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Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 34

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Common sense, however it tries, cannot avoid being surprised from time to time.

Common sense, however it tries, cannot avoid being surprised from time to time.

Bertrand Russell
Common Sense, Trying, Logic

Neither acquiescence in skepticism nor acquiescence in dogma is what education should produce.

Bertrand Russell
Acquiescence, Dogma, Should
Bertrand Russell (1993). “The Quotable Bertrand Russell”

There are certain things that our age needs, and certain things that it should avoid. It needs compassion and a wish that mankind should be happy; it needs the desire for knowledge and the determination to eschew pleasant myths; it needs, above all, courageous hope and the impulse to creativeness.

Bertrand Russell
Faith, Determination, Compassion
Bertrand Russell (1998). “Autobiography”, p.520, Psychology Press

Bad philosophers may have a certain influence; good philosophers, never.

Bertrand Russell
Philosophy, May, Philosopher

Those who in principle oppose birth control are either incapable of arithmetic or else in favour of war, pestilence and famine as permanent features of human life.

Bertrand Russell
Life, War, Pestilence
Bertrand Russell (1971). “Ladislas Reymont: Romain Rolland ; Bertrand Russell”

Undoubtedly the desire for food has been and still is one of the main causes of political events.

Bertrand Russell
Political, Desire, Events
Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.447, Routledge

It is impossible to read in America, except on a train, because of the telephone. Everyone has a telephone, and it rings all day and most of the night.

Bertrand Russell
Book, Reading, Night

One of the troubles about vanity is that it grows with what it feeds on. The more you are talked about, the more you will wish to be talked about.

Bertrand Russell
Vanity, Wish, Trouble
Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.448, Routledge

The reason is, and by rights ought to be, slave to the emotions.

Bertrand Russell
Rights, Emotion, Slave

Adventurous men enjoy shipwrecks, mutinies, earthquakes, conflagrations, and all kinds of unpleasant experiences. They say to themselves, for example, 'So this is what an earthquake is like,' and it gives them pleasure to have their knowledge of the world increased by this new item.

Bertrand Russell
Men, Earthquakes, Giving
Bertrand Russell (2012). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.114, Routledge

I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of WORK, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in the organised diminution of work.

Bertrand Russell
Lying, Done, World
Bertrand Russell (2004). “In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays”, p.3, Psychology Press

It is obviously possible that what we call waking life may only be an unusual and persistent nightmare.

Bertrand Russell
Waking Life, May, Nightmare

Right conduct can never, except by some rare accident, be promoted by ignorance or hindered by knowledge.

Bertrand Russell
Ignorance, Knowledge, Right Conduct
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Marriage and Morals”, p.58, Routledge

Science, in its ultimate ideal, consists of a set of propositions arranged in a hierarchy, the lowest level of the hierarchy being concerned with particular facts, and the highest with some general law, governing everything in the universe. The various levels in the hierarchy have a two-fold logical connection, travelling one up, one down; the upward connection proceeds by induction, the downward by deduction.

Bertrand Russell
Science, Law, Two
Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Scientific Outlook”, p.38, Routledge

Philosophy is that part of science which at present people chose to have opinions about, but which they have no knowledge about. Therefore every advance in knowledge robs philosophy of some problems which formerly it had ...and will belong to science.

Bertrand Russell
Philosophy, Knowledge, Science
Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism”, p.124, Routledge

Nothing of importance is ever achieved without discipline. I feel myself sometimes not wholly in sympathy with some modern educational theorists, because I think that they underestimate the part that discipline plays. But the discipline you have in your life should be one determined by your own desires and your own needs, not put upon you by society or authority.

Bertrand Russell
Educational, Thinking, Play
Bertrand Russell (1987). “Bertrand Russell on ethics, sex, and marriage”

To a modern mind, it is difficult to feel enthusiastic about a virtuous life if nothing is going to be achieved by it.

Bertrand Russell
Mind, Enthusiasm, Modern
Bertrand Russell (2008). “History of Western Philosophy”, p.255, Simon and Schuster

... the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be.

Bertrand Russell
Pain, Loneliness, World
Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.9, Routledge

Something of the hermit's temper is an essential element in many forms of excellence, since it enables men to resist the lure of popularity, to pursue important work in spite of general indifference or hostility, and arrive at opinions which are opposed to prevalent errors.

Bertrand Russell
Men, Errors, Solitude
Bertrand Russell (2004). “Power: A New Social Analysis”, p.37, Routledge

A proverb is one man's wit and all men's wisdom.

Bertrand Russell
Wisdom, Men, Wit

Science tells us what we can know, but what we can know is little, and if we forget how much we cannot know we become insensitive to many things of great importance.

Bertrand Russell
Littles, Forget, Importance
Bertrand Russell (2013). “History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition”, p.2, Routledge

Americans need rest, but do not know it.

Bertrand Russell
Needs, Knows
Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.146, Psychology Press

Philosophy, for Plato, is a kind of vision, the 'vision of truth'...Everyone who has done any kind of creative work has experienced, in a greater or less degree, the state of mind in which, after long labour, truth or beauty appears, or seems to appear, in a sudden glory - it may only be about some small matter, or it may be about the universe. I think that most of the best creative work, in art, in science, in literature, and in philosophy, has been a result of just such a moment.

Bertrand Russell
Art, Plato, Philosophy

In the first place a philosophical proposition must be general. It must not deal specially with things on the surface of the earth, or within the solar system, or with any other portion of space and time. . . . This brings us to a second characteristic of philosophical propositions, namely that they must be a priori. A philosophical proposition must be such as can neither be proved nor disproved by empirical evidence. . . . Philosophy, if what has been said is correct, becomes indistinguishable from logic as that word has now come to be used.

Bertrand Russell
Time, Philosophy, Philosophical

I can't tell whether I am living in a dream or a nightmare.

Bertrand Russell
Dream, Nightmare, I Can

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