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Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 16

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Ignore fact and reason, live entirely in the world of your own fantastic and myth-producing passions; do this whole-heartedly and with conviction, and you will become one of the prophets of your age.

Ignore fact and reason, live entirely in the world of your own fantastic and myth-producing passions; do this whole-heartedly and with conviction, and you will become one of the prophets of your age.

Bertrand Russell
Passion, Age, World
Bertrand Russell (2013). “Mortals and Others, Volume I: American Essays 1931-1935”, p.149, Routledge

The road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organized diminution of work.

Bertrand Russell
Lying, Hard Work, Prosperity
Bertrand Russell (2015). “In Praise of Idleness”, p.5, Lulu Press, Inc

I think modern educational theorists are inclined to attach too much importance to the negative virtue of not interfering with children, and too little to the positive merit of enjoying their company.

Bertrand Russell
Children, Educational, Thinking
Bertrand Russell (1972). “In praise of idleness: and other essays”

All's well that ends well; which is the epitaph I should put on my tombstone if I were the last man left alive.

Bertrand Russell
Tombstone, Men, Alive
Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.190, Routledge

Into every tidy scheme for arranging the pattern of human life, it is necessary to inject a certain dose of anarchism.

Bertrand Russell
Patterns, Schemes, Human Life
Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.217, Psychology Press

Righteousness cannot be born until self-righteousness is dead.

Bertrand Russell
Self, Born, Righteousness
Bertrand Russell (2007). “Justice in War-time”, p.192, Cosimo, Inc.

The opposition of instinct and reason is mainly illusory. Instinct, intuition, or insight is what first leads to the beliefs which subsequent reason confirms or confutes; but the confirmation, where it is possible, consists, in the last analysis, of agreement with other beliefs no less instinctive. Reason is a harmonizing, controlling force rather than a creative one. Even in the most purely logical realms, it is insight that first arrives at what is new.

Bertrand Russell
Agreement, Creative, Intuition
Bertrand Russell (1981). “Mysticism and Logic, and Other Essays”, p.17, Rowman & Littlefield

Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possiblities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what the may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familar things in an unfamilar aspect

Bertrand Russell
Philosophy, Feelings, Doubt
Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Problems of Philosophy”, p.124, Lulu.com

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

Bertrand Russell
Love, Inspirational, Life
Marriage and Morals (1929) ch. 19

We know too much and feel too little.

Bertrand Russell
Littles, Too Much, Emotion
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Authority and the Individual”, p.38, Routledge

True happiness for human beings is possible only to those who develop their godlike potentialities to the utmost.

Bertrand Russell
True Happiness, Godlike, Humans
Bertrand Russell (2013). “Human Society in Ethics and Politics”, p.238, Routledge

The essence of the liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held; instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.

Bertrand Russell
Lying, Essence, May
Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.400, Psychology Press

There are certain things that our age needs. It needs, above all, courageous hope and the impulse to creativeness.

Bertrand Russell
Hope, Creativity, Age
Bertrand Russell (1998). “Autobiography”, p.520, Psychology Press

Without civic morality communities perish; without personal morality their survival has no value.

Bertrand Russell
Community, Survival, Morality
Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.336, Routledge

No opinion has ever been too errant to become a creed.

Bertrand Russell
God, Religion, Opinion

The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.

Bertrand Russell
Men, Intellectual, Vices
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.62, Routledge

I am firm; YOU are obstinate; HE is a pig-headed fool.

Bertrand Russell
Stupid, Pigs, Fool

Orthodoxy is the grave of intelligence, no matter what orthodoxy it may be.

Bertrand Russell
May, Matter, Orthodoxy
Bertrand Russell (2013). “Education and the Social Order”, p.16, Routledge

When all experts agree, you need to watch out.

Bertrand Russell
Experts, Watches, Needs

Patience and boredom are closely related. Boredom, a certain kind of boredom, is really impatience. You don't like the way things are, they aren't interesting enough for you, so you deccide- and boredom is a decision-that you are bored.

Bertrand Russell
Interesting, Boredom, Decision

I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.

Bertrand Russell
Believe, Punishment, Everlasting
Bertrand Russell (1992). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959”, p.593, Psychology Press

I should like to believe my people's religion, which was just what I could wish, but alas, it is impossible. I have really no religion, for my God, being a spirit shown merely by reason to exist, his properties utterly unknown, is no help to my life. I have nor the parson's comfortable doctrine that every good action has its reward, and every sin is forgiven. My whole religion is this: do every duty, and expect no reward for it, either here or hereafter.

Bertrand Russell
Believe, People, Wish
Bertrand Russell (1986). “Bertrand Russell on God and Religion”

Christ . . . said that a man who had looked after a woman lustfully had sinned as much as the man who had seduced her. How absurd!

Bertrand Russell
Men, Christ, He Man

Order, unity, and continuity are human inventions, just as truly as catalogues and encyclopedias.

Bertrand Russell
Order, Unity, Invention

This, however, is a passing nightmare; in time the earth will become again incapable of supporting life, and peace will return.

Bertrand Russell
Religion, Earth, Return
Bertrand Russell (1992). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959”, p.459, Psychology Press

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