Authors:

Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 21

All Quotes Acceptance Achievement Adventure Affection Age Alcohol Anger Anxiety Art Atheism Atheist Attitude Authority Belief Birth Blasphemy Boredom Change Character Charity Children Choices Christ Christianity Church Common Sense Communism Community Compassion Competition Confidence Conflict Country Courage Creativity Curiosity Death Democracy Desire Devil Devotion Discipline Diversity Divorce Dogma Doubt Drinking Duty Earth Economics Education Effort Ego Energy Environment Envy Ethics Evidence Evil Excellence Exercise Failing Faith Fate Fear Feelings Fighting Finding Yourself Free Will Freedom Funny Genius Giving God Gossip Gratitude Greatness Greek Growth Happiness Happy Hate Hatred Heart Heaven Hell History Holiday Home Honesty Hope Human Nature Humanity Humility Husband Idealism Ignorance Imagination Impulse Injustice Innovation Insanity Inspiration Inspirational Integrity Intelligence Intuition Islam Joy Justice Kindness Knowledge Language Laughter Learning Liberty Life Literature Logic Loneliness Love Love Life Lying Madness Magic Mankind Marriage Math Mathematics Memories Morality Motivational Nature Observation Overcoming Pain Passion Past Peace Perfection Philosophy Plato Pleasure Politics Poverty Power Praise Prejudice Preparation Pride Progress Prosperity Psychology Punctuality Purpose Quality Reading Reality Regret Religion Respect Responsibility Satan School Science Science And Religion Security Simplicity Sin Skepticism Solitude Son Soul Spirituality Spring Struggle Study Stupidity Success Suffering Survival Teaching Terror Time Tolerance Tradition Travel Truth Understanding Victory Virtue Vision War Water Wife Wisdom Work Worry Worship Writing Youth
If two hitherto rival football teams, under the influence of brotherly love, decided to co-operate in placing the football first beyond one goal and then beyond the other, no one's happiness would be increased

If two hitherto rival football teams, under the influence of brotherly love, decided to co-operate in placing the football first beyond one goal and then beyond the other, no one's happiness would be increased

Bertrand Russell
Football, Team, Two
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.77, Routledge

The scientific attitude of mind involves a sweeping away of all other desires in the interests of the desire to know-it involves suppression of hopes and fears, loves and hates, and the whole subjective emotional life, until we become subdued to the material, able to see it frankly, without preconceptions, without bias, without any wish except to see it as it is, and without any belief that what it is must be determined by some relation, positive or negative, to what we should like it to be, or to what we can easily imagine it to be.

Bertrand Russell
Attitude, Hate, Emotional
Bertrand Russell (2013). “Mysticism and Logic”, p.34, Courier Corporation

All definite knowledge - so I should contend - belongs to science; all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology. But between theology and science there is a No Man's Land, exposed to attack by both sides; this No Man's Land is philosophy.

Bertrand Russell
Philosophy, Knowledge, Men
Bertrand Russell (2008). “History of Western Philosophy”, p.13, Simon and Schuster

At the age of eleven, I began Euclid, with my brother as my tutor. This was one of the great events of my life, as dazzling as first love. I had not imagined there was anything so delicious in the world. From that moment until I was thirty-eight, mathematics was my chief interest and my chief source of happiness.

Bertrand Russell
Life, Brother, First Love
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Autobiography”, p.25, Routledge

Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man.

Bertrand Russell
Clever, Stupid, Men
"New Hopes for a Changing World". Part III: Man and Himself, Ch. 16: Ideas Which Have Become Obsolete, p. 158. Book by Bertrand Russell, 1951.

There is exactly the same degree of possibility and likelihood of the existence of the Christian God as there is of the existence of the Homeric god. I cannot prove that either the Christian god or the Homeric gods do not exist, but I do not think that their existence is an alternative that is sufficiently probable to be worth serious consideration.

Bertrand Russell
Christian, Thinking, Religion
Bertrand Russell (2016). “Why I Am Not a Christian”, p.22, Lulu Press, Inc

To think I have spent my life on absolute muck.

Bertrand Russell
Math, Thinking, Absolutes
"A Mathematician's Miscellany". Book by John Edensor Littlewood, 1953.

Love cannot exists as a duty; to tell a child that it ought to love its parents and its brother and sisters is utterly useless, if not worse.

Bertrand Russell
Love, Brother, Children
Bertrand Russell (2014). “On Education”, p.124, Routledge

In action, in desire, we must submit perpetually to the tyranny of outside forces; but in thought, in aspiration, we are free, free from our fellowmen, free from the petty planet on which our bodies impotently crawl, free even, while we live, from the tyranny of death.

Bertrand Russell
Desire, Body, Action
Bertrand Russell (2016). “Why I Am Not a Christian”, p.35, Lulu Press, Inc

I used often to go to America during Prohibition, and there was far more drunkenness there then than before; the prohibition of pornography has much the same effect.

