Q0349

Bertrand Russell

A verified English rendering from the curated archive.

English

The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
Thinker Bertrand Russell
School Analytic philosophy
Source related essays
Theme Morality
Another quotation More from this thinker

Source context

This English passage is associated with related essays, within the tradition of Analytic philosophy. The wording below is a verified rendering prepared for careful reading rather than a claim of unique translation authority.

A short reading

Read in the register of morality, the sentence asks the reader to test an assumption rather than to collect a slogan. In Bertrand Russell's wider work, similar claims are usually offered as prompts for judgment: what would have to be true for the sentence to hold, and what would follow if it did?

How to cite this quotation

APA: Bertrand Russell. (n.d.). The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. In Philosophy Blind Box. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0349

MLA: Bertrand Russell. “The good life is one inspired by love….” Philosophy Blind Box, https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0349.

Chicago: Bertrand Russell. “The good life is one inspired by love….” Philosophy Blind Box. Accessed 2026. https://www.philosophydef.com/quotes/q0349.

Same thinker

More from Bertrand Russell

  1. The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions…be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.
  2. To abandon the struggle for private happiness…to burn with passion for eternal things — this is emancipation.
  3. Next to worry, probably one of the most potent causes of unhappiness is envy.
  4. Envy is itself a terrible obstacle to happiness.
  5. Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

All quotations by Bertrand Russell

Same theme

More on morality

  1. It is worse to do injustice than to suffer it.
  2. No one errs willingly.
  3. Love is the desire for the perpetual possession of the good.
  4. Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe…: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
  5. Act only according to that maxim whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law.

Browse the morality theme