Bertrand Russell

"What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the desire to understand."

"The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice."

"In the life of the spirit, time plays a different role."

"Submission and obedience are the only virtues known to despotism."

"The world in which we live is a very wonderful world."

"Art is the response to demand for entertainment, for the stimulation of our senses and imagination."

"The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge."

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

"Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives."

"Three passions have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind."

"The only cure for superstition is education."

"Do not fear to be thought strange in your questions or beliefs."

"What men want is not knowledge but certainty."

"Truths which are believed in feel quite different from truths which are merely thought of."

"The wise man doesn't believe in luck; he makes it."

"Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions."

"The quality that modern civilization must develop is a restless, relentless questioning of assumptions."

"Contempt for others is the ultimate contempt for oneself."

"The life of the spirit is the most concrete and the most real of all lives."

"Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions."

"Idealism is the noble toga that political mastermindedness wears."

"The capacity to think clearly is only the beginning of education."

"Fear is pain arising from the imagination of future evil."

"The world needs the kind of idealism that is willing to undertake concrete action."

"Humanity is in search of a way to live that reflects wisdom and true understanding."

"The root of the matter is a very simple and old-fashioned thing, a thing so simple that I am almost ashamed to say it for fear of being greeted with cynical smile."

"We are all inclined to think that we are not only right but morally superior to those who disagree with us."

"The problem is that we have a world which is increasingly interdependent."

"One of the difficulties about taking a simple view of politics is the complexity of modern economic relations."

"The only safe reason for doing anything is that it is the right thing to do."