Quotes by Bertrand Russell

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

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

I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its Churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved. To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.

Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.

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

Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.

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.

Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.

The degree of ones emotions varies inversely with ones knowledge of the facts.

Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one.

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

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

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

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

The man who can centre his thoughts and hopes upon something transcending self can find a certain peace in the ordinary troubles of life, which is impossible to the pure egoist.

The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.

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

Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.