Top 500 Bertrand Russell Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Motivational Quotes, Wisdom Quotes, Philosophical Quotes, Knowledge Quotes, Wise Quotes

2. “The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Happiness Quotes, Time Quotes, Positive Life Quotes, Enjoy Life Quotes, Perspective Quotes

3. “Mathematics rightly viewed possesses not only truth but supreme beauty.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Famous Quotes, Appreciation Quotes, Math Quotes

4. “No great achievement is possible without persistent work.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Persistence Quotes, Motivational Quotes for Work, Inspirational Quotes for Work, Motivational Work Quotes, Excellence Quotes

5. “The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Relationship Quotes, Deep Quotes About Life, Live Life Quotes, Deep Quotes, Philosophical Quotes

6. “Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Strong Quotes, Deep Quotes About Life, Empathy Quotes, Philosophical Quotes, Quotes About Humanity

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

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Confidence Quotes, Wise Quotes, Philosophy Quotes, Thought Provoking Quotes, Being Yourself Quotes

8. “I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Philosophy Quotes, Fear Quotes, Doubt Quotes

9. “Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Science Quotes, Imagination Quotes

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

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Fear Quotes

11. “The hardest thing to learn in life is which bridge to cross and which to burn.”

— Bertrand Russell

12. “Love is wise – Hatred is foolish.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Morality Quotes, Emotion Quotes, Positive Short Quotes, Love Is Quotes

13. “Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: School Quotes

14. “The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Smart Quotes, Intelligence Quotes

15. “Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Humanism Quotes, Peace Quotes, Quotes About Humanity

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

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Quotes About Work, Stress Quotes

17. “Mathematics is only the art of saying the same thing in different words.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Different Quotes

18. “We must be sceptical even of our scepticism.”

— Bertrand Russell

19. “To understand the actual world as it is, not as we should wish it to be, is the beginning of wisdom.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Truth Quotes

20. “It’s coexistence or no existence.”

— Bertrand Russell

21. “There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Funny Friday Quotes

22. “The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Challenges Quotes

23. “Unless you assume a God, the question of life’s purpose is meaningless.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Purpose Quotes

24. “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.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Appreciation Quotes, Doubt Quotes

25. “Beggars do not envy millionaires, though of course they will envy other beggars who are more successful.”

— Bertrand Russell

26. “Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.”

— Bertrand Russell

27. “A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Smart Quotes, Clever Quotes

28. “I did not, however, commit suicide, because I wished to know more of mathematics.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Math Quotes

29. “While economics is about how people make choice, sociology is about how they don’t have any choice to make.”

— Bertrand Russell

30. “Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Funny Quotes, Math Quotes

31. “Why repeat the old errors, if there are so many new errors to commit?”

— Bertrand Russell

32. “Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don’t know.”

— Bertrand Russell

33. “Organized people are just too lazy to look for things.”

— Bertrand Russell

34. “Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoor warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Science Quotes, Math Quotes

35. “I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions.”

— Bertrand Russell

36. “A smile happens in a flash, but its memory can last a lifetime.”

— Bertrand Russell

37. “The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Teamwork Quotes

38. “Only mathematics and mathematical logic can say as little as the physicist means to say.”

— Bertrand Russell

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

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Patience Quotes

40. “Diversity is essential to happiness and in Utopia there is hardly any. This is a defect in all planned social systems.”

— Bertrand Russell

41. “The more you complain the longer God lets you live.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Complaining Quotes

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

— Bertrand Russell

43. “Every great idea starts out as a blasphemy.”

— Bertrand Russell

44. “One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.”

— Bertrand Russell

45. “To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.”

— Bertrand Russell

46. “Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.”

— Bertrand Russell

47. “One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Respect Quotes

48. “It seems to me a fundamental dishonesty, and a fundamental treachery to intellectual integrity to hold a belief because you think it’s useful and not because you think it’s true.”

— Bertrand Russell

49. “One must care about a world one will not see.”

— Bertrand Russell

Featured in: Legacy Quotes, Future Quotes

50. “If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important.”

— Bertrand Russell