Nobel Laureate Bertrand Arthur William Russell was a British polymath who rose to prominence primarily as a philosopher, and later as a logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic and political activist. Despite being a renowned philosopher, Bertrand Russell is remembered for his political activism and altercations with the British government. Though Russell shuffled as a liberal, a socialite and a pacifist in his life, he never adapted any of these. He is best known for escorting the British ‘revolt against idealism’. Russell is also believed to be the founder of the analytic philosophy, His prominent philosophical essay ‘On Denoting’ is famously remarked as a ‘paradigm of philosophy’. Much of Russell’s philosophical works exerted a strong influence on varying subjects including logic, mathematics, set theory, linguistics, epistemology and metaphysics. In his life, Russell dearly advocated anti-war sentiments. He championed anti-imperialism and also campaigned against Adolf Hitler. Russell also openly criticised Stalinist totalitarianism, and attacked the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War. He was an outspoken proponent of nuclear disarmament. His writings are reflective of his humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought. The same can also be seen in his quotes that touch a wide variety of aspects of life. Explore some of the best known quotes by Bertrand Russell in this section.
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.
To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.
Bertrand Russell
Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.
If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years.
[T]he infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.
Bertrand Russell
I believe in using words, not fists. I believe in my outrage knowing people are living in boxes on the street. I believe in honesty. I believe in a good time. I believe in good food. I believe in sex.
The secret of happiness is this: let your interest be as wide as possible and let your reactions to the things and persons who interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.
I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.
When considering marriage one should ask oneself this question; 'will I be able to talk with this person into old age?' Everything else is transitory, the most time is spent in conversation.
Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.
Bertrand Russell
Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
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.
It is essential to happiness that our way of living should spring from our own deep impulses and not from the accidental tastes and desires of those who happen to be our neighbors, or even our relations.
There is no reason to suppose that the world had a beginning at all. The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our thoughts.
Bertrand Russell
Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attibutable to science, which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century.
Bertrand Russell
Dogmatism is the greatest of mental obstacles to human happiness.
Love can flourish only as long as it is free and spontaneous; it tends to be killed by the thought of duty. To say that it is your duty to love so-and-so is the surest way to cause you to hate him of her.
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.
How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty?
Bertrand Russell
Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.
Conquer the world by intelligence, and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it.
Bertrand Russell
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
Bertrand Russell
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.
Bertrand Russell
Mathematics rightly viewed possesses not only truth but supreme beauty.
Bertrand Russell
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.
Bertrand Russell
Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.
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
Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed.
Bertrand Russell
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.
Whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.
Bertrand Russell
No nation was ever so virtuous as each believes itself, and none was ever so wicked as each believes the other.
Bertrand Russell
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.
Bertrand Russell
Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.
Bertrand Russell
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.
Bertrand Russell
I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.
The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and not merely as means to other things, are knowledge, art, instinctive happiness, and relations of friendship or affection.
Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
Bertrand Russell
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.
Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives.
We do not like to be robbed of an enemy; we want someone to hate when we suffer. It is so depressing to think that we suffer because we are fools; yet, taking mankind in the mass, that is the truth.
Whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants.
