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Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 18

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A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.

A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.

Bertrand Russell
Time, Truth, Thinking
Bertrand Russell (2016). “Mysticism and Logic”, p.35, Bertrand Russell

To a mind of sufficient intellectual power, the whole of mathematics would appear trivial, as trivial as the statement that a four-footed animal is an animal.

Bertrand Russell
Animal, Intellectual, Mind
Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.230, Routledge

Belief in a Divine mission is one of the many forms of certainty that have afflicted the human race.

Bertrand Russell
Race, Belief, Divine
Bertrand Russell (1996). “Unpopular Essays”, p.176, Psychology Press

3 is prime, 5 is prime, 7 is prime, 9 is a paradox; as is a paradox why the number 1 is not prime if it has no other divisors besides himself.

Bertrand Russell
Numbers, Paradox, Prime

The man who suffers from a sense of sin is suffering from a particular kind of self-love. In all this vast universe the thing that appears to him of most importance is that he himself should be virtuous. It is a grave defect in certain forms of traditional religion that they have encouraged this particular kind of self-absorption.

Bertrand Russell
Love, Men, Self
Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.142, Lulu Press, Inc

Mankind has become so much one family that we cannot insure our own prosperity except by insuring that of everyone else.

Bertrand Russell
Prosperity, Mankind, Humankind
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.97, Routledge

Ants and savages put strangers to death.

Bertrand Russell
Savages, Ants, Stranger
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.113, Routledge

I conclude that, while it is true that science cannot decide questions of value, that is because they cannot be intellectually decided at all, and lie outside the realm of truth and falsehood. Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.

Bertrand Russell
Lying, Knowledge, Science
Bertrand Russell (1997). “Religion and Science”, p.243, Oxford University Press, USA

Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.

Bertrand Russell
Summer, Moving, Men
Sceptical Essays (1928) "Dreams and Facts"

Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives.

Bertrand Russell
Love, Life, Wedding
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Marriage and Morals”, p.79, Routledge

To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.

Bertrand Russell
Civilization, People, Relaxation
Conquest of Happiness (1930) ch. 14

A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.

Bertrand Russell
Science, Errors, Hallucinations
Bertrand Russell, Robert Charles Marsh (1988). “Logic and Knowledge: Essays 1901-1950”, p.149, Psychology Press

All the labor of all the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction. So now, my friends, if that is true, and it is true, what is the point?

Bertrand Russell
Inspiration, Age, Genius

The free intellect is the chief engine of human progress.

Bertrand Russell
Progress, Chiefs, Intellect
Bertrand Russell, Richard A. Rempel, Beryl Haslam (2000). “Uncertain Paths to Freedom: Russia and China, 1919-22”, p.197, Psychology Press

The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading

Bertrand Russell
Philosophy, Special, Argument
Bertrand Russell (2004). “History of Western Philosophy”, p.427, Routledge

The satisfaction to be derived from success in a great constructive enterprise is one of the most massive that life has to offer.

Bertrand Russell
Happiness, Satisfaction, Enterprise
Bertrand Russell (2012). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.151, Routledge

Can a society in which thought and technique are scientific persist for a long period, as, for example, ancient Egypt persisted, or does it necessarily contain within itself forces which must bring either decay or explosion?

Bertrand Russell
Science, Egypt, Long
Bertrand Russell (2016). “The Impact of Science on Society”, p.87, Routledge

Most men do not feel in themselves the competence required for leading their group to victory, and therefore seek out a captain who appears to possess the courage and sagacity necessary for the achievement of supremacy. Even in religion this impulse appears. Nietzsche accused Christianity of inculcating a slave-morality, but ultimate triumph was always the goal. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.

Bertrand Russell
Blessed, Men, Goal
Bertrand Russell (2004). “Power: A New Social Analysis”, p.29, Routledge

Politics is largely governed by sententious platitudes which are devoid of truth

Bertrand Russell
Platitudes
Bertrand Russell (2014). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.66, Routledge

The whole conception of a God is a conception derived from the ancient oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men. We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages.

Bertrand Russell
Men, Wish, Age
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.34, Routledge

Some people would rather die than think.

Bertrand Russell
Death, Education, Thinking

Scientific method, although in its more refined forms it may seem complicated, is in essence remarkably simply. It consists in observing such facts as will enable the observer to discover general laws governing facts of the kind in question. The two stages, first of observation, and second of inference to a law, are both essential, and each is susceptible of almost indefinite refinement. (1931)

Bertrand Russell
Science, Law, Essence
Bertrand Russell (2017). “The Scientific Outlook”, p.19, Routledge

Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake.

Bertrand Russell
Mistake, People, Dogma
Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.547, Psychology Press

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the georgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.

Bertrand Russell
Art, Truth, Science
Philosophical Essays (1910) no. 4

To abandon the struggle for private happiness, to expel all eagerness of temporary desire, to burn with passion for eternal things-this is emancipation, and this is the free man's worship... United with his fellow men by the strongest of all ties, the tie of a common doom, the free man finds that a new vision is with him always, shedding over every daily task the light of love.

Bertrand Russell
Spiritual, Struggle, Passion
Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.36, 谷月社

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