Authors:

Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 30

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
Protagoras did not know if the gods exist, but he held in any case they ought to be worshiped. Philosophy, according to him, had nothing edifying to teach, and for the survival of morals we must rely upon the

Protagoras did not know if the gods exist, but he held in any case they ought to be worshiped. Philosophy, according to him, had nothing edifying to teach, and for the survival of morals we must rely upon the thoughtlessness of the majority and their willingness to believe what they had been taught.

Bertrand Russell
Philosophy, Believe, Rely Upon
Bertrand Russell, Robert Edward Egner (1961). “The basic writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959”

Answering questions is a major part of sex education. Two rules cover the ground. First, always give a truthful answer to a question; secondly, regard sex knowledge as exactly like any other knowledge.

Bertrand Russell
Sex, Two, Giving
Bertrand Russell (2014). “On Education”, p.140, Routledge

I went to Salt Lake City and the Mormons tried to convert me, but when I found they forbade tea and tobacco I thought it was no religion for me.

Bertrand Russell
Lakes, Cities, Tea
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Autobiography”, p.407, Routledge

It is amusing to hear the modern Christian telling you how mild and rationalistic Christianity really is and ignoring the fact that all its mildness and rationalism is due to the teaching of men who in their own day were persecuted by all orthodox Christians.

Bertrand Russell
Christian, Teaching, Men
Bertrand Russell, John Greer Slater, Peter Köllner (1996). “A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42”, p.221, Psychology Press

The most essential characteristic of scientific technique is that it proceeds from experiment, not from tradition. The experimental habit of mind is a difficult one for most people to maintain; indeed, the science of one generation has already become the tradition of the next

Bertrand Russell
People, Mind, Next
Bertrand Russell (2001). “The Scientific Outlook”, p.115, Psychology Press

But as the work proceeded I was continually reminded of the fable about the elephant and the tortoise. Having constructed an elephant upon which the mathematical world could rest, I found the elephant tottering, and proceeded to construct a tortoise to keep the elephant from falling. But the tortoise was not more secure than the elephant, and after some twenty years of very arduous toil, I came to the conclusion that there was nothing more that I could do in the way of making mathematical knowledge indubitable.

Bertrand Russell
Fall, Years, Elephants
Bertrand Russell (1998). “Autobiography”, p.725, Psychology Press

I have been merely oppressed by the weariness and tedium and vanity of things lately: nothing stirs me, nothing seems worth doing or worth having done: the only thing that I strongly feel worth while would be to murder as many people as possible so as to diminish the amount of consciousness in the world. These times have to be lived through: there is nothing to be done with them.

Bertrand Russell
Vanity, People, Would Be
Bertrand Russell (1969). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell: 1872-1914”

John Locke invented common sense, and only Englishmen have had it ever since!

Bertrand Russell
Common Sense, Common, Englishmen

In obedience to the feeling of reality, we shall insist that, in the analysis of propositions, nothing "unreal" is to be admitted. But, after all, if there is nothing unreal, how, it may be asked, could we admit anything unreal? The reply is that, in dealing with propositions, we are dealing in the first instance with symbols, and if we attribute significance to groups of symbols which have no significance, we shall fall into the error of admitting unrealities, in the only sense in which this is possible, namely, as objects described.

Bertrand Russell
Fall, Reality, Errors
Bertrand Russell (2007). “Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy”, p.170, Spokesman Books

[Regarding] the convention that clergymen are more virtuous than other men. Any average selection of mankind, set apart and told that it excels the rest in virtue, must tend to sink below the average.

Bertrand Russell
Men, Average, Atheism
Bertrand Russell (2015). “Why Men Fight: A Method of Abolishing the International Duel”, p.117, Lulu Press, Inc

Ethical metaphysics is fundamentally an attempt, however disguised, to give legislative force to our own wishes.

Bertrand Russell
Philosophy, Giving, Wish
Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays”, p.97, Booklassic

We are all prone to the malady of the introvert who with the manifold spectacle of the world spread out before him, turns away and gazes only upon the emptiness within.

Bertrand Russell
Advice, Solitude, World
Bertrand Russell (2013). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.60, W. W. Norton & Company

If the State does not acquire supremacy over [vast private] enterprises, it becomes their puppet, and they become the real State.

Bertrand Russell
Real, Puppets, Doe
Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.652, Routledge

The philosophies that have been inspired by scientific technique are power philosophies, and tend to regard everything non-human as mere raw material. Ends are no longer considered; only the skillfulness of the process is valued. This also is a form of madness. It is, in our day, the most dangerous form, and the one against which a sane philosophy should provide an antidote

Bertrand Russell
Philosophy, Technique, Raw Materials

I wish to propose for the reader's favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.

Bertrand Russell
Believe, Thinking, Supposing That
Sceptical Essays (1928) "On the Value of Scepticism"

As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles.

Bertrand Russell
Trouble, Reason, Authority
"The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell".

Awareness of universals is called conceiving, and a universal of which we are aware is called a concept.

Bertrand Russell
Awareness, Universal, Conceiving
Bertrand Russell, John Greer Slater, Bernd Frohmann (1992). “Logical and Philosophical Papers, 1909-13”, p.150, Psychology Press

I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe - because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return.

Bertrand Russell
Math, Science, Return
Bertrand Russell (1992). “The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell: The private years, 1884-1914”, Allen Lane

Analytic It is clear that the definition of "logic" or "mathematics" must be sought by trying to give a new definition of the old notion of "analytic" propositions.

Bertrand Russell
Giving, Trying, Definitions
Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.155, Routledge

Hatred of enemies is easier and more intense than love of friends. But from men who are more anxious to injure opponents than to benefit the world at large no great good is to be expected.

Bertrand Russell
Love, Hate, Men
Bertrand Russell (1972). “Bolshevism: practice and theory”, Ayer Co Pub

The true function of logic ... as applied to matters of experience ... is analytic rather than constructive; taken a priori, it shows the possibility of hitherto unsuspected alternatives more often than the impossibility of alternatives which seemed prima facie possible. Thus, while it liberates imagination as to what the world may be, it refuses to legislate as to what the world is

Bertrand Russell
Taken, Imagination, Alternatives
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Our Knowledge of the External World”, p.6, Routledge

The mind is a strange machine which can combine the materials offered to it in the most astonishing ways.

Bertrand Russell
Mind, Machines, Way
Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.93, Lulu Press, Inc

Very few men can be genuinely happy in a life involving continual self-assertion against the skepticism of the mass of mankind, unless they can shut themselves up in a coterie and forget the cold outer world. The man of science has no need of a coterie, since he is thought well of by everybody except his colleagues. The artist, on the contrary, is in the painful situation of having to choose between being despised and being despicable.

Bertrand Russell
Men, Artist, Self
Bertrand Russell (2013). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.55, W. W. Norton & Company

Very many people spend money in ways quite different from those that their natural tastes would enjoin, merely because the respect of their neighbors depends upon their possession of a good car and their ability to give good dinners. As a matter of fact, any man who can obviously afford a car but genuinely prefers travels or a good library will in the end be much more respected than if he behaved exactly like everyone else.

Bertrand Russell
Men, People, Giving

I say people who feel they must have a faith or religion in order to face life are showing a kind of cowardice, which in any other sphere would be considered contemptible. But when it is in the religious sphere it is thought admirable, and I cannot admire cowardice whatever sphere it is in.

Bertrand Russell
Religious, Order, People
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.37, Routledge

You May Also Like: