July 20 2023

68 Bertrand Russell Quotes to Truly Broaden Your Horizons

Yiannis Kalliantas Quotes Nobel prize winners, personal growth, philosophy, quotes by a single personality, scientists

Although times may look different, there are similarities between the past and present. The words of people like Bertrand Russell still influence us today. He was a British polymath, a logician, and a well-known philosopher of his time. Furthermore, he was not afraid to give his opinions about society and stand up for his beliefs. Putting Russell in jail was not enough to keep him from fighting for world peace; he spent a great deal of his life as an activist for political and social issues.

He wrote about the humanitarian epitome and people having the freedom to believe what they choose. Bertrand Russell inspires society to think for themselves and live in a peaceful world without wars. There is a substantial value in the words of those who lived a life before us. Let these quotes encourage and inspire great things to happen inside you or someone you know.

Bertrand Russell Life Quotes

Bertrand Russell Quotes On Love
Funny Bertrand Russell Quotes
Bertrand Russell Quotes about Society

Bertrand Russell Quotes on Mathematics and Science
Bertrand Russell Quotes on Religion
The Ten Commandments that Bertrand Russell gave as a teacher
Bertrand Russell Quotes On Images

Popular Books by Bertrand Russel

Bertrand Russell Life Quotes

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. Bertrand Russell
I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong. Bertrand Russell
In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted. Bertrand Russell

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. Bertrand Russell
The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn. Bertrand Russell
A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live. Bertrand Russell
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness. Bertrand Russell

Anything you’re good at contributes to happiness. Bertrand Russell
Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. Bertrand Russell
Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile. Bertrand Russell
The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Bertrand Russell

It is the preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly. Bertrand Russell
One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways. Bertrand Russell
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
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

The secret of happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible. Bertrand Russell
Dogmatism is the greatest of mental obstacles to human happiness. Bertrand Russell
Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim. Bertrand Russell
One of the most powerful of all our passions is the desire to be admired and respected. Bertrand Russell

To like many people spontaneously and without effort is perhaps the greatest of all sources of personal happiness. Bertrand Russell
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. Bertrand Russell
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. Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell Quotes On Love

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness. Bertrand Russell
To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already 3-parts dead. Bertrand Russell

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

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. Bertrand Russell

Funny Bertrand Russell Quotes

There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it. Bertrand Russell
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. Bertrand Russell
One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important. Bertrand Russell
Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so. Bertrand Russell

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues. Bertrand Russell
Sin is geographical. Bertrand Russell
It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this. Bertrand Russell
The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution. 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. Bertrand Russell

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

Bertrand Russell Quotes about Society

Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd. Bertrand Russell, Unpopular Essays
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. Bertrand Russell
Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves. Bertrand Russell
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. Bertrand Russell

Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature made them. Bertrand Russell
Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear. Bertrand Russell
To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level. Bertrand Russell
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth — more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Bertrand Russell, Why Men Fight
We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power. Bertrand Russell

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widely spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible. Bertrand Russell
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons. Bertrand Russell
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own. Bertrand Russell
If throughout your life you abstain from murder, theft, fornication, perjury, blasphemy, and disrespect toward your parents, church, and your king, you are conventionally held to deserve moral admiration even if you have never done a single kind, generous or useful action. This very inadequate notion of virtue is an outcome of taboo morality, and has done untold harm. Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell Quotes on Mathematics and Science

Even if all the experts agree, they may well be mistaken. Bertrand Russell

Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know. Bertrand Russell
Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty—a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. Bertrand Russell
Science can teach us, and I think our hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supporters, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make the world a fit place to live. Bertrand Russell
Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attributable to science, which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century. 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. 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

Bertrand Russell Quotes on Religion

And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence. Bertrand Russell
The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell. Bertrand Russell
So far as I can remember there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence. Bertrand Russell
I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove that Satan is a fiction. The Christian god may exist; so may the gods of Olympus, or of ancient Egypt, or of Babylon. But no one of these hypotheses is more probable than any other: they lie outside the region of even probable knowledge, and therefore there is no reason to consider any of them. Bertrand Russell

The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holders lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately. Bertrand Russell
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite. Bertrand Russell
I consider the official Catholic attitude on divorce, birth control, and censorship exceedingly dangerous to mankind. Bertrand Russell
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. Bertrand Russell

The Ten Commandments that Bertrand Russell gave as a teacher

1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. 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.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool’s paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.
Bertrand Russell