Quote

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

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Bertrand Russell
Age: 97 †
Born: 1872
Born: May 18
Died: 1970
Died: February 2
Analytic Philosopher
Autobiographer
Epistemologist
Essayist
Journalist
Logician
Mathematician
Metaphysician
Peace Activist
Philosopher
Tryleg
Bertrand Arthur William Russell
Russell
Bertrand Russell
3rd Earl Russell
Bertrand Russell
Earl Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell
3rd Earl Russell
Power
Throughout
Men
Vices
Drive
Ascetic
Seek
Asceticism
Pleasure
Condemn
Religion
Pleasures
History
Religions
Sense
Vice

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

Image
I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue.
Bertrand Russell
Image
This idea of weapons of mass extermination is utterly horrible and is something which no one with one spark of humanity can tolerate.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Worry is a form of fear.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Memory demands an image.
Bertrand Russell
Image
If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument... The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our imagination.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Common sense, however it tries, cannot avoid being surprised from time to time.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The man who suffers from a sense of sin is suffering from a particular kind of self-love. In all this vast universe the thing that appears to him of most importance is that he himself should be virtuous. It is a grave defect in certain forms of traditional religion that they have encouraged this particular kind of self-absorption.
Bertrand Russell
Image
It appeared to me that the dignity of which human existence is capable is not attainable by devotion to the mechanism of life , and that unless contemplation of eternal things is preserved, mankind will become no better than well-fed pigs.
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
In considering irregular appearances, there are certain very natural mistakes which must be avoided.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Respectability, regularity, and routine - the whole cast-iron discipline of a modern industrial society - have atrophied the artistic impulse, and imprisoned love so that it can no longer be generous and free and creative, but must be either stuffy or furtive.
Bertrand Russell
Image
A widespread belief is more often likely to be foolish than sensible.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Suppose atomic bombs had reduced the population of the world to one brother and sister should they let the human race die out?
Bertrand Russell
Image
If any philosopher had been asked for a definition of infinity, he might have produced some unintelligible rigmarole, but he would certainly not have been able to give a definition that had any meaning at all.
Bertrand Russell
Image
On the one hand, philosophy is to keep us thinking about things that we may come to know, and on the other hand to keep us modestly aware of how much that seems like knowledge isn't knowledge
Bertrand Russell
Image
Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more stupid than nature has made them.
Bertrand Russell
Image
It is not known why the Lord made the human body as he did, since one might suppose that omnipotence could have made it such as would not have shocked the nice people.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The habit of looking to the future and thinking that the whole meaning of the present lies in what it will bring forth is a pernicious one. There can be no value in the whole unless there is value in the parts.
Bertrand Russell
Image
If a philosophy is to bring happiness it should be inspired by kindly feelings. Marx pretended that he wanted the happiness of the proletariat what he really wanted was the unhappiness of the bourgeois.
Bertrand Russell
Image
How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty?
Bertrand Russell