Authors:

Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 45

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
Some `advanced thinkers' are of the opinion that anyone who differs from the conventional opinion must be in the right. This is a delusion; if it were not, truth would be easier to come by than it is.

Some `advanced thinkers' are of the opinion that anyone who differs from the conventional opinion must be in the right. This is a delusion; if it were not, truth would be easier to come by than it is.

Bertrand Russell
Would Be, Opinion, Easier
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.62, Routledge

The argument against the persecution of opinion does not depend upon what the excuse for persecution may be. The argument is that we none of us know all truth, that the discovery of new truth is promoted by free discussion and rendered very difficult by suppression.

Bertrand Russell
Truth, Discovery, Doe
Bertrand Russell (1935). “Religion and science”

A fanatical belief in democracy makes democratic institutions impossible.

Bertrand Russell
Democracy, Belief, Impossible
Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.400, Psychology Press

Mystery is delightful, but unscientific, since it depends upon ignorance.

Bertrand Russell
Ignorance, Mystery, Delightful
Bertrand Russell (2016). “The Analysis of Mind”, p.52, Bertrand Russell

The best authorities are unanimous in saying that a war with H-bombs might possibly put an end to the human race. It is feared that if many H-bombs are used there will be universal death, sudden only for a minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration.

Bertrand Russell
War, Race, Majority
Bertrand Russell, Andrew G. Bone (2003). “Man's Peril, 1954-55”, p.319, Psychology Press

Man can be scientifically manipulated.

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

Aristotle and Plato considered Greeks so innately superior to barbarians that slavery is justified so long as the master is Greek and the slave barbarian.

Bertrand Russell
Plato, Long, Greek
Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.56, Routledge

From that awful encounter of the soul with the outer world, enunciation, wisdom, and charity are born; and with their birth a new life begins. To take into the inmost shrine of the soul the irresistible forces whose puppets we seem to be - Death and change, the irrevocableness of the past, and the powerlessness of Man before the blind hurry of the universe from vanity to vanity - to feel these things and know them is to conquer them.

Bertrand Russell
Past, Men, Vanity
Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays”, p.52, Booklassic

I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached.

Bertrand Russell
Country, Thinking, Different
Bertrand Russell (2004). “In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays”, p.1, Psychology Press

War grows out of ordinary human nature.

Bertrand Russell
War, Ordinary, Human Nature
Bertrand Russell (2015). “Why Men Fight: A Method of Abolishing the International Duel”, p.5, Lulu Press, Inc

Of course not. After all, I may be wrong.

Bertrand Russell
Intelligence, May, Courses
Attributed in "The Times book of quotations" by Philip Howard, (p. 84), 2000.

One of the chief triumphs of modern mathematics consists in having discovered what mathematics really is.

Bertrand Russell
Science, Triumph, Modern
Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.46, 谷月社

It is only in marriage with the world that our ideals can bear fruit; divorced from it, they remain barren.

Bertrand Russell
Life, World, Fruit
Bertrand Russell (2016). “Mysticism and Logic”, p.15, Bertrand Russell

Much of the most important evils that mankind have to consider are those which they inflict upon each other through stupidity or malevolence or both.

Bertrand Russell
Evil, Stupidity, Important
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.143, Routledge

Ideas and principles that do harm are as a rule, though not always, cloaks for evil passions.

Bertrand Russell
Passion, Ideas, Evil
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.143, Routledge

The method of "postulating" what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil.

Bertrand Russell
Honesty, Math, Toil
Bertrand Russell (2007). “Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy”, p.71, Spokesman Books

We are ... led to a somewhat vague distinction between what we may call "hard" data and "soft" data. This distinction is a matter of degree, and must not be pressed; but if not taken too seriously it may help to make the situation clear. I mean by "hard" data those which resist the solvent influence of critical reflection, and by "soft" data those which, under the operation of this process, become to our minds more or less doubtful.

Bertrand Russell
Taken, Mean, Science
Bertrand Russell (1914). “Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy”

It is odd that neither the Church nor modern public opinion condemns petting, provided it stops short at a certain point. At what point sin begins is a matter as to which casuists differ. One eminently orthodox Catholic divine laid it down that a confessor may fondle a nun's breasts, provided he does it without evil intent. But I doubt whether modern authorities would agree with him on this point.

Bertrand Russell
Evil, Catholic, Doubt
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.77, Routledge

In the higher walks of politics the same sort of thing occurs. The statesman who has gradually concentrated all power within himself ... may have had anything but a public motive... The phrases which are customary on the platform and in the Party Press have gradually come to him to seem to express truths, and he mistakes the rhetoric of partisanship for a genuine analysis of motives... He retires from the world after the world has retired from him.

Bertrand Russell
Truth, Mistake, Party

Arithmetic must be discovered in just the same sense in which Columbus discovered the West Indies, and we no more create numbers than he created the Indians.

Bertrand Russell
Science, West Indies, Discovery
Bertrand Russell (2009). “Principles of Mathematics”, p.457, Routledge

But it is just this characteristic of simplicity in the laws of nature hitherto discovered which it would be fallacious to generalize, for it is obvious that simplicity has been a part cause of their discovery, and can, therefore, give no ground for the supposition that other undiscovered laws are equally simple.

Bertrand Russell
Science, Simple, Discovery
Bertrand Russell (1981). “Mysticism and Logic, and Other Essays”, p.78, Rowman & Littlefield

There is as much difference between a collection of mentally free citizens and a community molded by modern methods of propaganda as there is between a heap of raw materials and a battleship.

Bertrand Russell
Science, Differences, Community
Bertrand Russell (1986). “Bertrand Russell on God and Religion”

Every living thing is a sort of imperialist, seeking to transform as much as possible of its environment into itself.

Bertrand Russell
Fear, Atheism, Environment
Bertrand Russell (2009). “An Outline of Philosophy”, p.31, Routledge

In regard to the past, where contemplation is not obscured by desire and the need for action, we see, more clearly than in the lives about us, the value for good and evil, of the aims men have pursued and the means they have adopted. It is good, from time to time, to view the present as already past, and to examine what elements it contains that will add to the world's store of permanent possessions, that will live and give life when we and all our generation have perished.

Bertrand Russell
Mean, Men, Past
Bertrand Russell (1985). “Contemplation and Action, 1902-14”, p.80, Psychology Press

You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go.

Bertrand Russell
Giving, Wicked, Petrol
Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.40, Simon and Schuster

You May Also Like: