Bertrand Russell

"Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons."

"One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and to preserve oneself, but anything beyond this is voluntary submission to tyranny."

"If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it."

"Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth."

"The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts."

"No one gossips about other people's secret virtues."

"It is a preposterous assumption that because a man is born in England, all his opinions on non-technical subjects should be identical with those of his neighbors."

"I am inclined to agree with those who think that the main business of education is not to teach men to think, but to teach them what to think."

"Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves."

"Cruelty to animals is one of the most deplorable habits to which mankind is addicted."

"The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not absurdly wrong."

"The greatest harm good people can do is to make people despair of improvement."

"I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world."

"Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so."

"If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion."

"Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so."

"The widespread reluctance to face the fact that the world is getting worse is perhaps the most hopeful sign of human decency."

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

"Dogmatism and skepticism are both, to my mind, quite out of place in the business of everyday life."

"I wish to propose for the reader's favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive."

"The essence of the liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held."

"It is the inevitable effect of religion upon society to put intelligence at a disadvantage."

"A man should as a rule be honest with the public, but not necessarily with those who are themselves dishonest."

"In America, everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors."

"Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires."

"When you are learning to cook, you must have the courage to make mistakes and to get messy."

"The average student is more mentally lively, more interested in novelties and fundamentals, more disdainful of conventional shibboleths, than the average don."

"I believe in the value of kindness and good faith towards all living creatures."

"The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life."

"What science cannot tell us, mankind cannot know."