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Religions which have any very strong hold over men's actions have generally some instinctive basis.

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
Action
Religions
Men
Basis
Bases
Generally
Actions
Hold
Religion
Strong
Instinctive

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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.
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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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Nine-tenths of the activities of a modern Government are harmful therefore the worse they are performed, the better.
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Beware the man of the single book
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It is amusing to hear the modern Christian telling you how mild and rationalistic Christianity really is and ignoring the fact that all its mildness and rationalism is due to the teaching of men who in their own day were persecuted by all orthodox Christians.
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Next to worry probably one of the most potent causes of unhappiness is envy.
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We all have a tendency to think that the world must conform to our prejudices. The opposite view involves some effort of thought, and most people would die sooner than think in fact they do so.
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One is always a little afraid of love, but above all, one is afraid of pain or causing pain.
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A life which goes excessively against natural impulse is... likely to involve effects of strain that may be quite as bad as indulgence in forbidden impulses would have been. People who live a life which is unnatural beyond a point are likely to be filled with envy, malice and uncharitableness.
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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.
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With civilized men..., it is, I think, chiefly love of excitement which makes the populace applaud when war breaks out the emotion is exactly the same as at a football match, although the results are sometimes somewhat more serious.
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Why repeat the old errors, if there are so many new errors to commit?
Bertrand Russell
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Education, and the life of the mind generally, is a matter in which individual initiative is the chief thing needed the function of the state should begin and end with insistence on some kind of education, and, if possible, a kind which promotes mental individualism, not a kind which happens to conform to the prejudices of government officials.
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Reason may be a small force, but it is constant, and works always in one direction, while the forces of unreason destroy one another in futile strife.
Bertrand Russell
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Grasshopper always wrong in argument with chicken.
Bertrand Russell
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No rules, however wise, are a substitute for affection and tact.
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Religions that teach brotherly love have been used as an excuse for persecution, and our profoundest scientific insight is made into a means of mass destruction.
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We love our habits more than our income, often more than our life.
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A world full of happiness is not beyond human power to create the obstacles imposed by inanimate nature are not insuperable. The real obstacles lie in the heart of man, and the cure for these is a firm hope, informed and fortified by thought.
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Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake.
Bertrand Russell