1,551 Quotes by Bertrand Russell

Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

To us it seems that West-European civilization is civilization, but this is a narrow view.

I greatly doubt whether the men who become pirate chiefs are those who are filled with retrospective terror of their fathers, or whether Napoleon , at Austerlitz, really felt that he was getting even with Madame Mère. I know nothing of the mother of Attila , but I rather suspect that she spoilt the little darling, who subsequently found the world irritating because it sometimes resisted his whims.

Broadly speaking, we are in the middle of a race between human skill as a means and human folly as an end.

One of the most powerful of all our passions is the desire to be admired and respected.

Awareness of universals is called conceiving, and a universal of which we are aware is called a concept.

There was, I think, never any reason to believe in any innate superiority of the male, except his superior muscle.

Our use of phrase 'The Dark ages' to cover the period from 699 to 1,000 marks our undue concentration on Western Europe...

One of the most interesting and harmful delusions to which men and nations can be subjected is that of imagining themselves special instruments of the Divine Will.