When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others.

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

—Bertrand Russell

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

—Bertrand Russell

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

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

—Bertrand Russell

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

—Bertrand Russell

To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man.

—Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

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

I am a kind of paranoiac in reverse. I suspect people of plotting to make me happy.

—J. D. Salinger

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

Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right.

—Laurens Van der Post