Quotes by Bertrand Russel

Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.

The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy - I mean that if you are happy you will be good.

The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.

The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and not merely as means to other things, are knowledge, art, instinctive happiness, and relations of friendship or affection.

The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.

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.

The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.

The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.

There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.

This is one of those views which are so absolutely absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them.

This is patently absurd; but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.

Too little liberty brings stagnation and too much brings chaos.

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.

Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.
("Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic?", 1947)