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Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 36

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The fundamental defect of Christian ethics consists in the fact that it labels certain classes of acts 'sins' and others 'virtue' on grounds that have nothing to do with their social consequences.

The fundamental defect of Christian ethics consists in the fact that it labels certain classes of acts 'sins' and others 'virtue' on grounds that have nothing to do with their social consequences.

Bertrand Russell
Christian, Class, Labels
Bertrand Russell (2013). “Education and the Social Order”, p.73, Routledge

Science has made unrestricted national sovereignty incompatible with human survival. The only possibilities are now world government or death.

Bertrand Russell
World Government, Survival, Possibility

Philosophy bakes no bread

Bertrand Russell
Philosophy, Bread

To discover a system for the avoidance of war is a vital need of our civilisation.

Bertrand Russell
War, Needs, Civilisation
Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.6, Lulu Press, Inc

While I am as convinced a Socialist as the most ardent Marxian, I do not regard Socialism as a gospel of proletarian revenge, nor even, primarily, as a means of securing economic justice. I regard it primarily as an adjustment to machine production demanded by considerations of common sense, and calculated to increase the happiness, not only of proletarians, but of all except a tiny minority of the human race.

Bertrand Russell
Revenge, Mean, Race
Bertrand Russell, Kenneth Blackwell (2008). “The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell”

Each act of cruelty is eternally a part of the universe; nothing that happens later can make that act good rather than bad, or can confer perfection on the whole of which it is a part.

Bertrand Russell
Perfection, Cruelty, Whole
Bertrand Russell (2013). “History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition”, p.467, Routledge

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.

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

It would have been very much better for the world if Britain had remained neutral and the Germans had won a quick victory. We should not have had either the Nazis or the Communists if that had happened.

Bertrand Russell
War, Victory, World

It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals.

Bertrand Russell
Fate, Form, Idealism
Marriage and Morals ch. 7 (1929)

The coward wretch whose hand and heart Can bear to torture aught below, Is ever first to quail and start From the slightest pain or equal foe.

Bertrand Russell
Honesty, Pain, Integrity

Admiration of the proletariat, like that of dams, power stations, and aeroplanes, is part of the ideology of the machine age.

Bertrand Russell
Birthday, Age, Dams
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.62, Routledge

A good social system is not to be secured by making people unselfish, but, by making their own vital impulses fit in with other peoples. This is feasible. Those who have produced stoic philosophies have all had enough to eat and drink. I feel I shall find the truth on my deathbed and be surrounded by people too stupid to understand—fussing about medicines instead of searching for wisdom. I hate being all tidy like a book in a library where nobody reads – prison is horribly like that.

Bertrand Russell
Hate, Philosophy, Stupid

Respectability, regularity, and routine - the whole cast-iron discipline of a modern industrial society - have atrophied the artistic impulse, and imprisoned love so that it can no longer be generous and free and creative, but must be either stuffy or furtive.

Bertrand Russell
Iron, Discipline, Creative
Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.12, Psychology Press

Machines have altered our way of life, but not our instincts. Consequently, there is maladjustment.

Bertrand Russell
Machines, Way, Instinct
Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.69, Psychology Press

Understanding human nature must be the basis of any real improvement in human life. Science has done wonders in mastering the laws of the physical world, but our own nature is much less understood, as yet, than the nature of stars and electrons. When science learns to understand human nature, it will be able to bring a happiness into our lives which machines and the physical sciences have failed to create.

Bertrand Russell
Stars, Real, Law
Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.70, Psychology Press

There is an element of the busybody in our conception of virtue: unless a man makes himself a nuisance to a great many people, we do not think he can be an exceptionally good man.

Bertrand Russell
Men, Thinking, People
Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.540, Routledge

To speak seriously: the standards of "goodness" which are generally recognized by public opinion are not those which are calculated to make the world a happier place. This is due to a variety of causes, of which the chief is tradition, and the next most powerful is the unjust power of dominant classes.

Bertrand Russell
Powerful, Class, World
Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.97, Psychology Press

It is a natural propensity to attribute misfortune to someone's malignity.

Bertrand Russell
Natural, Attributes, Propensity
Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.113, Psychology Press

We do not like to be robbed of an enemy; we want someone to hate when we suffer. It is so depressing to think that we suffer because we are fools; yet, taking mankind in the mass, that is the truth.

Bertrand Russell
Depressing, Hate, Thinking
Bertrand Russell (1971). “Ladislas Reymont: Romain Rolland ; Bertrand Russell”

Love can only flourish as long as it is free and spontaneous; it tends to be killed by the thought that it is a duty. To say that it is your duty to love so-and-so is the surest way to cause you to hate him or her.

Bertrand Russell
Hate, Long, Way
"Marriage and Morals".

Science can teach us, and I think our hearts can teach us, no longer to look around for imaginary supporters, no longer to invent allies in the sky, but rather to look to our own efforts here below to make the world a fit place to live.

Bertrand Russell
Heart, Thinking, Sky

The first effect of emancipation from the Church was not to make men think rationally, but to open their minds to every sort of antique nonsense

Bertrand Russell
Men, Thinking, Mind
Bertrand Russell (2013). “History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition”, Routledge

If everything has a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just be the world as God.

Bertrand Russell
Religion, World, May
Bertrand Russell, John Greer Slater, Peter Köllner (1996). “A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42”, p.183, Psychology Press

Is a man what he seems to the astronomer, a tiny lump of impure carbon and water crawling impotently on a small and unimportant planet? Or is he what he appears to Hamlet? Is he perhaps both as once?

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

Moreover, the attitude that one ought to believe such and such a proposition, independently of the question whether there is evidence in its favor, is an attitude which produces hostility to evidence and causes us to close our minds to every fact that does not suit our prejudices.

Bertrand Russell
Attitude, Believe, Mind
Bertrand Russell (2016). “Why I Am Not a Christian”, p.55, Lulu Press, Inc

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