The quotations of

Bertrand Russell

British philosopher and logician

1872–1970

105 quotes, most often on Anti-Religion, Philosophy and Thinking. Part of the Philosophers collection.

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
Education and the Social Order (1932), p. 110
- Christianity
Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
- Freedom
- Government
Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.
- Happiness
No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.
- Talking
- Virtue
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.
Unpopular Essays (1950)
- Fear
It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.
Unpopular Essays (1950)
- Intelligence
The puritanism of Christianity has played havoc with the moderation that an enlightened and tolerant critical spirit would have produced. I’ve noticed that in whatever country, county, town, or other region there is a regulation enjoining temperance, the population seems to be entirely composed of teetotallers and drunkards. There’s a Bible on that shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire⁠—poison and antidote.
- Christianity
Boredom is therefore a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
The Conquest of Happiness, Ch. 4: Boredom and Excitement (1930)
- Morality
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.
Principles of Social Reconstruction [Originally titled Why Men Fight: A Method Of Abolishing The International Duel], Ch. VIII: What We Can Do, p. 257
- Money
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
“A Liberal Decalogue”, from “The Best Answer to Fanaticism: Liberalism”, New York Times Magazine (16/December/1951)
Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.
A History of Western Philosophy (1945), Book Three, Part II, Chapter XXI: Currents of Thought in the Nineteenth Century, p. 722.
- Education
We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.
Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 12: Free Thought and Official Propaganda
- Education
It is feared that if many H-bombs are used there will be universal death, sudden only for a minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration.
Russell–Einstein Manifesto (1955)Often credited to Albert Einstein
- War & Peace
I knew a parson who frightened his congregation terribly by telling them that the second coming was very imminent indeed, but they were much consoled when they found that he was planting trees in his garden.
Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)
- Christianity
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
“The Triumph of Stupidity” (10 May 1933), in Mortals and Others
- Intelligence

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