Bertrand Russell Quotes about Purpose

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Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless.

Unless you assume a God, the question of life's purpose is meaningless.

Bertrand Russell

Religion, Atheism, Purpose

The world in which we live can be understood as a result of muddle and accident; but if it is the outcome of deliberate purpose, the purpose must have been that of a fiend. For my part, I find accident a less painful and more plausible hypothesis.

Bertrand Russell

Religion, Purpose, World

Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.93, Simon and Schuster

A logical theory may be tested by its capacity for dealing with puzzles, and it is a wholesome plan, in thinking about logic, to stock the mind with as many puzzles as possible, since these serve much the same purpose as is served by experiments in physical science.

Bertrand Russell

Thinking, Mind, Purpose

Bertrand Russell, Alasdair Urquhart, Albert C. Lewis (1994). “Foundations of Logic, 1903-05”, p.420, Psychology Press

The purpose of education is to teach a defense against eloquence.

Bertrand Russell

Defense, Purpose, Teach

Bacon not only despised the syllogism, but undervalued mathematics, presumably as insufficiently experimental. He was virulently hostile to Aristotle , but he thought very highly of Democritus , Although he did not deny that the course of nature exemplifies a Divine purpose, he objected to any admixture of teleological explanation in the actual investigation of phenomena; everything, he held, should be explained as following necessarily from efficient causes .

Bertrand Russell

Purpose, Causes, Mathematics

Bertrand Russell (2004). “History of Western Philosophy”, p.499, Routledge

The atomists , unlike Socrates , Plato , and Aristotle , sought to explain the world without introducing the notion of purpose or final cause.

Bertrand Russell

Plato, Finals, Purpose

Bertrand Russell (2013). “History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition”, p.64, Routledge

If life is to be fully human it must serve some end which seems, in some sense, outside human life, some end which is impersonal and above mankind, such as God or truth or beauty. Those who best promote life do not have life for their purpose. They aim rather at what seems like a gradual incarnation, a bringing into our human existence of something eternal, something that appears to imagination to live in a heaven remote from strife and failure and the devouring jaws of Time.

Bertrand Russell

Imagination, Heaven, Purpose

Bertrand Russell (2015). “Why Men Fight: A Method of Abolishing the International Duel”, p.144, Lulu Press, Inc