Russell, Bertrand

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

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

"One should respect public opinion only to the extent necessary to avoid being starved or having one's children turned out of school."

"On the subject of excretion, I am in favor of a certain robustness of language."

"I say quite deliberately that the present war is a war against mankind and that every person who prizes freedom and justice should wage war against this war."

"The stupid, by contrast to the intelligent, are satisfied with themselves."

"The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself."

"A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men."

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

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

"Contempt precedes conflict and is most famously witnessed in Aristotle's observation that the greater intelligence sees less intelligent minds as contemptible."

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

"What is considered impossible one day may be convention the next."

"One should as a rule respect public opinion... but anything beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny."

"It is a mistake to suppose that the task of ethics is to free men from superstition."

"The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and not merely as a means to other things, are knowledge, art, instinctive human affections, and perhaps other things of a similar kind."

"Man needs not to be liberated from nature, but from the myths about nature."

"Science is something we do to find truth; not something we do to prove that our opinions are correct."

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

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

"The fundamental defect of fathers is that they want their children to resemble them."

"Do not write so that you may be understood, but so that you cannot possibly be misunderstood."

"Is patriotism a virtue? I would answer roundly, No. Patriotism, in the sense of devotion to a particular nation, is not a virtue."

"In the sphere of public affairs, right opinion can do much, and wrong opinion can do much harm."

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

"Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor."

"One should respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to prevent one's children from being turned out of school; but anything beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny."

"Envy is a more universal and deep-rooted passion than admiration."

"I have always thought it a mistake to judge men of science by non-scientific standards."

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