Bertrand Russell Quotes

British philosopher and logician (1872–1970)

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Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell (May 18, 1872 – February 2, 1970) was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic. In 1950, he was awarded a Nobel Prize in Literature.

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Birth Name: Bertrand Arthur William Russell

Alternative Names: Bertrand Russell, 3rd Earl Russell • Bertrand Russell, Earl Russell • Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell • Russell

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Philosophy, if it cannot answer so many questions as we could wish, has at least the power of asking questions which increase the interest of the world, and show the strangeness and wonder lying just below the surface even in the commonest things of daily life.

Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or what you think could have beneficent social effects if it were believed; but look only and solely at what are the facts.

A man is rational in proportion as his intelligence informs and controls his desires.

no one ever gossips about the virtues of others

The man who pursues happiness wisely will aim at the possession of a number of subsidiary interests in addition to those central ones upon which his life is built.

The root of the matter is a very simple and old fashioned thing... love or compassion. If you feel this, you have a motive for existence, a guide for action, a reason for courage, an imperative necessity for intellectual honesty.

A life too full of excitement is an exhausting life, in which continually stronger stimuli are needed to give the thrill that has come to be thought an essential part of pleasure.

Politics is largely governed by sententious platitudes which are devoid of truth

I dislike Nietzsche because he likes the contemplation of pain, because he erects conceit into a duty, because the men whom he most admires are conquerors, whose glory is cleverness in causing men to die.

Belief in God and a future life makes it possible to go through life with less of stoic courage than is needed by skeptics.

هناك دافعان لقراءة كتاب ما : الأول هو الاستمتاع به ، والثاني هو التباهي بقراءته

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

So in everything: power lies with those who control finance, not with those who know the matter upon which the money is to be spent. Thus, the holders of power are, in general, ignorant and malevolent, and the less they exercise their power the better.

All serious innovation is only rendered possible by some accident
enabling unpopular persons to survive.

The Church no longer contends that knowledge is in itself sinful, though it did so in its palmy days; but the acquisition of knowledge, even though not sinful, is dangerous, since it may lead to pride of intellect, and hence to a questioning of the Christian dogma.