424 quotes
Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.
I regard [religion] as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race.
Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? (1930)
The fundamental defect of fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them.
What is new in our time is the increased power of the authorities to enforce their prejudices.
I find that the whiter my hair becomes the more ready people are to believe what I say.
Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind (1960)
Most people, at a crisis, feel more loyalty to their nation than to their class.
Power: A New Social Analysis (1938)
An irrational fear should never be simply let alone, but should be gradually overcome by familiarity with its fainter forms.
Of all evils of war the greatest is the purely spiritual evil: the hatred, the injustice, the repudiation of truth, the artificial conflict.
Justice in War-Time (1916)
Power may be defined as the production of intended effects.
Power: A New Social Analysis (1938)
To realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.
Our Knowledge of the External World (1914)
The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.
Sceptical Essays (1928)
Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted.
The hopes which inspire communism are, in the main, as admirable as those instilled by the Sermon on the Mount, but they are held as fanatically and are as likely to do as much harm.
The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920)
I believe that love of truth is the basis of all real virtue, and that virtues based upon lies can only do harm.
The Prospects of Industrial Civilization (1923)
The net result is to substitute articulate hesitation for inarticulate certainty.
An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (1940)
I think all the great religions of the world - Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islam, and Communism - both untrue and harmful.
Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)
If I were granted omnipotence, and millions of years to experiment in, I should not think Man much to boast of as the final result of all my efforts.
Religion and Science (1935)
Man now needs for his salvation only one thing: to open his heart to joy, and leave fear to gibber through the glimmering darkness of a forgotten past.
New Hopes for a Changing World (1951)
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.
All the time that he can spare from the adornment of his person, he devotes to the neglect of his duties.