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Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 12

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One must care about a world one will not see.

One must care about a world one will not see.

Bertrand Russell
Peace, Future, Ignorance

Half the useful work in the world consists of combating the harmful work.

Bertrand Russell
Half, World
Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.140, Lulu Press, Inc

William James used to preach the "will-to-believe." For my part, I should wish to preach the "will-to-doubt." None of our beliefs are quite true; all at least have a penumbra of vagueness and error. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.

Bertrand Russell
Believe, Errors, Opposites
"Sceptical Essays". Book by Bertrand Russell, Ch. 12: Free Thought and Official Propaganda, 1928.

Moral indignation is one of the most harmful forces in the modern world, the more so as it can always be diverted to sinister uses by those who control propaganda.

Bertrand Russell
Use, World, Moral
Bertrand Russell (1960). “Sceptical Essays”

The life of man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long.

Bertrand Russell
Life, Pain, Night
Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.115, Simon and Schuster

The man who pursues happiness wisely will aim at the possession of a number of subsidiary interests in addition to those central ones upon which his life is built.

Bertrand Russell
Men, Numbers, Life Is
Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.134, Lulu Press, Inc

The legacy of Greece to Western philosophy is Western philosophy.

Bertrand Russell
Philosophy, Legacy, Western

Official morality has always been oppressive and negative: it has said "thou shalt not," and has not troubled to investigate the effect of activities not forbidden by the code.

Bertrand Russell
Negative, Morality, Said
Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.99, Psychology Press

The immense majority of intellectually eminent men disbelieve in the Christian religion, but they conceal the fact in public, because they are afraid of losing their incomes.

Bertrand Russell
Christian, Men, Religion
Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.169, Psychology Press

There is a possibility in human minds of something mysterious as the night-wind, deep as the sea, calm as the stars, and strong as Death, a mystic contemplation, the “intellectual love of God.” Those who have known it cannot believe in wars any longer, or in any kind of hot struggle. If I could give to others what has come to me in this way, I could make them too feel the futility of fighting. But I do not know how to communicate it: when I speak, they stare, applaud, or smile, but do not understand.

Bertrand Russell
Strong, Stars, War
Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.319, Routledge

One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it.

Bertrand Russell
Men, Religion, Atheism
"Why I Am Not a Christian" (1927)

Laughter is the most inexpensive and most effective wonder drug. Laughter is a universal medicine.

Bertrand Russell
Laughter, Medicine, Drug

Change is scientific; progress is ethical; change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy.

Bertrand Russell
Change, Science, History
Bertrand Russell, Robert Edward Egner (1961). “The basic writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959”

The world in which we live can be understood as a result of muddle and accident; but if it is the outcome of deliberate purpose, the purpose must have been that of a fiend. For my part, I find accident a less painful and more plausible hypothesis.

Bertrand Russell
Religion, Purpose, World
Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.93, Simon and Schuster

Thinking you know when in fact you don't is a fatal mistake, to which we are all prone

Bertrand Russell
Mistake, Thinking, Facts
Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.66, Routledge

We all have a tendency to think that the world must conform to our prejudices. The opposite view involves some effort of thought, and most people would die sooner than think in fact they do so.

Bertrand Russell
Thinking, Views, Opposites
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Mortals and Others”, p.6, Routledge

What else is there to make life tolerable? We stand on the shore of an ocean, crying to the night and to emptiness. Sometimes a voice of one drowning, and in a moment the silence returns. The world seems to me quite dreadful, the unhappiness of many people is very great, and I often wonder how they all endure it. It is usually the central thing around which their lives are built, and I suppose if they did not live most of their lives in the things of the moment, they would not be able to go on.

Bertrand Russell
Life, Ocean, Night

What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer

Bertrand Russell
Attitude, Needs, Inquiry
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.35, Routledge

Government can easily exist without laws, but law cannot exist without government.

Bertrand Russell
Government, Law

I don't like the spirit of socialism - I think freedom is the basis of everything.

Bertrand Russell
Thinking, Spirit, Socialism
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Autobiography”, p.286, Routledge

Herd pressure is to be judged by two things: first, its intensity, and second, its direction.

Bertrand Russell
Two, Pressure, Firsts
Bertrand Russell (2013). “Education and the Social Order”, p.62, Routledge

Artists are on the average less happy than men of science.

Bertrand Russell
Men, Artist, Average
Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.85, Lulu Press, Inc

Unhappy business men, I am convinced, would increase their happiness more by walking six miles every day than by any conceivable change of philosophy.

Bertrand Russell
Philosophy, Men, Unhappy

I am myself a dissenter from all known religions, and I hope that every kind of religious belief will die out.

Bertrand Russell
Religious, Atheist, Religion
Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.125, Psychology Press

People will tell us that without the consolations of religion they would be intolerably unhappy. So far as this is true, it is a coward's argument. Nobody but a coward would consciously choose to live in a fool's paradise. When a man suspects his wife of infidelity, he is not thought the better of for shutting his eyes to the evidence. And I cannot see why ignoring evidence should be contemptible in one case and admirable in the other.

Bertrand Russell
Eye, Men, People
Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.546, Psychology Press

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