Bertrand Russell

Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.

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

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.

The dons of Oxford and Cambridge are too busy educating the young men to be able to teach them anything.

Although I write to entertain, and try to keep my work free of didacticism, I do have a rather passionate belief in our need to be connected to - and to learn from - history.

I grew up under Thatcher. I grew up believing that I was fundamentally powerless. Then gradually over the years it occurred to me that this was actually a very convenient myth for the state.