Russell, Bertrand

"Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric."

"The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation."

"What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite of the will to believe."

"Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty."

"The fundamental cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt."

"One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny."

"Do not imagine that if you were to violate Nature's laws, Nature would in the least object or feel embarrassed."

"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted."

"Science is what you know well enough to teach to a computer. Everything else is art."

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

"What would society be without love? Reduced to atoms."

"If all the arguments which religious people employ in defence of their faith are to be of the kind that I have been considering, then it seems plain that the dispute is quite hopeless."

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

"The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists."

"Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true."

"I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong."

"The merit of having a purpose steadily in view, is the only merit of which human life is capable."

"One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important."

"The habit of judging people is a fatal bar to our 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."

"Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim."

"In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart."

"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."

"The time you feel lonely is when you most need to be by yourself."

"If you wish to become a philosopher, you must learn not to be frightened by absurdities."

"There is no heaven or afterlife for broken-down computers; that is a myth of the very old religions."

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

"Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change."

"Impulse, not intellect, is the moving force in human affairs."

"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."