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By self-interest, Man has become gregarious, but in instinct he has remained to a great extent solitary hence the need of religion and morality to reinforce self-interest.

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
Religion
Gregarious
Become
Remained
Self
Hence
Need
Solitary
Great
Extent
Needs
Instinct
Men
Morality
Interest
Reinforce

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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In attempting to understand the elements out of which mental phenomena are compounded, it is of the greatest importance to remember that from the protozoa to man there is nowhere a very wide gap either in structure or in behaviour. From this fact it is a highly probable inference that there is also nowhere a very wide mental gap.
Bertrand Russell
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There are three ways of securing a society that shall be stable as regards population. The first is that of birth control, the second that of infanticide or really destructive wars, and the third that of general misery except for a powerful minority.
Bertrand Russell
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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
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Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives.
Bertrand Russell
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The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
Bertrand Russell
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Right conduct can never, except by some rare accident, be promoted by ignorance or hindered by knowledge.
Bertrand Russell
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There are two motives for reading a book one, that you enjoy it the other, that you can boast about it.
Bertrand Russell
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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
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Broadly speaking, Protestants like to be good and have invented theology in order to keep themselves so, whereas Catholics like to be bad and have invented theology in order to keep their neighbors good. Hence, the social character of Catholicism and the individual character of Protestantism.
Bertrand Russell
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I conclude that, while it is true that science cannot decide questions of value, that is because they cannot be intellectually decided at all, and lie outside the realm of truth and falsehood. Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.
Bertrand Russell
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Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.
Bertrand Russell
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Love cannot exists as a duty to tell a child that it ought to love its parents and its brother and sisters is utterly useless, if not worse.
Bertrand Russell
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A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.
Bertrand Russell
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My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race.
Bertrand Russell
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Human life, its growth, its hopes, fears, loves, et cetera, are the result of accidents
Bertrand Russell
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I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached.
Bertrand Russell
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Machines deprive us of two things which are certainly important ingredients of human happiness, namely, spontaneity and variety.
Bertrand Russell
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Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.
Bertrand Russell
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The man who has fed the chicken every day throughout its life at last wrings its neck instead, showing that more refined views as to the uniformity of nature would have been useful to the chicken.
Bertrand Russell
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The late F. W. H. Myers used to tell how he asked a man at a dinner table what he thought would happen to him when he died. The man tried to ignore the question, but, on being pressed, replied: Oh well, I suppose I shall inherit eternal bliss, but I wish you wouldn't talk about such unpleasant subjects.
Bertrand Russell