Quotes from Bertrand Russell

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

All forms of fear produce fatigue.

Boredom is... a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.

Our instinctive emotions are those that we have inherited from a much more dangerous world, and contain, therefore, a larger portion of fear than they should.

Fear is the main source of superstition and one of the main sources of cruelty.

What hunger is in relation to food, zest is in relation to life

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

The most valuable things in life are not measured in monetary terms. The really important things are not houses and lands, stocks and bonds, automobiles and real state, but friendships, trust, confidence, empathy, mercy, love and faith.

A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short.

There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths.

The purpose of life is the expansion of happiness.

A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live

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

I don't like the spirit of socialism - I think freedom is the basis of everything.

The luxury to disparage freedom is the privilege of those who already possess it.

Freedom in education has many aspects. There is first of all freedom to learn or not to learn. Then there is freedom as to what to learn. And in later education there is freedom of opinion.

America remained a land of promise for lovers of freedom. Even Byron, at a moment when he was disgusted with Napoleon for not committing suicide, wrote an eloquent stanza in praise of Washington.

A generation educated in fearless freedom will have wider and bolder hopes than are possible to us

The human heart as modern civilization has made it is more prone to hatred than to friendship. And it is prone to hatred because it is dissatisfied.

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

In order to be happy we require all kinds of supports to our self-esteem. We are human beings, therefore human beings are the purpose of god's creation

More important than the curriculum is the question of the methods of teaching and the spirit in which the teaching is given

Science can teach us, and I think our own hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supports, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make this world a fit place to live in, instead