Quotes and anectdotes from the wise to the foolish, and the courageous to the drunk

Bertrand Russell Philosopher

  • Gender: Male
  • Citizenship: United Kingdom
  • Born: May 18, 1872
  • Died: Feb 2, 1970

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, social critic and political activist. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had never been any of these in any profound sense. He was born in Monmouthshire, into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in Britain.

In the early 20th century, Russell led the British "revolt against idealism". He is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy along with his predecessor Gottlob Frege, colleague G. E. Moore, and his protégé Ludwig Wittgenstein. He is widely held to be one of the 20th century's premier logicians. With A. N. Whitehead he wrote Principia Mathematica, an attempt to create a logical basis for mathematics. His philosophical essay "On Denoting" has been considered a "paradigm of philosophy". His work has had a considerable influence on logic, mathematics, set theory, linguistics, artificial intelligence, cognitive science, computer science, and philosophy, especially philosophy of language, epistemology, and metaphysics.

Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd. fear

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness. happiness

Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education. education & men

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. time

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. work

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. fear & great

Anything you're good at contributes to happiness. good & happiness

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge. knowledge

If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give. happiness

Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines. intelligence, religion & science

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important. work

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness. happiness

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones. good

We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought. education, freedom & intelligence

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

Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people's happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race. happiness

The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. good, knowledge, life & love

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. funny

Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires. freedom

Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself. art

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence. intelligence

Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom. time & wisdom

Boredom is... a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it. fear

A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy dare live. great

The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf. dad & family

Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know. science

The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell. good

War does not determine who is right - only who is left. war

Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power. power

Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure. freedom & government

Admiration of the proletariat, like that of dams, power stations, and aeroplanes, is part of the ideology of the machine age. age & power

None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear. fear

The most savage controversies are about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. good

The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics. power & science

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. fear & wisdom

Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country. war

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong. funny

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. fear & wisdom

The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts. knowledge

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons. patriotism

The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them. dad & society

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric. fear

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead. fear, life & love

The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible. happiness

Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change. change, happiness & hope