1,551 Quotes by Bertrand Russell

[One] must look into hell before one has any right to speak of heaven.

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.

Measures of sterilization should, in my opinion, be very definitely confined to persons who are mentally defective

There are some simple maxims which I think might be commended to writers of expository prose. First: never use a long word if a short word will do. So, if you want to make a statement with a great many qualifications, put some of the qualifications in separate sentences. Third: do not let the beginning of your sentence lead the reader to an expectation which is contradicted by the end.

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.

The essence of life is doing things for their own sakes.

This idea of weapons of mass extermination is utterly horrible and is something which no one with one spark of humanity can tolerate.

None of our beliefs are quite true; all have at least a penumbra of vagueness and error.

There is little of the true philosophic spirit in Aquinas. He does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever the argument may lead.