Bertrand Russell Quotes

The typical unhappy man is one who, having been deprived in youth of some normal satisfaction, has come to value this one kind of satisfaction more than any other, and has therefore given to his life a one-sided direction, together with a quite undue emphasis upon the achievement as opposed to the activities connected with it. ~ Bertrand Russell

If our logic is to find the common world intelligible, it must not be hostile, but must be inspired by a genuine acceptance such as is not usually to be found among metaphysicians. ~ Bertrand Russell

In general, I find that things that have happened to me out of doors have made a deeper impression than things that have happened indoors. ~ Bertrand Russell

If wars are eliminated and production is organized scientifically, it is probable that four hours' work a day will suffice to keep everybody in comfort ~ Bertrand Russell

The essence of life is doing things for their own sakes. ~ Bertrand Russell

If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years. ~ Bertrand Russell

If the State does not acquire supremacy over [vast private] enterprises, it becomes their puppet, and they become the real State. ~ Bertrand Russell

Some care is needed in using Descartes' argument. "I think, therefore I am" says rather more than is strictly certain. It might seem as though we are quite sure of being the same person to-day as we were yesterday, and this is no doubt true in some sense. But the real Self is as hard to arrive at as the real table, and does not seem to have that absolute, convincing certainty that belongs to particular experiences. ~ Bertrand Russell

Skilled work, of no matter what kind, is only done well by those who take a certain pleasure in it, quite apart from its utility, either to themselves in earning a living, or to the world through its outcome. ~ Bertrand Russell

The take-home message is that we should blame religion itself, not religious extremism - as though that were some kind of terrible perversion of real, decent religion. Voltaire got it right long ago: 'Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.' So did Bertrand Russell: 'Many people would sooner die than think. In fact they do. ~ Richard Dawkins

Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realize the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom. ~ Bertrand Russell

Whatever we know without inference is mental. ~ Bertrand Russell

What vanity needs for its satisfaction is glory, and it's easy to have glory without power. ~ Bertrand Russell

Mankind is divided into two classes: those who, being artificial, praise nature, and those who, being natural, praise art. ~ Bertrand Russell

Democracy has at least one merit, namely that a Member of Parliament cannot be stupider than his constituents, for the more stupid he is, the more stupid they were to elect him. ~ Bertrand Russell

The Pleroma is the totality. The superset. Magisteria are the subsets." Eat your heart out, Bertrand Russell. "We all have one. Even you. Your own little slice of the divine. ~ Ian Tregillis

If we compare Europe with other continents, it is marked out as [another] persecuting continent. ~ Bertrand Russell

When a child reaches adolescence, there is very apt to be a conflict between parents and child, since the latter considers himself to be by now quite capable of managing his own affairs, while the former are filled with parental solicitude, which is often a disguise for love of power. Parents consider, usually, that the various moral problems which arise in adolescence are peculiarly their province. The opinions they express, however, are so dogmatic that the young seldom confide in them, and usually go their own way in secret. ~ Bertrand Russell

Affection cannot be created; it can only be liberated. ~ Bertrand Russell

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

Men who allow their love of power to give them a distorted view of the world are to be found in every asylum: one man will think he is the Governor of the Bank of England, another will think he is the King, and yet another will think he is God. Highly similar delusions, if expressed by educated men in obscure language, lead to professorships of philosophy; and if expressed by emotional men in eloquent language, lead to dictatorships. ~ Bertrand Russell

I am looking forward very much to getting back to Cambridge, and being able to say what I think and not to mean what I say: two things which at home are impossible. Cambridge is one of the few places where one can talk unlimited nonsense and generalities without anyone pulling one up or confronting one with them when one says just the opposite the next day. ~ Bertrand Russell

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. ~ Bertrand Russell

We have in fact, two kinds of morality, side by side: one which we preach, but do not practice, and another which we practice, but seldom preach. ~ Bertrand Russell

No rules, however wise, are a substitute for affection and tact. ~ Bertrand Russell

Mathematics takes us still further from what is human into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual world, but ever possible world, must conform. ~ Bertrand Russell

There was, I think, never any reason to believe in any innate superiority of the male, except his superior muscle. ~ Bertrand Russell

It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won't go. ~ Bertrand Russell

A life which goes excessively against natural impulse is ... likely to involve effects of strain that may be quite as bad as indulgence in forbidden impulses would have been. People who live a life which is unnatural beyond a point are likely to be filled with envy, malice and uncharitableness. ~ Bertrand Russell

