Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

—Bertrand Russell

politics purpose reason patriotism

About Bertrand Russell

Portrait of Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970), was an English mathematician, philosopher, and social critic.

More quotations from Bertrand Russell

Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.

—Bertrand Russell

knowledge exactness precision vagueness

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.

—Bertrand Russell

philosophy knowledge certainty doubt teeth

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.

—Bertrand Russell

opinions belief evidence absurdity

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

—Bertrand Russell

reading enjoyment boasting prestige

One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways.

—Bertrand Russell

politics opinion freedom happiness tyranny

More quotations tagged with “patriotism”

Every nation ridicules other nations, and all are right.

—Arthur Schopenhauer

nations patriotism ridicule

I find patriotism not only a refuge of scoundrels but of idiots and those who like to buy their thinking ready-made each morning in the vacuous newspapers. Every decade or so governments create wars and whip up a frenzy, so that we will not notice the shortcomings of our own side and will not question the assumptions of our society and demand more rational institutions and laws.

—Marge Piercy

war news government patriotism

The history of liberty is the history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it.

The flag is the embodiment, not of sentiment, but of history.

—Woodrow Wilson

I would rather be exposed to the inconveniencies attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it.

—Thomas Jefferson

History

13 May 2014 Added