Quotes from Bertrand Russell

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

I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.

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.

The world that I should wish to see would be one freed from the virulence of group hostilities and capable of realizing that happiness for all is to be derived rather from co-operation than from strife. I should wish to see a world in which education aimed at mental freedom rather than imprisoning the minds of the young in rigid armor of dogma calculated to protect them through life against the shafts of impartial evidence.

It seems to me a fundamental dishonesty, and a fundamental treachery to intellectual integrity to hold a belief because you think it's useful and not because you think it's true.

Morality in sexual relations, when it is free from superstition, consists essentially in respect for the other person, and unwillingness to use that person solely as a means of personal gratification, without regard to his or her desires.

A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.

The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things, or, if it is night, about nothing at all.

The secret of happiness is very simply this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile

Mathematics rightly viewed possesses not only truth but supreme beauty.

One of the most powerful of all our passions is the desire to be admired and respected.

Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.

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

Having made the decision, do not revise it unless some new fact comes to your knowledge. Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile.

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

It is not what the man of science believes that distinguishes him, but how and why he believes it. His beliefs are tentative, not dogmatic; they are based on evidence, not on authority or intuition.

We have in fact, two kinds of morality, side by side: one which we preach, but do not practice, and another which we practice, but seldom preach.

Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.

Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.

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.

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

Love is wise, Hatred is foolish

I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive.