Top 500 Bertrand Russell Quotes (2024 Update)
Page 7 of 10

301. “I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached.”

— Bertrand Russell

302. “Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.”

— Bertrand Russell

303. “A great many worries can be diminished by realizing the unimportance of the matter which is causing anxiety.”

— Bertrand Russell

304. “I did not know I loved you until I heard myself telling so, for one instance I thought, “Good God, what have I said?” and then I knew it was true.”

— Bertrand Russell

305. “A proverb is one man’s wit and all men’s wisdom.”

— Bertrand Russell

306. “A good notation has a subtlety and suggestiveness which at times make it almost seem like a live teacher.”

— Bertrand Russell

307. “There is an element of the busybody in our conception of virtue: unless a man makes himself a nuisance to a great many people, we do not think he can be an exceptionally good man.”

— Bertrand Russell

308. “We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.”

— Bertrand Russell

309. “I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: “The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that’s fair.” In these words he epitomized the history of the human race.”

— Bertrand Russell

310. “The pleasure of work is open to anyone who can develop some specialised skill, provided that he can get satisfaction from the exercise of his skill without demanding universal applause.”

— Bertrand Russell

311. “Happiness, as is evident, depends partly upon external circumstances and partly upon oneself.”

— Bertrand Russell

312. “Great Empedocles, that ardent soul, Leapt into Etna, and was roasted whole.”

— Bertrand Russell

313. “No satisfaction based upon self-deception is solid, and however unpleasant the truth may be, it is better to face it once and for all, to get used to it, and to proceed to build your life in accordance with it.”

— Bertrand Russell

314. “Science is at no moment quite right, but it is seldom quite wrong, and has, as a rule, a better chance of being right than the theories of the unscientific. It is, therefore, rational to accept it hypothetically.”

— Bertrand Russell

315. “I do not pretend to start with precise questions. I do not think you can start with anything precise. You have to achieve such precision as you can, as you go along.”

— Bertrand Russell

316. “Italy, and the spring and first love all together should suffice to make the gloomiest person happy.”

— Bertrand Russell

317. “To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.”

— Bertrand Russell

318. “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

319. “When all experts agree, you need to watch out.”

— Bertrand Russell

320. “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

321. “There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.”

— Bertrand Russell

322. “Law in origin was merely a codification of the power of dominant groups, and did not aim at anything that to a modern man would appear to be justice.”

— Bertrand Russell

323. “Mysticism is, in essence, little more than a certain intensity and depth of feeling in regard to what is believed about the universe.”

— Bertrand Russell

324. “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

325. “If everything has a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just be the world as God...”

— Bertrand Russell

326. “Dogmatism is the greatest of mental obstacles to human happiness.”

— Bertrand Russell

327. “It is common in our day, as it has been in many other periods of the world’s history, to suppose that those among us who are wise have seen through all the enthusiasms of earlier times and have become aware that there is nothing left to live for. The men who hold this view are genuinely unhappy, but they are proud of their unhappiness, which they attribute to the nature of the universe and consider to be the only rational attitude for an enlightened man.”

— Bertrand Russell

328. “Those whose lives are fruitful to themselves, to their friends, or to the world are inspired by hope and sustained by joy: they see in imagination the things that might be and the way in which they are to be brought into existence.”

— Bertrand Russell

329. “The atomic bomb embodies the results of a combination genius and patience as remarkable as any in the history of mankind.”

— Bertrand Russell

330. “To expect a personality to survive the disintegration of the brain is like expecting a cricket club to survive when all of its members are dead.”

— Bertrand Russell

331. “A marriage is likely to be called happy if neither party ever expected to get much happiness out of it.”

— Bertrand Russell

332. “None of our beliefs are quite true; all have at least a penumbra of vagueness and error.”

— Bertrand Russell

333. “The goods of the mind are at least as important as the goods of the body.”

— Bertrand Russell

334. “The axiomatic method has many advantages over honest work.”

— Bertrand Russell

335. “Too little liberty brings stagnation, and too much brings chaos.”

— Bertrand Russell

336. “Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.”

— Bertrand Russell

337. “It is in our hearts that evil lies, and it is from our hearts that it must be plucked out.”

— Bertrand Russell

338. “Whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.”

— Bertrand Russell

339. “To like many people spontaneously and without effort is perhaps the greatest of all sources of personal happiness.”

— Bertrand Russell

340. “Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake.”

— Bertrand Russell

341. “That the world is in a bad shape is undeniable, but there is not the faintest reason in history to suppose that Christianity offers a way out.”

— Bertrand Russell

342. “No rules, however wise, are a substitute for affection and tact.”

— Bertrand Russell

343. “Modern definitions of truth, such as those as pragmatism and instrumentalism, which are practical rather than contemplative, are inspired by industrialisation as opposed to aristocracy.”

— Bertrand Russell

344. “If any philosopher had been asked for a definition of infinity, he might have produced some unintelligible rigmarole, but he would certainly not have been able to give a definition that had any meaning at all.”

— Bertrand Russell

345. “We are all prone to the malady of the introvert who with the manifold spectacle of the world spread out before him, turns away and gazes only upon the emptiness within.”

— Bertrand Russell

346. “The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.”

— Bertrand Russell

347. “The wise man will be as happy as circumstances permit, and if he finds the contemplation of the universe painful beyond a point, he will contemplate something else instead.”

— Bertrand Russell

348. “War grows out of ordinary human nature.”

— Bertrand Russell

349. “We do not like to be robbed of an enemy; we want someone to hate when we suffer. It is so depressing to think that we suffer because we are fools; yet, taking mankind in the mass, that is the truth.”

— Bertrand Russell

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

— Bertrand Russell