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Bertrand Russell quotes
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“A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“One of the most powerful of all our passions is the desire to be admired and respected. As things stand, admiration and respect are given to the man who seems to be rich. This is the chief reason why people wish to be rich. The actual goods...”
Bertrand Russell
,
Sceptical Essays
“A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something that he can understand.”
Bertrand Russell
,
A History of Western Philosophy
“What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite.”
Bertrand Russell
,
Sceptical Essays
“Worry is a form of fear, and all forms of fear produce fatigue.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.”
Bertrand Russell
,
A History of Western Philosophy
“Unless a man has been taught what to do with success after getting it, the achievement of it must inevitably leave him a prey to boredom.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“No satisfaction based upon self-deception is solid, and, however unpleasant the truth may be, it is better to face it once for all, to get used to it, and to proceed to build your life in accordance with it.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“All that alcohol does for them is to liberate the sense of sin, which reason suppresses in saner moments .”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“The man who can centre his thoughts and hopes upon something transcending self can find a certain peace in the ordinary troubles of life which is impossible to the pure egoist.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“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, and is likely to interfere with happiness...”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“One of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important, and that to take a holiday would bring all kinds of disaster.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilisation, and at present very few people have reached this level.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.”
Bertrand Russell
,
A History of Western Philosophy
“We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side one which we preach but do not practise, and another which we practise but seldom preach.”
Bertrand Russell
,
Sceptical Essays
“The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things, or, if it is night, about nothing at all.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“Conventional people are roused to fury by departures from convention, largely because they regard such departures as a criticism of themselves.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“If we were all given by magic the power to read each other's thoughts I suppose the first effect would be that almost all friendships would be dissolved”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“don't over-estimate your own merits.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“remember that your motives are not always as altruistic as they seem to yourself.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“any pleasure that does no harm to other people is to be valued.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are all embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.”
Bertrand Russell
,
Sceptical Essays
“the typical modern man desires to get with it is more money, with a view to ostentation, splendour, and the outshining of those who have hitherto been his equals.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“to be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“don't expect others to take as much interest in you as you do yourself.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“don't imagine that most people give enough thought to you to have any special desire to persecute you.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder’s lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.”
Bertrand Russell
,
Sceptical Essays
“Boredom is essentially a thwarted desire for events, not necessarily pleasant ones, but just occurrences such as will enable the victim of ennui to know one day from another. The opposite of boredom, in a word, is not pleasure, but excitement.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possibilities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Problems of Philosophy
“Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attributable to science, which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century.”
Bertrand Russell
,
A History of Western Philosophy
“All the conditions of happiness are realised in the life of the man of science.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“For my own part, speaking personally, I have found the happiness of parenthood greater than any other that I have experienced.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Problems of Philosophy
“If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“Boredom is therefore a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“Where the environment is stupid or prejudiced or cruel, it is a sign of merit to be out of harmony with it.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“To prevent the perpetuation of poverty is necessary if the benefits of machine production are to accrue in any degree to those most in need of them; but what is the use of making everybody rich if the rich themselves are miserable?”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“Life is too short to be interested in everything, but it is good to be interested in as many things as are necessary to fill our days.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“I dislike Nietzsche because he likes the contemplation of pain, because he erects conceit into a duty, because the men whom he most admires are conquerors, whose glory is cleverness in causing men to die.”
Bertrand Russell
,
A History of Western Philosophy
“It is very easy to become so absorbed in our own pursuits, our own circle, our own type of work, that we forget how small a part this is of the total of human activity and how many things in the world are entirely unaffected by what we do.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“'patriotism,' i.e., a willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.”
Bertrand Russell
,
Sceptical Essays
“But with the introduction of agriculture mankind entered upon a long period of meanness, misery, and madness, from which they are only now being freed by the beneficent operation of the machine.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Problems of Philosophy
“The pleasure of work is open to anyone who can develop some specialised skill, provided that he can get satisfaction from the exercise of his skill without demanding universal applause.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Conquest of Happiness
“Every proposition which we can understand must be composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted.”
Bertrand Russell
,
The Problems of Philosophy
view all 62 quotes
Related topics
narcissism
happiness
tyranny
life
science
philosophy
work
interest
satisfaction
boredom
knowledge
reason
experience
intelligence
fear
understanding
pleasure
truth
success
humility
Related sources
The Conquest of Happiness
(42)
Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays
(2)
A History of Western Philosophy
(7)
Sceptical Essays
(6)
The Problems of Philosophy
(5)
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