Quotes - Bertrand Russell

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"Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approac
hable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable."
"The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge."
"Real life is, to most men, a long second-best, a perpetual compromise between t
he ideal and the possible; but the world of pure reason knows no compromise, no
practical limitations, no barrier to the creative activity."
"The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is
not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to
most civilized men."
"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the
things you have long taken for granted."
"Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim."
"Three passions simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life; the lon
ging for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering o
f mankind."
"To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts d
ead."
"Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happ
iness."
"Mathematics, rightly viewed, posses not only truth, but supreme beauty - a beau
ty cold and austere, like that of sculpture."
"To one, science is an exalted goddess, to another it is a cow which provides hi
m with butter."
"It is the preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents
men from living freely and nobly."
"Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once
eccentric."
"The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certa
in of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
"Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education."
"The most valuable things in life are not measured in monetary terms. The really
important things are not houses and lands, stocks and bonds, automobiles and re
al state, but friendships, trust, confidence, empathy, mercy, love and faith."
"Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is m
erciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought
looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and fre
e, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man."
"The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and not merely
as a means to other things, are knowledge, art, instinctive happiness, and rela
tions of friendship or affection."
"There will still be things that machines cannot do. They will not produce great
art or great literature or great philosophy; they will not be able to discover
the secret springs of happiness in the human heart; they will know nothing of lo
ve and friendship."
"It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions make
s it impossible to earn a living."
"It is the things for which there is no evidence that are believed with passion.
"
"The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good grou
nd exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder's lack of rational co
nviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.
"
"The time that you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."
"What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is t
he exact opposite."
"I must, before I die, find some way to say the essential thing that is in me, t
hat I have never said yet. I want to stand at the rim of the world, and peer in
to the darkness beyond, and see a little more than others have seen of the stran
ge shapes of mystery that inhabit that unknown night ... I want to bring bac
k into the world of men some little bit of wisdom. There is a little wisdom in
the world; Heraclitus, Spinoza, and a saying here and there. I want to add to it
, even if only ever so little."
- Letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell
"A habit of basing convictions upon evidence, and of giving to them only that de
gree or certainty which the evidence warrants, would, if it became general, cure
most of the ills from which the world suffers."
"I wanted certainty in the kind of way in which people want religious faith. I t
hought that certainty is more likely to be found in mathematics than elsewhere.
But I discovered that many mathematical demonstrations, which my teachers expect
ed me to accept, were full of fallacies, and that, if certainty were indeed disc
overable in mathematics, it would be in a new field of mathematics, with more so
lid foundations than those that had hitherto been thought secure. But as the wor
k proceeded, I was continually reminded of the fable about the elephant and the
tortoise. having constructed an elephant upon which the mathematical world could
rest, I found the elephant tottering, and proceeded to construct a tortoise to
keep the elephant from falling. But the tortoise was no more secure than the ele
phant, and after some twenty years of very arduous toil, I came to the conclusio
n that there was nothing more that I could do in the way of making mathematical
knowledge indubitable."
"I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I
shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine."
"All movements go too far. "
"If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize
it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe
it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for ac
ting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evi
dence. The origin of myths is explained in this way."
"There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge."