Bertrand Russell

Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, the chief glory of man.

— Bertrand Russell

Thoughts is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible; thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit.

— Bertrand Russell

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

— Bertrand Russell

A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.

— Bertrand Russell

The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilized men.

— Bertrand Russell

I had supposed until that time that it was quite common for parents to love their children, but the war persuaded me that it is a rare exception. I had supposed that most people liked money better than almost anything else, but I discovered that they liked destruction even better. I had supposed that intellectuals frequently loved truth, but I found here again that not ten per cent of them prefer truth to popularity.

— Bertrand Russell

To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

— Bertrand Russell

For my part I distrust all generalizations about women, favorable and unfavorable, masculine and feminine, ancient and modern; all alike, I should say, result from paucity of experience.

— Bertrand Russell

Our instinctive emotions are those that we have inherited from a much more dangerous world, and contain, therefore, a larger portion of fear than they should.

— Bertrand Russell

I am paid by the word, so I always write the shortest words possible.

— Bertrand Russell

The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holders lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.

— Bertrand Russell

Why should I allow that same God to tell me how to raise my kids, who had to drown His own?

— Bertrand Russell

In the visible world, the Milky Way is a tiny fragment; within this fragment, the solar system is an infinitesimal speck, and of this speck our planet is a microscopic dot. On this dot, tiny lumps of impure carbon and water, of complicated structure, with somewhat unusual physical and chemical properties, crawl about for a few years, until they are dissolved again into the elements of which they are compounded. They divide their time between labour designed to postpone the moment of dissolution for themselves and frantic struggles to hasten it for others of their kind.

— Bertrand Russell