Admiration of the proletariat, like that of dams, power stations, and aeroplanes, is part of the ideology of the machine age. – 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
Philosophers, for the most part, are constitutionally timid, and dislike the unexpected. Few of them would be genuinely happy as pirates or burglars. Accordingly they invent systems which make the future calculable, at least in its main outlines. – Bertrand Russell
To teach how to live with uncertainty, yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy can do. – Bertrand Russell
The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself. – Bertrand Russell
Sin is geographical. – Bertrand Russell
If one man offers you democracy and another offers you a bag of grain, at what stage of starvation will you prefer the grain to the vote? – Bertrand Russell
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons. – Bertrand Russell
Undoubtedly the desire for food has been and still is one of the main causes of political events. – Bertrand Russell
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic. – Bertrand Russell
Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little; it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover. – Bertrand Russell
Common sense, however it tries, cannot avoid being surprised from time to time. – Bertrand Russell
The best practical advice I can give to the present generation is to practice the virtue which the Christians call love. – Bertrand Russell
The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt. – Bertrand Russell
We have two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice and another which we practice but seldom preach. – Bertrand Russell
The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours. – Bertrand Russell
If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years. – Bertrand Russell
To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom. – Bertrand Russell
Those who fear life are already three parts dead. – Bertrand Russell
I’ve made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I’m convinced of the opposite. – Bertrand Russell
