Bertrand Russell Quotes

Under every stone lurks a politician

I never desire to know anything of the detail of political measures, lest even those which I think best should lose anything of their intrinsic value to me, by seeing what low, paltry, personal motives and base machinery and dirty hands have helped to bring them about.

There is probably an element of malice in our readiness to overestimate people - we are, as it were, laying up for ourselves the pleasure of later cutting them down to size.

As readers, we sense when the game is being played for real and when something else is afoot: pride, showmanship, the pursuit of power, self-aggrandizement, revenge, making money. Not that there's anything wrong with any of that, but I dislike closing a book with the sense that I've been had.

Secrecy is the foundation of politics.

It is a just political maxim, that every man must be supposed a knave.

Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power.

Once you have power, you are inevitably surrounded by people who have their own agendas and will tell you whatever advances them.

Don't fall in love with politicians, they're all a disappointment. They can't help it, they just are.

The diplomat holds all acts honorable which bring him success, all things are righteous which serve his ends. If cheating is necessary, he will cheat; if lying is useful, he will lie; if bribery helps, he will bribe; if murder serves, he will order murder; if burglary, seduction, arson or forgery brings success nearer, all and each of these will be done.

In conspiracies, men who know what they wanted commonly ended by controlling the men who did not.

Hell hath no fury like a vested interest masquerading as a moral principle.

Suspect power more than vice.

Men in power have no opinions, but may be had cheap for any opinion, for any purpose.

A Galileo could no more be elected president of the United States than he could be elected Pope of Rome. Both high posts are reserved for men favored by God with an extraordinary genius for swathing the bitter facts of life in bandages of self-illusion.

I have always found the word 'Europe' on the lips of those who wanted something from others which they dared not demand in their own names!

The things they don't tell you in schools these days, geez. Have a look at your owners. The politicians are put there to give you the idea you have freedom of choice. You don't. You have no choice; you have owners. They own you. They own everything.

I'm sick of people lying to me for my own good. Because really it's mostly for their own good.

I don't doubt that every prince would like to be both; but since it is hard to accomodate these qualities, if you have to make a choice, to be feared is much safer than to be loved. For it is a good general rule about men, that they are ungrateful, fickle, liars, and deceivers, fearful of danger and greedy for gain....[love] is a link of obligation which men, because they are rotten, will break anything they think doing so serves their advantage; but fear involves dread of punishment, from which they can never escape.

Flatterers are the worst kind of traitors, for they will strengthen thy imperfections, encourage thee in all evils, correct thee in nothing, but so shadow and paint thy follies and vices as thou shalt never, by their will, discover good from evil, or vice from virtue.

If often happens too, both in courts and in cabinets, that there are two things going on together,--a main plot and an under-plot; and he that understands only one of them will, in all probability, be the dupe of both. A mistress may rule a monarch, but some obscure favorite may rule the mistress.

The dreamers always seem to think their dream is worth the price that other people will pay. They also delude themselves that they will control whatever evil they use to try to bring about their dream.

I would rather you love me, but if not love, fear will do.

For when success a lover's toil attends,Few ask, if fraud or force attain'd his ends

I have not come into this world to make men better, but to make use of their weaknesses.