Bertrand Russell
America, Prohibition, Used
Bertrand Russell (1993). “The Quotable Bertrand Russell”

To the primitive mind, everything is either friendly or hostile; but experience has shown that friendliness and hostility are not the conceptions by which the world is to be understood.

Bertrand Russell
Mind, Friendly, World
Bertrand Russell (2016). “Mysticism and Logic”, p.49, Bertrand Russell

Politics is concerned with herds rather than with individuals, and the passions which are important in politics are, therefore, those in which the various members of a given herd can feel alike.

Bertrand Russell
Passion, Important, Individual
Bertrand Russell (2013). “Human Society in Ethics and Politics”, p.172, Routledge

If everything must have a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just as well be the world as God, so that there cannot be any validity in that argument... The idea that things must have a beginning is really due to the poverty of our imagination.

Bertrand Russell
Ideas, Imagination, Religion
"Why I Am Not a Christian". "The First-cause Argument". Book by Bertrand Russell, 1927.

Freedom in education has many aspects. There is first of all freedom to learn or not to learn. Then there is freedom as to what to learn. And in later education there is freedom of opinion.

Bertrand Russell
Firsts, Opinion, Aspect
Bertrand Russell (1971). “Ladislas Reymont: Romain Rolland ; Bertrand Russell”

Speaking psycho-analytically, it may be laid down that any "great ideal" which people mention with awe is really an excuse for inflicting pain on their enemies. Good wine needs no bush, and good morals need no bated breath.

Bertrand Russell
Pain, Wine, People
Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.240, Routledge

Broadly speaking, we are in the middle of a race between human skill as a means and human folly as an end.

Bertrand Russell
Mean, Race, Skills
Bertrand Russell (2016). “The Impact of Science on Society”, p.88, Routledge

Our use of the phrase 'The Dark Ages' to cover the period from 600 to 1000 marks our undue concentration on Western Europe. [...] From India to Spain, the brilliant civilisation of Islam flourished. What was lost to Christendom at this time was not lost to civilisation, but quite the contrary. [...] To us it seems that West-European civilisation is civilisation, but this is a narrow view.

Bertrand Russell
Islamic, Views, Civilization
Bertrand Russell (2013). “History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition”, p.325, Routledge

There's a Bible on that shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire - poison and antidote.

Bertrand Russell
Doubt, Atheism, Next
"Kenneth Harris Talking To: Bertrand Russell". 1971.

Gradually, ... the aspect of science as knowledge is being thrust into the background by the aspect of science as the power of manipulating nature. It is because science gives us the power of manipulating nature that it has more social importance than art. Science as the pursuit of truth is the equal, but not the superior, of art. Science as a technique, though it may have little intrinsic value, has a practical importance to which art cannot aspire.

Bertrand Russell
Art, Knowledge, Science
Bertrand Russell (2017). “The Scientific Outlook”, p.16, Routledge

Hegel's philosophy is so odd that one would not have expected him to be able to get sane men to accept it, but he did. He set it out with so much obscurity that people thought it must be profound. It can quite easily be expounded lucidly in words of one syllable, but then its absurdity becomes obvious.

Bertrand Russell
Philosophy, Men, People
Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.396, Psychology Press

My conclusion is that there is no reason to believe any of the dogmas of traditional theology and, further, that there is no reason to wish that they were true. Man, in so far as he is not subject to natural forces, is free to work out his own destiny. The responsibility is his, and so is the opportunity.

Bertrand Russell
Believe, Responsibility, Opportunity

My own view on religion is that of Lucretius. I regard it as a disease born of fear and as a source of untold misery to the human race. I cannot, however, deny that it has made some contributions to civilisation. It helped in early days to fix the calendar, and it caused Egyptian priests to chronicle eclipses with such care that in time they became able to predict them. These two services I am prepared to acknowledge, but I do not know of any others.

Bertrand Russell
Race, Views, Two
Bertrand Russell, John Greer Slater, Peter Köllner (1996). “A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42”, p.214, Psychology Press

There are some simple maxims which I think might be commended to writers of expository prose. First: never use a long word if a short word will do. So, if you want to make a statement with a great many qualifications, put some of the qualifications in separate sentences. Third: do not let the beginning of your sentence lead the reader to an expectation which is contradicted by the end.

Bertrand Russell
Simple, Thinking, Long
Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.37, Routledge

If one lived for ever the joys of life would inevitably in the end lose their savour. As it is, they remain perennially fresh.

Bertrand Russell
Joy, Ends, Savour
Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.16, Lulu Press, Inc

A man without a bias cannot write interesting history - if indeed such a man exists.

Bertrand Russell
Writing, Men, History
Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.465, Routledge

You May Also Like: