1,551 Quotes by Bertrand Russell

Tobacco . . . is not prohibited in the Scriptures, though, as Samuel Butler points out, St. Paul would no doubt have denounced it if he had known of it.

The Ten Commandments should be headed like an examination paper: No more than six to be attempted.

The discipline in your life should be one determined by your own desires and your own needs, not put upon you by society or authority.

It will be found, as men grow more tolerant in their instincts, that many uniformities now insisted upon are useless and even harmful.

Philosophy, for Plato, is a kind of vision, the 'vision of truth'...Everyone who has done any kind of creative work has experienced, in a greater or less degree, the state of mind in which, after long labour, truth or beauty appears, or seems to appear, in a sudden glory - it may only be about some small matter, or it may be about the universe. I think that most of the best creative work, in art, in science, in literature, and in philosophy, has been a result of just such a moment.

The resistance to a new idea increases by the square of its importance.

Unfortunately, however, power is sweet, and the man who in the beginning seeks power merely in order to have scope for his benevolence is likely, before long, to love the power for its own sake.

My first advice on how not to grow old would be to choose you ancestors carefully.

One is always a little afraid of love, but above all, one is afraid of pain or causing pain.