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.

Fanaticism is the danger of the world, and always has been, and has done untold harm. I might almost say that I was fanatical against fanaticism.
The Future of Science (1959), p. 79
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy; I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
New Hopes for a Changing World (1951), Part I: Man and Nature, Ch. 1: Current Perplexities, p. 10
- Happiness
- Virtue
Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable.
Fact and Fiction (1961), Part II, Ch. 10: “University Education”, p. 153
- Truth & Lies
It is obvious that “obscenity” is not a term capable of exact legal definition; in the practice of the Courts, it means “anything that shocks the magistrate.”
Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 10: Recrudescence of Puritanism
- Clever Jabs
- Laws
Marriage is for women the commonest mode of livelihood, and the total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution.
Marriage and Morals (1929)
- Marriage
- Women
Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little: it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover.
An Outline of Philosophy Ch.15 The Nature of our Knowledge of Physics (1927)
- Knowledge
- Science
Without effort and change, human life cannot remain good. It is not a finished Utopia that we ought to desire, but a world where imagination and hope are alive and active.
Political Ideals (1917)
- Change
- Hope
People seem good while they are oppressed, but they only wish to become oppressors in their turn: life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.
Letter to Ottoline Morrell, 17 December, 1920
- Good & Evil
- Power
Some part of life – perhaps the most important part – must be left to the spontaneous action of individual impulse, for where all is system there will be mental and spiritual death.
The Impact of Science on Society (1952)
- Freedom
I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe – because, like Spinoza’s God, it won’t love us in return.
Letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell, March, 1912, as quoted in Gaither’s Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2012), p. 1318
- Science
No man is liberated from fear who dare not see his place in the world as it is; no man can achieve the greatness of which he is capable until he has allowed himself to see his own littleness.
Dreams and Facts (1919)
- Fear
I once received a letter from an eminent logician, Mrs. Christine Ladd Franklin, saying that she was a solipsist, and was surprised that there were no others. Coming from a logician, this surprise surprised me.
Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948), Part III, chapter II, “Solipsism”, p. 196
- Comedy
- Philosophy
To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true.
The Prospects of Industrial Civilization (1923)
- Courage
There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ’s moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.
Why I Am Not a Christian (1927), “The Moral Problem”
- Anti-Religion
- Christianity
Christianity offers reasons for not fearing death or the universe, and in so doing it fails to teach adequately the virtue of courage.
Education and the Social Order (1932), p. 107

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