There seems scarcely any limit to what could be done in the way of producing a good world, if only men would use science wisely. ~ Bertrand Russell

I was told that The Chinese said they would bury me by the Western Lake and build a shrine to my memory. I have some slight regret that this did not happen, as I might have become a god, which would have been very chic for an atheist. ~ Bertrand Russell

In a world where there were no specifically mental facts, is it not plain that there would be a complete impartiality, an evenly diffused light, not the central illumination fading away into outer darkness, which is characteristic of objects in relation to a mind? ~ Bertrand Russell

In spreading his ideas, Plato was willing to employ emotional appeals, state propaganda, and the use of force. ~ Bertrand Russell

All the labor of all the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction. So now, my friends, if that is true, and it is true, what is the point? ~ Bertrand Russell

The difficulty is old, but none the less real. An omnipotent being who created a world containing evil not due to sin must Himself be at least partially evil. ~ Bertrand Russell

The great majority of men and women, in ordinary times, pass through life without ever contemplating or criticising, as a whole, either their own conditions or those of the world at large. They find themselves born into a certain place in society, and they accept what each day brings forth, without any effort of thought beyond what the immediate present requires. Almost as instinctively as the beasts of the field, they seek the satisfaction of the needs of the moment, without much forethought, and without considering that by sufficient effort the whole conditions of their lives could be changed. A certain percentage, guided by personal ambition, make the effort of thought and will which is necessary to place themselves among the more fortunate members of the community; but very few among these are seriously concerned to secure for all the advantages which they seek for themselves. It is only a few rare and exceptional men who have that kind of love toward mankind at large that makes them unable to endure patiently the general mass of evil and suffering, regardless of any relation it may have to their own lives. ~ Bertrand Russell

A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation. ~ Bertrand Russell

An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God. The Christian holds that we can know there is a God; the atheist, that we can know there is not. The Agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial. At the same time, an Agnostic may hold that the existence of God, though not impossible, is very improbable; he may even hold it so improbable that it is not worth considering in practice. In that case, he is not far removed from atheism. ~ Bertrand Russell

Animistic savages prostrating themselves before a painted stone have always seemed to me to be nearer the truth than any Einstein or Bertrand Russell. As it might be pigs in a crowded sty, jostling and shoving to bury their snouts in the trough; until one of them momentarily lifts his snout upwards in the air, in so doing expressing the hope of all enlightenment to come; breaking off from his guzzling to point with his lifted snout to where the angels and archangels gather round God's throne. ~ Malcolm Muggeridge

What's the difference between a bright, inquisitive five-year-old, and a dull, stupid nineteen-year-old? Fourteen years of the British educational system. ~ Bertrand Russell

When I was a child ... Only virtue was prized, virtue at the expense of intellect, health, happiness, and every mundane good. ~ Bertrand Russell

The only kind of appeal that wins any instinctive response in party politics is an appeal to hostile feeling; the men who perceive the need of cooperation are powerless. Until education has been directed for a generation into new channels, and the Press has abandoned incitements to hatred, only harmful policies have any chance of being adopted in practice by our present political methods. But there is no obvious means of altering education and the Press until our political system is altered. From this dilemma there is no issue by means of ordinary action, at any rate for a long time to come. The best that can be hoped, it seems to me, is that we should, as many of us as possible, become political skeptics, rigidly abstaining from belief in the various attractive party programmes that are put before us from time to time. ~ Bertrand Russell

On the one hand, philosophy is to keep us thinking about things that we may come to know, and on the other hand to keep us modestly aware of how much that seems like knowledge isn't knowledge ~ Bertrand Russell

What is the use of making everybody rich if the rich themselves are miserable? ~ Bertrand Russell

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 ~ Bertrand Russell

The danger is one which democracy by itself does not suffice to avert. A democracy in which the majority exercises its power without restraint may be almost as tyrannical as a dictatorship. Toleration of minorities is an essential part of wise democracy, but a part which is not always sufficiently remembered. ~ Bertrand Russell

This political disorder found expression in Machiavelli Prince. In the absence of any guiding principle, politics becomes a naked struggle for power; The Prince gives shrewd advice as to how to play this game successfully. What had happened in the great age of Greece happened again in Renaissance Italy: traditional moral restraints disappeared, because they were seen to be associated with superstition; the liberation from fetters made individuals energetic and creative, producing a rare florescence of genius; but the anarchy and treachery which inevitably resulted from the decay of morals made Italians collectively impotent, and they fell, like the Greeks, under the domination of nations less civilized than themselves but not so destitute of social cohesion. ~ Bertrand Russell

