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Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 22

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Worry is a form of fear.

Worry is a form of fear.

Bertrand Russell
Worry, Form
Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.43, Lulu Press, Inc

Intelligence, it might be said, has caused our troubles; but it is not unintelligence that will cure them. Only more and wiser intelligence can make a happier world

Bertrand Russell
World, Might, Trouble
Bertrand Russell, Andrew G. Bone (2003). “Man's Peril, 1954-55”, p.220, Psychology Press

Suppose atomic bombs had reduced the population of the world to one brother and sister; should they let the human race die out?

Bertrand Russell
Brother, Race, Population
Bertrand Russell (2013). “Human Society in Ethics and Politics”, p.47, Routledge

The average man's opinions are much less foolish than they would be if he thought for himself.

Bertrand Russell
Inspirational, Men, Average
Bertrand Russell (1992). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959”, p.427, Psychology Press

When people begin to philosophize they seem to think it necessary to make themselves artificially stupid.

Bertrand Russell
Philosophy, Stupid, Thinking
Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.201, Routledge

Religions that teach brotherly love have been used as an excuse for persecution, and our profoundest scientific insight is made into a means of mass destruction.

Bertrand Russell
Hippie, Mean, Mass Destruction
Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.87, Psychology Press

Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for the others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish for ever.

Bertrand Russell
Struggle, Quality, Needs
Bertrand Russell (2015). “In Praise of Idleness”, p.1, Lulu Press, Inc

The commonest objection to birth control is that it is against nature.

Bertrand Russell
Birth Control, Birth, Objections
Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.64, Routledge

America... where law and custom alike are based upon the dreams of spinsters...

Bertrand Russell
Dream, Law, America
"Marriage and Morals".

The process of philosophizing, to my mind, consists mainly in passing from those obvious, vague, ambiguous things, that we feel quite sure of, to something precise, clear, definite, which by reflection and analysis we find is involved in the vague thing that we start from, and is, so to speak, the real truth of which that vague thing is a sort of shadow.

Bertrand Russell
Real, Philosophical, Reflection
Bertrand Russell (1972). “Russell's Logical atomism”

Fanaticism is the danger of the world, and always has been, and has done untold harm. I might almost say that I was fanatical against fanaticism.

Bertrand Russell
Done, World, Might
"The Future of Science". Book by Bertrand Russell, p. 79; also in BBC The Listener, Vol. 61 (1959), p. 505, 1959.

Indemnity for the past and security for the future.

Bertrand Russell
Future, Past, Security
"Memoir of Fox". Book by Siegfried Sassoon, vol. iii, 1928.

No man is liberated from fear who dare not see his place in the world as it is; no man can achieve the greatness of which he is capable until he has allowed himself to see his own littleness.

Bertrand Russell
Greatness, Men, World
Bertrand Russell, Richard A. Rempel, Beryl Haslam (2000). “Uncertain Paths to Freedom: Russia and China, 1919-22”, p.19, Psychology Press

At the age of eleven, I began Euclid, with my brother as my tutor. ... I had not imagined that there was anything so delicious in the world. After I had learned the fifth proposition, my brother told me that it was generally considered difficult, but I had found no difficulty whatsoever. This was the first time it had dawned on me that I might have some intelligence.

Bertrand Russell
Brother, Science, Age
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Autobiography”, p.25, Routledge

Owing to the identification of religion with virtue, together with the fact that the most religious men are not the most intelligent, a religious education gives courage to the stupid to resist the authority of educated men, as has happened, for example, where the teaching of evolution has been made illegal. So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence; and in this respect ministers of religion follow gospel authority more closely than in some others.

Bertrand Russell
Religious, Stupid, Teaching
Bertrand Russell (2013). “Education and the Social Order”, p.73, Routledge

Insight, untested and unsupported, is an uncertain guarantee of the truth.

Bertrand Russell
Guarantees, Uncertain, Insight

A good man will never suspect his friends of shady actions: this is part of his goodness. A good man will never be suspected by the public of using his goodness to screen villains: this is part of his utility

Bertrand Russell
Men, Good Man, Action
Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.95, Psychology Press

Christianity offers reasons for not fearing death or the universe, and in so doing it fails to teach adequately the virtue of courage.

Bertrand Russell
Failing, Christianity, Virtue
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.34, Routledge

In science the successors stand upon the shoulders of their predecessors; where one man of supreme genius has invented a method, a thousand lesser men can apply it. ... In art nothing worth doing can be done without genius; in science even a very moderate capacity can contribute to a supreme achievement.

Bertrand Russell
Art, Science, Men
Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays”, p.41, Booklassic

It seems to me now that mathematics is capable of an artistic excellence as great as that of any music, perhaps greater; not because the pleasure it gives (although very pure) is comparable, either in intensity or in the number of people who feel it, to that of music, but because it gives in absolute perfection that combination, characteristic of great art, of godlike freedom, with the sense of inevitable destiny; because, in fact, it constructs an ideal world where everything is perfect and yet true.

Bertrand Russell
Art, Destiny, Numbers
Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.162, Routledge

After ages during which the earth produced harmless trilobites and butterflies, evolution progressed to the point at which it generated Neros, Genghis Khans, and Hitlers. This, however, is a passing nightmare; in time the earth will become again incapable of supporting life, and peace will return.

Bertrand Russell
Butterfly, Age, Nero
Bertrand Russell (1992). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959”, p.459, Psychology Press

It is, of course, clear that a country with a large foreign population must endeavour, through its schools, to assimilate the children of immigrants. It is, however, unfortunate that a large part of this process should be effected by means of a somewhat blatant nationalism.

Bertrand Russell
Country, Children, Mean
Bertrand Russell (2004). “In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays”, p.135, Psychology Press

To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.

Bertrand Russell
Names, Particular
Bertrand Russell, Robert Charles Marsh (1988). “Logic and Knowledge: Essays 1901-1950”, p.205, Psychology Press

The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them. We all feel instinctively, that our children's success reflect glory upon ourselves, while their failures make us feel shame. Unfortunately, the successes which cause us to swell with pride are often of an undesirable kind.... Neither happiness nor virtue, but worldly success, is what the average father desires for his children.

Bertrand Russell
Children, Father, Pride

Folly is perennial and yet the human race has survived.

Bertrand Russell
Race, Fool, Folly
"Basic writings, 1903-1959".

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