RUSSELL, BERTRAND : Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : An individual human existence should be like a river: small at first, narrowly contained within its banks, and rushing passionately past rocks and over waterfalls. Gradually the river grows wider, the banks recede, the waters flow more quietly, and in the end, without any visible break, they become merged in the sea, and painlessly lose their individual being.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : Every advance in civilization has been denounced as unnatural - while it was recent.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : Sin is geographical.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: 'The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair.' In these words he epitomized the history of the human race.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: 'The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair.' In these words he epitomized the history of the human race.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: 'The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair.' In these words he epitomized the history of the human race.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : Every advance in civilization has been denounced as unnatural while it was recent.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that He would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt His existence.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : William James used to preach the 'will-to-believe.' For my part, I should wish to preach the 'will-to-doubt.' None of our beliefs are quite true. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : It's a healthy thing to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : The central problem of our age is how to act decisively in the absence of certainty.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : Real life is, to most men ... a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : There was never any reason to believe in any innate superiority of the male, except his superior muscle.
RUSSELL, BERTRAND : Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know.