134 Quotes By Bertrand Russell


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 on fear

None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.
Bertrand Russell on fear

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 on food

We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.
Bertrand Russell on freedom

Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires.
Bertrand Russell on freedom

Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
Bertrand Russell on freedom

Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.
Bertrand Russell on freedom

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.
Bertrand Russell on funny

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.
Bertrand Russell on funny

I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe - because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return.
Bertrand Russell on god

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 on good

The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
Bertrand Russell on good

Anything you're good at contributes to happiness.
Bertrand Russell on good

Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.
Bertrand Russell on good

The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.
Bertrand Russell on good

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
Bertrand Russell on good

The most savage controversies are about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.
Bertrand Russell on good

Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
Bertrand Russell on government

The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.
Bertrand Russell on great

A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live.
Bertrand Russell on great