It has always been correct to praise Plato, but not to understand him. ~ Bertrand Russell

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

Russell is reputed at a dinner party once to have said, 'Oh, it is useless talking about inconsistent things, from an inconsistent proposition you can prove anything you like.' Well, it is very easy to show this by mathematical means. But, as usual, Russell was much cleverer than this. Somebody at the dinner table said, 'Oh, come on!' He said, 'Well, name an inconsistent proposition,' and the man said, 'Well, what shall we say, 2 = 1.' 'All right,' said Russell, 'what do you want me to prove?' The man said, 'I want you to prove that you're the pope.' 'Why,' said Russell, 'the pope and I are two, but two equals one, therefore the pope and I are one. ~ Jacob Bronowski

Something of the same strain and anguish seems to have entered the soul of ivilised man. He knows there is something better than himself almost within his grasp, yet he does not know where to seek it or how to find it. In despair he rages against his fellow man, who is equally lost and equally unhappy. ~ Bertrand Russell

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

A scientist can hardly meet with anything more undesirable than to have the foundations give way just as the work is finished. I was put in this position by a letter from Mr. Bertrand Russell when the work was nearly through the press. ~ Gottlob Frege

Bertrand Russell writes that the painful thing about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision. ~ Rollo May

An even more important philosophical contact was with the Austrian philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein, who began as my pupil and ended as my supplanter at both Oxford and Cambridge. He had intended to become an engineer and had gone to Manchester for that purpose. The training for an engineer required mathematics, and he was thus led to interest in the foundations of mathematics. He inquired at Manchester whether there was such a subject and whether anybody worked at it. They told him about me, and so he came to Cambridge. He was queer, and his notions seemed to me odd, so that for a whole term I could not make up my mind whether he was a man of genius or merely an eccentric. At the end of his first term at Cambridge he came to me and said: "Will you please tell me whether I am a complete idiot or not?" I replied, "My dear fellow, I don't know. Why are you asking me?" He said, "Because, if I am a complete idiot, I shall become an aeronaut; but, if not, I shall become a philosopher." I told him to write me something during the vacation on some philosophical subject and I would then tell him whether he was complete idiot or not. At the beginning of the following term he brought me the fulfillment of this suggestion. After reading only one sentence, I said to him: "No, you must not become an aeronaut." And he didn't.
The collected papers of Bertrand Russell: Last Philosophical Testament ~ Bertrand Russell

English philosopher Bertrand Russell, another prominent twentieth-century pacifist, once used those medicinal facts about iodine to build a case against the existence of immortal souls. "The energy used in thinking seems to have a chemical origin ... ," he wrote. "For instance, a deficiency of iodine will turn a clever man into an idiot. Mental phenomena seem to be bound up with material structure." In other words, iodine made Russell realize that reason and emotions and memories depend on material conditions in the brain. He saw no way to separate the "soul" from the body, and concluded that the rich mental life of human beings, the source of all their glory and much of their woe, is chemistry through and through. ~ Sam Kean

True happiness for human beings is possible only to those who develop their godlike potentialities to the utmost. ~ Bertrand Russell

I resolved from the beginning of my quest that I would not be misled by sentiment and desire into beliefs for which there was no good evidence. ~ Bertrand Russell

The pleasure of work is open to anyone who can develop some specialised skill, provided that he can get satisfaction from the exercise of his skill without demanding universal applause. ~ Bertrand Russell

Beggars do not envy millionaires, though of course they will envy other beggars who are more successful. ~ Bertrand Russell

The whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. ~ Bertrand Russell

Russell observes that "the merits of democracy are negative: it does not ensure good government, but it prevents certain evils," such as the evil of a small group of individuals achieving a secure monopoly on political power. The chief peril for the politician, Russell insists, is love of power. And politicians can easily yield to the love of power on the pretense that they are pursuing some absolute good. ~ Bertrand Russell

The campaign of anti-Islamic slander was so successful that to this day some textbooks in European and American schools refer to Muhammad as having epilepsy, the Qur'an as being copied from Bible, Muslim armies forcing conversions on people (by the sword), and Islam as being against science and learning. All of these are quite untrue, and enlightened Western authors from Arnold Toynbee and Bertrand Russell to Yvonne Haddad and John Esposito have been dispelling these myths on book after book for decades; nevertheless, the message hasn't reached the masses, who still believe numerous myths concerning Islam. ~ Yahiya Emerick

