Mathematics takes us into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual word, but every possible word, must conform. – Bertrand Russell
There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. – Bertrand Russell
Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom. – Bertrand Russell
Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires. – Bertrand Russell
Order, unity, and continuity are human inventions, just as truly as catalogues and encyclopedias. – Bertrand Russell
Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, Thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought is great and swift and free. – Bertrand Russell
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. – Bertrand Russell
There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less. – Bertrand Russell
To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead. – Bertrand Russell
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly. – Bertrand Russell
Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change. – Bertrand Russell
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence. – Bertrand Russell
It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this. – Bertrand Russell
Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves. – Bertrand Russell
The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. – Bertrand Russell
The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry. – Bertrand Russell
If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give. – Bertrand Russell
To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name. – Bertrand Russell
Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself. – Bertrand Russell
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
The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it. – Bertrand Russell
The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper. – Bertrand Russell