Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 16

• You could live without the opera singer, but not without the services of the baker. On this ground you might say that the baker performs a greater service; but no lover of music would agree.

  Bertrand Russell

  Music, Bakers, Opera

  Bertrand Russell (1993). “The Quotable Bertrand Russell”

  4 Copy quote

• But if thought is to become the possession of many, not the privilege of the few, we must have done with fear. It is fear that holds men back - fear lest their cherished beliefs should prove delusions, fear lest the institutions by which they live should prove harmful, fear lest they themselves should prove less worthy of respect than they have supposed themselves to be.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Thinking, Done

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Why Men Fight: A Method of Abolishing the International Duel”, p.96, Lulu Press, Inc

  10 Copy quote

• When there are rational grounds for an opinion, people are content to set them forth and wait for them to operate. In such cases, people do not hold their opinions with passion; they hold them calmly, and set forth their reasons quietly. The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder's lack of rational conviction.

  Bertrand Russell

  Fear, Passion, People

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.3, Psychology Press

  4 Copy quote

• Love, children, and work, are the great sources of fertilizing contact between the individual and the rest of the world.

  Bertrand Russell

  Children, Parent, World

  4 Copy quote

• It's easy to fall in love. The hard part is finding someone to catch you.

  Bertrand Russell

  Famous Love, Falling In Love, New Relationship

  24 Copy quote

• Ignore fact and reason, live entirely in the world of your own fantastic and myth-producing passions; do this whole-heartedly and with conviction, and you will become one of the prophets of your age.

  Bertrand Russell

  Passion, Age, World

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “Mortals and Others, Volume I: American Essays 1931-1935”, p.149, Routledge

  6 Copy quote

• The use of self control is like the use of brakes on train. It is useful when you find yourself in wrong direction but merely harmful when the direction is right

  Bertrand Russell

  Self, Use, Brake

  Bertrand Russell (1987). “Bertrand Russell on ethics, sex, and marriage”

  6 Copy quote

• The opposition of instinct and reason is mainly illusory. Instinct, intuition, or insight is what first leads to the beliefs which subsequent reason confirms or confutes; but the confirmation, where it is possible, consists, in the last analysis, of agreement with other beliefs no less instinctive. Reason is a harmonizing, controlling force rather than a creative one. Even in the most purely logical realms, it is insight that first arrives at what is new.

  Bertrand Russell

  Agreement, Creative, Intuition

  Bertrand Russell (1981). “Mysticism and Logic, and Other Essays”, p.17, Rowman & Littlefield

  5 Copy quote

• Righteousness cannot be born until self-righteousness is dead.

  Bertrand Russell

  Self, Born, Righteousness

  Bertrand Russell (2007). “Justice in War-time”, p.192, Cosimo, Inc.

  13 Copy quote

• 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”

  7 Copy quote

• All's well that ends well; which is the epitaph I should put on my tombstone if I were the last man left alive.

  Bertrand Russell

  Tombstone, Men, Alive

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.190, Routledge

  7 Copy quote

• Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possiblities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what the may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familar things in an unfamilar aspect

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Feelings, Doubt

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Problems of Philosophy”, p.124, Lulu.com

  6 Copy quote

• To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

  Bertrand Russell

  Love, Inspirational, Life

  Marriage and Morals (1929) ch. 19

  77 Copy quote

• A European who goes to New York and Chicago sees the future... when he goes to Asia he sees the past.

  Bertrand Russell

  New York, Past, Chicago

  Bertrand Russell (1992). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959”, p.555, Psychology Press

  4 Copy quote

• The essence of the liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held; instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.

  Bertrand Russell

  Lying, Essence, May

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.400, Psychology Press

  18 Copy quote

• The essence of life is doing things for their own sakes.

  Bertrand Russell

  Wisdom, Essence, Sake

  Bertrand Russell (2002). “The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell: The Public Years, 1914-1970”, p.160, Psychology Press

  4 Copy quote

• Into every tidy scheme for arranging the pattern of human life, it is necessary to inject a certain dose of anarchism.

  Bertrand Russell

  Patterns, Schemes, Human Life

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.217, Psychology Press

  4 Copy quote

• I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, Punishment, Everlasting

  Bertrand Russell (1992). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959”, p.593, Psychology Press

  13 Copy quote

• Patience and boredom are closely related. Boredom, a certain kind of boredom, is really impatience. You don't like the way things are, they aren't interesting enough for you, so you deccide- and boredom is a decision-that you are bored.

  Bertrand Russell

  Interesting, Boredom, Decision

  10 Copy quote

• Orthodoxy is the grave of intelligence, no matter what orthodoxy it may be.

  Bertrand Russell

  May, Matter, Orthodoxy

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “Education and the Social Order”, p.16, Routledge

  6 Copy quote

• I should like to believe my people's religion, which was just what I could wish, but alas, it is impossible. I have really no religion, for my God, being a spirit shown merely by reason to exist, his properties utterly unknown, is no help to my life. I have nor the parson's comfortable doctrine that every good action has its reward, and every sin is forgiven. My whole religion is this: do every duty, and expect no reward for it, either here or hereafter.

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, People, Wish

  Bertrand Russell (1986). “Bertrand Russell on God and Religion”

  4 Copy quote

• We know too much and feel too little.

  Bertrand Russell

  Littles, Too Much, Emotion

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Authority and the Individual”, p.38, Routledge

  7 Copy quote

• Without civic morality communities perish; without personal morality their survival has no value.

  Bertrand Russell

  Community, Survival, Morality

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.336, Routledge

  15 Copy quote

• Order, unity, and continuity are human inventions, just as truly as catalogues and encyclopedias.

  Bertrand Russell

  Order, Unity, Invention

  21 Copy quote

• There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.

  Bertrand Russell

  Knowledge And Power, Government, Majority

  64 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Gottlob Frege

Alfred North Whitehead

David Hume

Russell Crowe

G. H. Hardy

Immanuel Kant

Jean-Paul Sartre