But without going to such extremes prudence may easily involve the loss of some of the best things in life. The worshipper of Dionysus reacts against prudence. In intoxication, physical or spiritual, he recovers an...

The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown...

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

I wish to propose for the reader’s favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when...

Russell observes that “the merits of democracy are negative: it does not ensure good government, but it prevents certain evils,” such as the evil of a small group of individuals achieving a secure monopoly on...

I am myself a dissenter from all known religions, and I hope that every kind of religious belief will die out. I do not believe that, on the balance, religious belief has been a force...

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.

Really high-minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially other people’s.

Nadie se preocupa por lo que va a ocurrir dentro de millones de años. Aunque crean que se están preocupando por ello, en realidad se engañan a sí mismos. Se preocupan por cosas mucho más...

[T]he infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.

Advocates of capitalism like to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.

Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.

The Victorian Age, for all its humbug, was a period of rapid progress, because men were dominated by hope rather than fear. If we are again to have progress, we must again be dominated by...

Religious toleration, to a certain extent, has been won, because people have ceased to consider religion so important as it was once thought to be. But in politics and economics, which have taken the place...

Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives’ mouths.

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...

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.

I have been accused of a habit of changing my opinions. I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions. What physicist who was already active in 1900 would dream of...

Conquer the world by intelligence, and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it.

William James used to preach the ‘will to believe.’ For my part, I should wish to preach the ‘will to doubt’ … what is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to...

There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths. Almost inevitably some part of him is aware that they are...

It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living. It is clear also that thought is not free if all the arguments on...

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already 3-parts dead.

It is essential to happiness that our way of living should spring from our own deep impulses and not from the accidental tastes and desires of those who happen to be our neighbors, or even...

Existe este hecho curioso: cuanto más intensa ha sido la religión de cualquier periodo, y más profunda la creencia dogmática, han sido mayor la crueldad y peores las circunstancias. En las llamadas edades de la...

It is a natural propensity to attribute misfortune to someone’s malignity. When prices rise, it is due to the profiteer; when wages fall, it is due to the capitalist. Why the capitalist is ineffective when...

Ever since Plato most philosophers have considered it part of their business to produce ‘proofs’ of immortality and the existence of God. They have found fault with the proofs of their predecessors — Saint Thomas...

Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?

Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man, and our politicians take advantage of this prejudice by pretending to be even more...

…It is necessary for the average citizen, if he wishes to make a living, to avoid incurring the hostility of certain big men. And these big men have an outlook – religious, moral, and political...

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.

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.

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...

Never let yourself be diverted, either by what you wish to believe, or what you think could have beneficent social effects if it were believed; but look only and solely at what are the facts.

Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.

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...

Science tells us what we can know, but what we can know is little, and if we forget how much we cannot know, we become insensitive to many things of great importance.

All the labor of all the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction. So now, my friends, if that is true, and it is...

Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of happy mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.

To like many people spontaneously and without effort is perhaps the greatest of all sources of personal happiness.

Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little; it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover.

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

I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought...

Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possiblities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny...

I do not pretend to be able to prove that there is no God. I equally cannot prove that Satan is a fiction. The Christian god may exist; so may the gods of Olympus, or...

The skill of the politician consists in guessing what people can be brought to think advantageous to themselves; the skill of the experts consists in calculating what really is advantageous, provided people can be brought...

One of the causes of unhappiness among intellectuals in the present day is that so many of them, especially those whose skill is literary, find no opportunity for the independent exercise of their talents, but...

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.

The objection to propaganda is not only its appeal to unreason, but still more the unfair advantage which it gives to the rich and powerful.

Grammar and ordinary language are bad guides to metaphysics. A great book might be written showing the influence of syntax on philosophy.