More Quotes by Bertrand Russell
Religion is based ... mainly upon fear ... fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. 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.
Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
If we spent half an hour every day in silent immobility, I am convinced that we should conduct all our affairs, personal, national, and international, far more sanely than we do at present.
To understand the actual world as it is, not as we should wish it to be, is the beginning of wisdom.
Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile.
My first advice (on how not to grow old) would be to choose you ancestors carefully.
When you want to teach children to think, you begin by treating them seriously when they are little, giving them responsibilities, talking to them candidly, providing privacy and solitude for them, and making them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the beginning. That’s if you want to teach them to think.
None of our beliefs are quite true; all have at least a penumbra of vagueness and error.
Either man will abolish war, or war will abolish man.
