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Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 24

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Many people when they fall in love look for a little haven of refuge from the world, where they can be sure of being admired when they are not admirable, and praised when they are not praiseworthy.

Many people when they fall in love look for a little haven of refuge from the world, where they can be sure of being admired when they are not admirable, and praised when they are not praiseworthy.

Bertrand Russell
Love, Fall, People
Bertrand Russell (2013). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.66, W. W. Norton & Company

Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little; it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover.

Bertrand Russell
Humility, Math, Science
Bertrand Russell (2009). “An Outline of Philosophy”, p.171, Routledge

To fear love is to fear life.

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

From the height of their disillusionment they look down upon those whom they despise as simple souls. For my part I have no sympathy with this outlook. All disenchantment is to me a malady, which, it is true, certain circumstances may render inevitable, but which none the less, when it occurs, is to be cured as soon as possible, not to be regarded as a higher form of wisdom.

Bertrand Russell
Simple, Soul, May

The criminal law has, from the point of view of thwarted virtue, the merit of allowing an outlet for those impulses of aggression which cowardice, disguised as morality, restrains in their more spontaneous forms. War has the same merit. You must not kill you neighbor, whom perhaps you genuinely hate, but by a little propaganda this hate can be transferred to some foreign nation, against whom all your murderous impulses become patriotic heroism.

Bertrand Russell
Hate, War, Patriotic

To avoid the various foolish opinions to which mankind are prone, no superhuman genius is required. A few simple rules will keep you, not from all error, but from silly error.

Bertrand Russell
Silly, Simple, Errors
Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.66, Routledge

When you come to look into this argument from design, it is a most astonishing thing that people can believe that this world, with all the things that are in it, with all its defects, should be the best that omnipotence and omniscience has been able to produce in millions of years.

Bertrand Russell
Believe, Years, Omnipotence
Bertrand Russell, John Greer Slater, Peter Köllner (1996). “A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42”, p.185, Psychology Press

Mathematics rightly viewed possesses not only truth but supreme beauty.

Bertrand Russell
Math, Western Philosophy, Mathematics
"The Study of Mathematics" (1902)

Education, which was at first made universal in order that all might be able to read and write, has been found capable of serving quite other purposes. By instilling nonsense it unifies populations and generates collective enthusiasm.

Bertrand Russell
Education, Writing, School
Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.61, Routledge

You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principle enemy of moral progress in the world.

Bertrand Russell
Christian, War, Race
Bertrand Russell, Robert Edward Egner (1961). “The basic writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959”

The moral thing I should wish to say to them is very simple; I should say: "Love is wise - Hatred is foolish." In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other.

Bertrand Russell
Wise, Love Is, Hatred
YouTube Channel "RationalOutlet"/"Bertrand Russell - The Wisest Man", www.youtube.com. May 28, 2010.

It is entirely clear that there is only one way in which great wars can be permanently prevented, and that is the establishment of an international government with a monopoly of serious armed force.

Bertrand Russell
War, Government, Serious
David Herbert Lawrence, Bertrand Russell (1948). “Letters to Bertrand Russell”

The difficulty is old, but none the less real. An omnipotent being who created a world containing evil not due to sin must Himself be at least partially evil.

Bertrand Russell
God, Real, Evil
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.33, Routledge

Among human beings, the subjection of women is much more complete at a certain level of civilization than it is among savages. And the subjection is always reinforced by morality.

Bertrand Russell
Civilization, Savages, Levels
Bertrand Russell, Charles R. Pigden (1999). “Russell on Ethics: Selections from the Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.208, Psychology Press

You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so called age of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burnt as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practised upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.

Bertrand Russell
Christian, Believe, Men

I hold all knowledge that is concerned with things that actually exist - all that is commonly called Science - to be of very slight value compared to the knowledge which, like philosophy and mathematics, is concerned with ideal and eternal objects, and is freed from this miserable world which God has made.

Bertrand Russell
Philosophy, Knowledge, World
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Autobiography”, p.149, Routledge

My own belief is that in most ages and in most places obscure psychological forces led men to adopt systems involving quite unnecessary cruelty, and that this is still the case among the most civilized races at the present day.

Bertrand Russell
Men, Race, Age
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Marriage and Morals”, p.11, Routledge

The resistance to a new idea increases by the square of its importance.

Bertrand Russell
Squares, Ideas, Resistance

I did not know I loved you until I heard myself telling so, for one instance I thought, "Good God, what have I said?" and then I knew it was true.

Bertrand Russell
Love, Good God, Said

The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things, or, if it is night, about nothing at all.

Bertrand Russell
Wise, Night, Men
Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.40, Lulu Press, Inc

On the one hand, philosophy is to keep us thinking about things that we may come to know, and on the other hand to keep us modestly aware of how much that seems like knowledge isn't knowledge

Bertrand Russell
Philosophy, Thinking, Hands
Bertrand Russell (1993). “The Quotable Bertrand Russell”

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. Even those of the intelligent who believe that they have a nostrum are too individualistic to combine with other intelligent men from whom they differ on minor points.

Bertrand Russell
Stupid, Believe, Men
Bertrand Russell (2014). “Mortals and Others, Volume II: American Essays 1931-1935”, p.28, Routledge

A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known.

Bertrand Russell
Science, Men, Progress
Bertrand Russell (1985). “Contemplation and Action, 1902-14”, p.171, Psychology Press

One of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important, and that to take a holiday would bring all kinds of disaster. If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his or her work important.

Bertrand Russell
Work, Holiday, Men
'The Conquest of Happiness' (1930) ch. 5

Power, like vanity, is insatiable. Nothing short of omnipotence could satisfy it completely.

Bertrand Russell
Power, Vanity, Omnipotence
Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.449, Routledge

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