1,551 Quotes by Bertrand Russell

Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attributable to science, which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century.

What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer

Righteousness cannot be born until self-righteousness is dead.

It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living.

Real life is, to most men, a long second best, a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible.

My own view on religion is . . . It helped in early days to fix the calendar, and . . . to chronicle eclipses . . . These two services I am prepared to acknowledge.

Upon hearing via Littlewood an exposition on the theory of relativity: To think I have spent my life on absolute muck.

It must not be supposed that the subjective elements are any less 'real' than the objective elements; they are only less important... because they do not point to anything beyond ourselves...

A man is rational in proportion as his intelligence informs and controls his desires.