Bertrand Russell

One of the great troubles of mankind is that people who have no brains are incapable of thinking that they have none.

The essence of the liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held but in how they are held: instead of intolerance, even when certain, it allows civil debate.

In the long run, the most important thing is the happiness of children.

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

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

The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

Love is wise, hatred is foolish.

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.

Remembering and understanding are not the same. Many people remember facts but do not understand them.

I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure—that is all that agnosticism means.

The life of man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain... One by one the foes are vanquished, one by one the foes are slain... And still the night lasts on.

My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race.

It is because I have spent many years in the study of philosophy that I am unable to say what it is that I believe.

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty—a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.

The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible.

A process which led from amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be a progress, though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known.

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

Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so.

Science can teach us how to prolong life, but not how to enjoy it.