Bertrand Russell

"If our logic is to find the common world intelligible, it must not be hostile, but must be inspired by a genuine acceptance such as is not usually to be found among metaphysicians."

"In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted."

"It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so,it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that gaurds the door,and this dragon is religion"

"Government can easily exist without laws, but law cannot exist without government."

"I am sometimes shocked by the blasphemies of those who think themselves pious--for instance, the nuns who never take a bath without wearing a bathrobe all the time. When asked why, since no man can see them, they reply: "Oh, but you forget the good God." Apparently they conceive of the Deity add a Peeping Tom, whose omnipotence enables Him to see through bathroom walls, but who is foiled by bathrobes."

"Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed."

"I have frequently experienced myself the mood in which I felt that all is vanity; I have emerged from it not by any philosophy, but owing to some imperative necessity of action."

"All who are not lunatics are agreed about certain things. That it is better to be alive than dead, better to be adequately fed than starved, better to be free than a slave. Many people desire those things only for themselves and their friends; they are quite content that their enemies should suffer. These people can be refuted by science: mankind has become so much one family that we cannot insure our own prosperity except by insuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy."

"There was a footpath leading across fields to New Southgate, and I used to go there alone to watch the sunset and contemplate suicide. I did not, however, commit suicide, because I wished to know more of mathematics."

"The belief that personality is mysterious and irreducible has no scientific warrant, and is accepted chiefly because it is flattering to our human self esteem."

"...what is the use of making everybody rich if the rich themselves are miserable?"

"Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth -- more than ruin, more even than death."

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

"When two men of science disagree, they do not invoke the secular arm; they wait for further evidence to decide the issue, because, as men of science, they know that neither is infallible. But when two theologians differ, since there is no criteria to which either can appeal, there is nothing for it but mutual hatred and an open or covert appeal to force."

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

"All human activity is prompted by desire."

"Happiness, as is evident, depends partly upon external circumstances and partly upon oneself."

"Education should aim at destroying free will so thatpupils thus schooled, will be incapable throughoutthe rest of their lives of thinking or acting otherwisethan as their schoolmasters would have wished. . . . Influences of the home are obstructive; and in orderto condition students, verses set to music and repeatedlyintoned are very effective. . . . It is for afuture scientist to make these maxims precise andto discover exactly how much it costs per head tomake children believe that snow is black. When thetechnique has been perfected, every government thathas been in charge of education for more than onegeneration will be able to control its subjects securelywithout the need of armies or policemen."

"I have lived in the pursuit of a vision, both personal and social. Personal: to care for what is noble, for what is beautiful, for what is gentle; to allow moments of insight to give wisdom at more mundane times. Social: to see in imagination the society that is to be created, where individuals grow freely, and where hate and greed and envy die because there is nothing to nourish them. These things I believe, and the world, for all its horrors, has left me unshaken."

"A child develops best when, like a young plant, he is left undisturbed in the same soil. Too much travel, too much variety of impressions, are not good for the young, and cause them as they grow up to become incapable of enduring fruitful monotony."