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It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.

Bertrand Russell

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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
Necessary
Dragon
Doors
Threshold
Mankind
Dragons
Possible
Birthday
Age
Aging
Religion
Golden
Firsts
Door
Slay
First
Atheism
Guards

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To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.
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In emancipation from the fears that beset the slave of circumstance he will experience a profound joy, and through all the vicissitudes of his outward life he will remain in the depths of his being a happy man.
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Neither acquiescence in skepticism nor acquiescence in dogma is what education should produce.
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Is a man what he seems to the astronomer, a tiny lump of impure carbon and water crawling impotently on a small and unimportant planet? Or is he what he appears to Hamlet? Is he perhaps both as once?
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Curious learning not only makes unpleasant things less unpleasant but also makes pleasant things more pleasant.
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More important than the curriculum is the question of the methods of teaching and the spirit in which the teaching is given
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Another merit of home is that it preserves the diversity between individuals. If we were all alike, it might be convenient for the bureaucrat and the statistician, but it would be very dull, and would lead to a very unprogressive society.
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Human nature is so constructed that it gives affection most readily to those who seem least to demand it.
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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.
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I am allowed to use plain English because everybody knows that I could use mathematical logic if I chose.
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Each act of cruelty is eternally a part of the universe nothing that happens later can make that act good rather than bad, or can confer perfection on the whole of which it is a part.
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European travellers find the Japanese a smiling race.
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The pursuit of knowledge is, I think, mainly actuated by love of power. And so are all advances in scientific technique.
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It is likely that America will be more important during the next century or two, but after that it may well be the turn of China.
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I've always thought respectable people scoundrels, and I look anxiously at my face every morning for signs of my becoming a scoundrel.
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Fervent religious believers sacrifice pleasures of the body, but instead enjoy pleasures of the mind, including the joy of knowing that those men who didn't follow their religion would be tortured for eternity.
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To avoid the various foolish opinions to which mankind are prone, no superhuman genius is required. A few simple rules will keep you, not from all error, but from silly error.
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Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
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Bad philosophers may have a certain influence good philosophers, never.
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