and the objects of thought more real than that of sense-perception.
Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. 1945.

Philosophically inclined mystics, unable to deny that whatever is in time is transitory, have invented a conception of eternity as not persistence through endless time, but existence outside the whole temporal process.
Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. 1945.

A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something that he can understand.
Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy. 1945.

Every man would like to be God, if it were possible; some few find it difficult to admit the impossibility.
Russell, Bertrand. Power: A New Social Analysis. 1938.

In democratic countries, the most important private organizations are economic. Unlike secret societies, they are able to exercize their terrorism without illegality, since they do not threaten to kill their enemies, but only to starve them.
Russell, Bertrand. Power: A New Social Analysis. 1938.

Boredom is therefore a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
Russell, Bertrand. Conquest of Happiness. 1930.

The businessman's religion and glory demand that he should make much money; therefore, like the Hindu widow, he suffers the torment gladly.
Russell, Bertrand. Conquest of Happiness. 1930.

There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.
Russell, Bertrand. Conquest of Happiness. 1930.

Conventional people are roused to fury by departures from convention, largely because they regard such departures as a criticism of themselves.
Russell, Bertrand. Conquest of Happiness. 1930.