Russell, Bertrand

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

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

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

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

"What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out."

"The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time."

"If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years."

"Do not expect the world to treat you well because you are virtuous; you might as well expect the law of gravitation to be suspended in your favour."

"A man should so live as if he were already dead."

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt."

"Change is scientific, progress is ethical; change is inevitable, while progress is a matter of controversy."

"The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved."

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

"The remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he really is very good, to an extent that one is constantly reminded of it."

"War does not determine who is right, only who is left."

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

"The quality of your life is determined by the quality of the questions you ask."

"To understand the actual world as it is, not as we should wish it to be, is the beginning of wisdom."

"The silent birth of the child of reason in the womb of empiricism is not yet consummated."

"Cruelty, on the whole, is not a deliberate diabolical choice, but something into which men fall when they cease to feel sympathy."

"Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure."

"In all this process, the individual is not nearly so important as he feels."

"You feel in your bones that something is cosmically unfair about broadcasting purpose-made data to zillions of people simultaneously."

"The person who says it is impossible should not interrupt the person doing it."

"Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: the fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate."

"The first virtue is to restrain the tongue; he approaches nearest to gods who is silence when he should be silent."

"Belief is a territorial emotion."

"I am told that I am a pessimist, but I do not think that I am. I think that the world is a very dark place, and that the future is very uncertain."

"The only true morality is that which is rooted in love, not in law."

"Every great intellectual effort is attended by some obscurity in language."