Quote

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

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
Religion
Often
Makes
Noticed
Thing
Virtuous
Men
Attack
Atheism
Told
Wrong

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

Image
When we perceive any object of a familiar kind, much of what appears subjectively to be immediately given is really derived from past experience.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Upon hearing via Littlewood an exposition on the theory of relativity: To think I have spent my life on absolute muck.
Bertrand Russell
Image
It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves great results. The wish to preserve the past rather that the hope of creatingfuture dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The Stoic assures us that what is happening now will happen over and over again. [If so, Providende would] ultimately grow weary through despair.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Dogma demands authority, rather than intelligent thought, as the source of opinion it requires persecution of heretics and hostility to unbelievers it asks of its disciples that they should inhibit natural kindliness in favor of systematic hatred.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The difficulty is old, but none the less real. An omnipotent being who created a world containing evil not due to sin must Himself be at least partially evil.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The purpose of education is to teach a defense against eloquence.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Folly is perennial and yet the human race has survived.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Always remember that true happiness is not in getting what you want, but wanting what you already have. He who dies with the most toys is still dead. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
Bertrand Russell
Image
When you want to teach children to think, you begin by treating them seriously when they are little, giving them responsibilities, talking to them candidly, providing privacy and solitude for them, and making them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the beginning. That’s if you want to teach them to think.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
Bertrand Russell
Image
It is only theory that makes men completely incautious.
Bertrand Russell
Image
It is entirely clear that there is only one way in which great wars can be permanently prevented, and that is the establishment of an international government with a monopoly of serious armed force.
Bertrand Russell
Image
I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of WORK, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in the organised diminution of work.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The true spirit of delight...is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The coward wretch whose hand and heart Can bear to torture aught below, Is ever first to quail and start From the slightest pain or equal foe.
Bertrand Russell
Image
We must be sceptical even of our scepticism.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The governors of the world believe, and have always believed, that virtue can only be taught by teaching falsehood, and that any man who knew the truth would be wicked. I disbelieve this, absolutely and entirely. I believe that love of truth is the basis of all real virtue, and that virtues based upon lies can only do harm.
Bertrand Russell
Image
It is no credit to the orthodox that they do not now believe all the absurdities that were believed 150 years ago. The gradual emasculation of the Christian doctrine has been effected in spite of the most vigorous resistance, and solely as the result of the onslaughts of freethinkers.
Bertrand Russell