Bertrand Russell Quotes About Virtue

• The governors of the world believe, and have always believed, that virtue can only be taught by teaching falsehood, and that any man who knew the truth would be wicked. I disbelieve this, absolutely and entirely. I believe that love of truth is the basis of all real virtue, and that virtues based upon lies can only do harm.

  Bertrand Russell

  Peace, Real, Lying

  Bertrand Russell, Dora Russell (1959). “The Prospects of Industrial Civilization”, p.216, Psychology Press

• The widespread interest in gossip is inspired, not by a love of knowledge but by malice: no one gossips about other people's secret virtues, but only about their secret vices. Accordingly most gossip is untrue, but care is taken not to verify it. Our neighbour's sins, like the consolations of religion, are so agreeable that we do not stop to scrutinise the evidence closely.

  Bertrand Russell

  Taken, People, Gossip

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “On Education”, p.50, Routledge

• 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.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Long, Leader

• No one gossips about other people's secret virtues.

  Bertrand Russell

  Respect, Keeping Secrets, People

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “On Education”, p.50, Routledge

• The criminal law has, from the point of view of thwarted virtue, the merit of allowing an outlet for those impulses of aggression which cowardice, disguised as morality, restrains in their more spontaneous forms. War has the same merit. You must not kill you neighbor, whom perhaps you genuinely hate, but by a little propaganda this hate can be transferred to some foreign nation, against whom all your murderous impulses become patriotic heroism.

  Bertrand Russell

  Hate, War, Patriotic

• 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

  Men, Thinking, People

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.540, Routledge

• I mean by intellectual integrity the habit of deciding vexed questions in accordance with the evidence, or of leaving them undecided where the evidence is inconclusive. This virtue, though it is underestimated by almost all adherents of any system of dogma, is to my mind of the very greatest social importance and far more likely to benefit the world than Christianity or any other system of organized beliefs.

  Bertrand Russell

  Integrity, Mean, Leaving

  Bertrand Russell (1992). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959”, p.598, Psychology Press

• The best practical advice I can give to the present generation is to practice the virtue which the Christians call love.

  Bertrand Russell

  Love, Christian, Kindness

• I've made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite.

  Bertrand Russell

  Life, Happiness, Gratitude

• [Regarding] the convention that clergymen are more virtuous than other men. Any average selection of mankind, set apart and told that it excels the rest in virtue, must tend to sink below the average.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Average, Atheism

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Why Men Fight: A Method of Abolishing the International Duel”, p.117, Lulu Press, Inc

• If throughout your life you abstain from murder, theft, fornication, perjury, blasphemy, and disrespect toward your parents, church, and your king, you are conventionally held to deserve moral admiration even if you have never done a single kind, generous or useful action. This very inadequate notion of virtue is an outcome of taboo morality, and has done untold harm.

  Bertrand Russell

  Kings, Parent, Disrespect

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Human Society in Ethics and Politics”, p.27, Routledge

• no one ever gossips about the virtues of others

  Bertrand Russell

  Gossip, Virtue

• The coward wretch whose hand and heart Can bear to torture aught below, Is ever first to quail and start From the slightest pain or equal foe.

  Bertrand Russell

  Honesty, Pain, Integrity

• The fundamental defect of Christian ethics consists in the fact that it labels certain classes of acts 'sins' and others 'virtue' on grounds that have nothing to do with their social consequences.

  Bertrand Russell

  Christian, Class, Labels

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “Education and the Social Order”, p.73, Routledge

• We are told that Sin consists in acting contrary to God's commands, but we are also told that God is omnipotent. . . . This leads to frightful results. . . . The British State considers it the duty of an Englishman to kill people who are not English whenever a collection of elderly gentlemen in Westminster tells him to do so. . . . Church and State are placable enemies of both intelligence and virtue.

  Bertrand Russell

  Elderly, People, Gentleman

• Christianity offers reasons for not fearing death or the universe, and in so doing it fails to teach adequately the virtue of courage.

  Bertrand Russell

  Failing, Christianity, Virtue

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.34, Routledge

• When I was a child . . . Only virtue was prized, virtue at the expense of intellect, health, happiness, and every mundane good.

  Bertrand Russell

  Children, Virtue, Intellect

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.120, Routledge

• The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them. We all feel instinctively, that our children's success reflect glory upon ourselves, while their failures make us feel shame. Unfortunately, the successes which cause us to swell with pride are often of an undesirable kind.... Neither happiness nor virtue, but worldly success, is what the average father desires for his children.

  Bertrand Russell

  Children, Father, Pride

• Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, more than elsewhere, the love of truth may find encouragement for waning faith. Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of mind; and this purpose should be kept always in view throughout the teaching and learning of mathematics.

  Bertrand Russell

  Encouragement, Truth, Teaching

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.45, 谷月社

• Humanistic ethics is based on the principle that only humans themselves can determine the criterion for virtue and not an authority transcending us.

  Bertrand Russell

  Principles, Ethics, Virtue

• Owing to the identification of religion with virtue, together with the fact that the most religious men are not the most intelligent, a religious education gives courage to the stupid to resist the authority of educated men, as has happened, for example, where the teaching of evolution has been made illegal. So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence; and in this respect ministers of religion follow gospel authority more closely than in some others.

  Bertrand Russell

  Religious, Stupid, Teaching

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “Education and the Social Order”, p.73, Routledge

• We know that the exercise of virtue should be its own reward, and it seems to follow that the enduring of it on the part of the patient should be its own punishment.

  Bertrand Russell

  Exercise, Punishment, Rewards

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.91, Psychology Press

• I think modern educational theorists are inclined to attach too much importance to the negative virtue of not interfering with children, and too little to the positive merit of enjoying their company.

  Bertrand Russell

  Children, Educational, Thinking

  Bertrand Russell (1972). “In praise of idleness: and other essays”

• Science is no substitute for virtue; the heart is as necessary for a good life as the head.

  Bertrand Russell

  Good Life, Heart, Virtue

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Icarus; or, the Future of Science”, p.20, Lulu Press, Inc

• For the learning of every virtue there is an appropriate discipline, and for the learning of suspended judgment the best discipline is philosophy.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Discipline, Philosopher

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.380, Psychology Press

You May Also Like:

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Gottlob Frege

Alfred North Whitehead

David Hume

Russell Crowe

G. H. Hardy

Immanuel Kant