X

Sort by

Quote length

Sentiment

Change font

Change background

Bertrand Russell Inspirational Quotes (631)

Page 1 of 27
Filter & Style
Image
There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.
Bertrand Russell
Image
We shall say that we have acquaintance with anything of which we are directly aware, without the intermediary of any process of inference of any knowledge of truths.
Bertrand Russell
Image
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.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Gradually, by selective breeding, the congenital differences between rulers and ruled will increase until they become almost different species. A revolt of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organized insurrection of sheep against the practice of eating mutton.
Bertrand Russell
Image
No opinion has ever been too errant to become a creed.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The late F. W. H. Myers used to tell how he asked a man at a dinner table what he thought would happen to him when he died. The man tried to ignore the question, but, on being pressed, replied: Oh well, I suppose I shall inherit eternal bliss, but I wish you wouldn't talk about such unpleasant subjects.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Boys and young men acquire readily the moral sentiments of their social milieu, whatever these sentiments may be.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty-a beauty cold and austere ... yet sublimely pure and capable of stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Science tells us what we can know, but what we can know is little, and if we forget how much we cannot know we become insensitive to many things of great importance.
Bertrand Russell
Image
I do so hate to leave this world.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The newspapers at one time said that I was dead but after carefully examining the evidence I came to the conclusion that this statement was false.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Arithmetic must be discovered in just the same sense in which Columbus discovered the West Indies, and we no more create numbers than he created the Indians.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Affection cannot be created it can only be liberated.
Bertrand Russell
Image
All human activity is prompted by desire.
Bertrand Russell
Image
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.
Bertrand Russell
Image
(on A History of Western Philosophy) I was sometimes accused by reviewers of writing not a true history but a biased account of the events that I arbitrarily chose to write of. But to my mind, a man without a bias cannot write interesting history - if, indeed, such man exists.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The desire to understand the world and the desire to reform it are the two great engines of progress, without which human society would stand still or retrogress.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.
Bertrand Russell
Image
A life devoted to science is therefore a happy life, and its happiness is derived from the very best sources that are open to dwellers on this troubled and passionate planet.
Bertrand Russell
Image
It is not by delusion, however exalted, that mankind can prosper, but only by unswerving courage in the pursuit of truth.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Moral progress has consisted in the main of protest against cruel customs, and of attempts to enlarge human sympathy.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Dr. Arnold . . . the admired reformer of public schools, came across some cranks who thought it a mistake to flog boys. Anyone reading his outburst of furious indignation against this opinion will be forced to the conclusion that he enjoyed inflicting floggings.
Bertrand Russell
Image
And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence
Bertrand Russell
Image
Your writing is never as good as you hoped but never as bad as you feared.
Bertrand Russell
Previous
Next