424 quotes
I do not think that the real reason why people accept religion has anything to do with argumentation. They accept religion on emotional grounds. One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous. So I am told; I have not noticed it.
Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)
In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word "experience" have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word. It is to be feared, however, that if the word is avoided the confusions of thought with which it has been associated may persist.
On the Nature of Acquaintance: Neutral Monism (1914)
There is, in fact, an element of sour grapes in Stoicism. We can't be happy, but we can be good; let us therefore pretend that, so long as we are good, it doesn't matter being unhappy. This doctrine is heroic, and, in a bad world, useful; but it is neither quite true nor, in a fundamental sense, quite sincere.
A History of Western Philosophy (1945)
There is a further advantage [to hydrogen bombs]: the supply of uranium in the planet is very limited, and it might be feared that it would be used up before the human race was exterminated, but now that the practically unlimited supply of hydrogen can be utilized, there is considerable reason to hope that homo sapiens may put an end to himself, to the great advantage of such less ferocious animals as may survive. But it is time to return to less cheerful topics.
Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948)
Authority and the Individual (1949), p. 37
Skepticism with regard to the senses had troubled Greek philosophers from a very early stage... The Sophists, notably Protagoras and Gorgias, had been led by the ambiguities and apparent contradictions of sense-perception to a subjectivism not unlike Hume's.
We thus have a kind of see-saw: first, pure persuasion leading to the conversion of a minority; then force exerted to secure that the rest of the community shall be exposed to the right propaganda; and finally a genuine belief on the part of the great majority, which makes the use of force again unnecessary.
Power: A New Social Analysis (1938)
The prospect for the human race is sombre beyond all precedent. Mankind are faced with a clear-cut alternative: either we shall all perish, or we shall have to acquire some slight degree of common sense. A great deal of new political thinking will be necessary if utter disaster is to be averted.
The Bomb and Civilization (1945)
All movements go too far.
Unpopular Essays (1950)
I hold all knowledge that is concerned with things that actually exist – all that is commonly called Science – to be of very slight value compared to the knowledge which, like philosophy and mathematics, is concerned with ideal and eternal objects, and is freed from this miserable world which God has made.
I must before I die, find some way to say the essential thing that is in me, that I have never said yet – a thing that is not love or hate or pity or scorn, but the very breath of life, fierce and coming from far away, bringing into human life the vastness and fearful passionless force of non-human things...
My Philosophical Development (1959)
It appeared to me obvious that the happiness of mankind should be the aim of all action, and I discovered to my surprise that there were those who thought otherwise. Belief in happiness, I found, was called Utilitarianism, and was merely one among a number of ethical theories. I adhered to it after this discovery.
The true function of logic ... as applied to matters of experience ... is analytic rather than constructive; taken a priori, it shows the possibility of hitherto unsuspected alternatives more often than the impossibility of alternatives which seemed prima facie possible. Thus, while it liberates imagination as to what the world may be, it refuses to legislate as to what the world is.
Our Knowledge of the External World (1914)
It is not by delusion, however exalted, that mankind can prosper, but only by unswerving courage in the pursuit of truth.
Attributed
Yes, if you happen to be interested in philosophy and good at it, but not otherwise – but so does bricklaying. Anything you're good at contributes to happiness.
Attributed
None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.
Misattributed
Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who'll get the blame.
Attributed to Russell in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists (2007)
If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one, but the wise man is foolish to give them the lie.
Misattributed
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
Misattributed
There's a Bible on that shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire – poison and antidote.
Attributed In Kenneth Harris Talking To: Bertrand Russell (1971)