Bertrand Russell Quotes (333 Quotes)

Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires.

Drunkeness is temporary suicide the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness.

A man who has once perceived, however temporarily and however briefly, what makes greatness of soul, can no longer be happy if he allows himself to be petty, self-seeking, troubled by trivial misfortunes, dreading what fate may have in store for him. The.

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

I am a firm believer in democratic representative government as the best form for those who have the tolerance and self-restraint that is required to make it workable

When the journey from means to end is not too long, the means themselves are enjoyed if the end is ardently desired.

I've always thought respectable people scoundrels, and I look anxiously at my face every morning for signs of my becoming a scoundrel.

It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living.

3. Formality Thus the absence of all mention of particular things or properties in logic or pure mathematics is a necessary result of the fact that this study is, as we say, 'purely formal'.

Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and justification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical.

William James describes a man who got the experience from laughing-gas whenever he was under its influence, he knew the secret of the universe, but when he came to, he had forgotten it. Atlast, with immense effort, he wrote down the secret before the vision had faded. Whencompletely recovered, he rushed to see what he had written. Itwas 'Asmell of petroleum prevailsthroughout'.

Ordinary language is totally unsuited for expressing what physics really asserts, since the words of everyday life are not sufficiently abstract. Only mathematics and mathematical logic can say as little as the physicist means to say.

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty - a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture.

The study of logic becomes the central study in philosophy it gives the method of research in philosophy, just as mathematics gives the method in physics.... All this supposed knowledge in the traditional systems must be swept away, and a new beginning m.

Owing to the identification of religion with virtue, together with the fact that the most religious men are not the most intelligent, a religious education gives courage to the stupid to resist the authority of educated men.

The doctrine, as I understand it, consists in maintaining that the language of daily life, with words used in their ordinary meanings, suffices for philosophy, which has no need of technical terms or of changes in the significance of common terms. I find myself totally unable to accept this view. I object to it 1. Because it is insincere 2. Because it is capable of excusing ignorance of mathematics, physics and neurology in those who have had only a classical education 3. Because it is advanced by some in a tone of unctuous rectitude, as if opposition to it were a sin against democracy 4. Because it makes philosophy trivial 5. Because it makes almost inevitable the perpetuation amongst philosophers of the muddle-headedness they have taken over from common sense.

Christ believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.

Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.

We love our habits more than our income, often more than our life.

Against my will, in the course of my travels, the belief that everything worth knowing was known at Cambridge gradually wore off. In this respect my travels were very useful to me.

Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who'll get the blame.

It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.

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.

To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.

Law in origin was merely a codification of the power of dominant groups, and did not aim at anything that to a modern man would appear to be justice

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

Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false.

Dread of disaster makes everybody act in the very way that increases the disaster. Psychologically the situation is analogous to that of people trampled to death when there is a panic in a theatre caused by a cry of Fire'

Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.

Man is a feeble creature, to whom only submission and worship are besoming. Pride is insolence, and belief in human power is impiety.

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

The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.

It can be shown that a mathematical web of some kind can be woven about any universe containing several objects. The fact that our universe lends itself to mathematical treatment is not a fact of any great philosophical significance.

I did not know I loved you until I heard myself telling so, for one instance I thought, 'Good God, what have I said' and then I knew it was true.

Indemnity for the past and security for the future.

All movements go too far.

Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one.

I observe that a very large portion of the human race does not believe in God and suffers no visible punishment in consequence. And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who

The frequency with which a man experiences lust depends upon his own physical condition, whereas the occasion which rouse such feelings in him depend upon the social conventions to which he is accustomed

The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself.

Italy, and the spring and first love all together should suffice to make the gloomiest person happy.

If a philosophy is to bring happiness it should be inspired by kindly feelings. Marx pretended that he wanted the happiness of the proletariat what he really wanted was the unhappiness of the bourgeois.

A habit of basing convictions upon evidence, and of giving to them only that degree or certainty which the evidence warrants, would, if it became general, cure most of the ills from which the world suffers.

Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile.

It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a great hope that it so seldom achieves great results. The wish to preserve the past rather that the hope of creating the future dominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young.

There is no greater reason for children to honour parents than for parents to honour children except, that while the children are young, the parents are stronger than children.

By self-interest, Man has become gregarious, but in instinct he has remained to a great extent solitary hence the need of religion and morality to reinforce self-interest

What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer.

If we could all live solitary and without labor, we could all enjoy this ecstasy of independence since we cannot, its delights are only available to madmen and dictators

Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.