Quotes from Bertrand Russell

Fundamental happiness depends more than anything else upon what may be called a friendly interest in persons and things.

Public opinion is always more tyrannical towards those who obviously fear it than towards those who feel indifferent to it.

The secrets to happiness include enterprise, exploration of one's interests and the overcoming of obstacles.

It appeared to me obvious that the happiness of mankind should be the aim of all action, and I discovered to my surprise that there were those who thought otherwise.

Continuity of purpose is one of the most essential ingredients of happiness in the long run and for most men this comes chiefly through their work.

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.

Extreme hopes are born of extreme misery, and in such a world hopes could only be irrational.

It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves great results.

Truth is for the gods; from our human point of view, it is an ideal, towards which we can approximate, but which we cannot hope to reach.

There are certain things that our age needs. It needs, above all, courageous hope and the impulse to creativeness.

This idea of weapons of mass extermination is utterly horrible and is something which no one with one spark of humanity can tolerate.

One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.

There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.

Curious learning not only makes unpleasant things less unpleasant but also makes pleasant things more pleasant.

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

I am compelled to fear that science will be used to promote the power of dominant groups rather than to make men happy.

Power, like vanity, is insatiable. Nothing short of omnipotence could satisfy it completely.

It is not my prayer and humility that you cause things to go as you wish, but by acquiring a knowledge of natural laws.

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

Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.

I am sometimes shocked by the blasphemies of those who think themselves pious.

Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.

One of the chief obstacles to intelligence is credulity, and credulity could be enormously diminished by instructions as to the prevalent forms of mendacity.

Intelligence, it might be said, has caused our troubles; but it is not unintelligence that will cure them. Only more and wiser intelligence can make a happier world