Quote

A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.

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
Long
Courage
Kindliness
Good
Knowledge
Uttered
Men
Free
Humanist
World
Words
Atheist
Past
Ignorant
Doe
Kindness
Need
Intelligence
Regretful
Needs
Motivational
Hankering

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

Image
We have almost reached the point where praise of rationality is held to mark a man as an old fogey regrettably surviving from a bygone age.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Through the greatness of the universe, which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.
Bertrand Russell
Image
But I simply can't stand a view limited to this earth, I feel life is so small unless it has windows into other worlds...I like mathematics largely because it is not human.
Bertrand Russell
Image
As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our trouble. . . . No Catholic, for instance, takes seriously the text which says that a Bishop should be the husband of one wife.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Ants and savages put strangers to death.
Bertrand Russell
Image
People seem good while they are oppressed, but they only wish to become oppressors in their turn: life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Clergymen almost necessarily fail in two ways as teachers of morals. They condemn acts which do no harm and they condone acts which do great harm.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The fundamental principle in the analysis of propositions containing descriptions is this: Every proposition which we can understand must be composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The psychology of adultery has been falsified by conventional morals, which assume, in monogamous countries, that attraction to one person cannot coexist with affection for another. Everybody knows that this is untrue.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Even if we could be certain that one of the world's religions were perfectly true, given the sheer number of conflicting faiths on offer, every believer should expect damnation purely as a matter of probability.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Neither the Church nor modern public opinion condemns petting, provided it stops short at a certain point.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Joy of life... depends upon a certain spontaneity in regard to sex. Where sex is repressed, only work remains, and a gospel of work for work's sake never produced any work worth doing.
Bertrand Russell
Image
No man treats a motorcar as foolishly as he treats another human being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying behavior to sin he does not say, 'You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go.' He attempts to find out what is wrong and to set it right.
Bertrand Russell
Image
One of the most interesting and harmful delusions to which men and nations can be subjected is that of imagining themselves special instruments of the Divine Will.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Sir Arthur Eddington deduces religion from the fact that atoms do not obey the laws of mathematics. Sir James Jeans deduces it from the fact that they do.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Right discipline consists, not in external compulsion, but in the habits of mind which lead spontaneously to desirable rather than undesirable activities.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Plato has dramatic strength ... but is quite unaware of the strength of the argument against his position ... and allows himself to be grossly unfair in arguing against it.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Orthodoxy is the grave of intelligence, no matter what orthodoxy it may be.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Extreme hopes are born of extreme misery, and in such a world hopes could only be irrational.
Bertrand Russell