There can be no greater antithesis than between the Greeks' rational and objective truth and the "truth of unreason," as Bertrand Russell aptly termed faith in religions, fictions about supernatural beings that soothe and comfort weaklings who are afraid to contemplate the grim world of reality. ~ Revilo P. Oliver

All the important human advances that we know of since historical times began have been due to individuals of whom the majority faced virulent public opposition. ~ Bertrand Russell

The question as to which of these two theories applies to the actual world is, like all questions concerning the actual world, in itself irrelevant to pure mathematics.* But the argument against absolute position usually takes the form of maintaining that a space composed of points is logically inadmissible, and hence issues are raised which a philosophy of mathematics must discuss. In what follows, I am concerned only with the question: Is a space composed of points self-contradictory? It is true that, if this question be answered in the negative, the sole ground for denying that such a space exists in the actual world is removed; but this is a further point, which, being irrelevant to our subject, will be left entirely to the sagacity of the reader. ~ Bertrand Russell

We must be sceptical even of our scepticism. ~ Bertrand Russell

Hatred of enemies is easier and more intense than love of friends. But from men who are more anxious to injure opponents than to benefit the world at large no great good is to be expected. ~ Bertrand Russell

We still think it natural that a man should leave his property to his children, that is to say we accept the hereditary principle as regards economic power, while rejecting it as regards political power. Political dynasties have disappeared; economic dynasties survive. When you consider how natural it seems to us that the power over the lives of others resulting from great wealth should be hereditary, you will understand better how men like Sir Robert Filmer could take the same view as regards the power of kings. ~ Bertrand Russell

Almost all philosophers, in their ethical systems, first lay down a false doctrine, and then argue that wickedness consists in acting in a manner that proves it false, which would be impossible if the doctrine were true. ~ Bertrand Russell

seems that men are at their best between sixty and seventy, the reason being that in such occupations a wide experience of other men is essential. ~ Bertrand Russell

A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it. ~ Bertrand Russell

As against solipsism it is to be said, in the first place, that it is psychologically impossible to believe, and is rejected in fact even by those who mean to accept it. I once received a letter from an eminent logician, Mrs. Christine Ladd-Franklin, saying that she was a solipsist, and was surprised that there were no others. Coming from a logician and a solipsist, her surprise surprised me. ~ Bertrand Russell

Protagoras did not know if the gods exist, but he held in any case they ought to be worshiped. Philosophy, according to him, had nothing edifying to teach, and for the survival of morals we must rely upon the thoughtlessness of the majority and their willingness to believe what they had been taught. ~ Bertrand Russell

When two men of science disagree, they do not invoke the secular arm; they wait for further evidence to decide the issue, because, as men of science, they know that neither is infallible. But when two theologians differ, since there is no criteria to which either can appeal, there is nothing for it but mutual hatred and an open or covert appeal to force. ~ Bertrand Russell

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge. ~ Bertrand Russell

Philosophers, for the most part, are constitutionally timid, and dislike the unexpected. Few of them would be genuinely happy as pirates or burglars. Accordingly they invent systems which make the future calculable, at least in its main outlines. ~ Bertrand Russell

What I do maintain is that success can only be one ingredient in happiness,
and is too dearly purchased if all the other ingredients have been sacrificed to obtain
it. ~ Bertrand Russell

Truth is for the gods; from our human point of view, it is an ideal, towards which we can approximate, but which we cannot hope to reach. ~ Bertrand Russell

The key to happiness is accepting one unpleasant reality every day. ~ Bertrand Russell

Your writing is never as good as you hoped; but never as bad as you feared. ~ Bertrand Russell

I am delighted to know that Principia Mathematica can now be done by machinery ... I am quite willing to believe that anything in deductive logic can be done by machinery. ~ Bertrand Russell

With the introduction of agriculture mankind entered upon a long period of meanness, misery, and madness, from which they are only now being freed by the beneficent operation of the machine. ~ Bertrand Russell

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong. ~ Bertrand Russell

The human race may well become extinct before the end of the century. Speaking as a mathematician, I should say the odds are about three to one against survival. ~ Bertrand Russell

No man who believes that all is for the best in this suffering world can keep his ethical values unimpaired, since he is always having to find excuses for pain and misery. ~ Bertrand Russell

Conquer the world by intelligence, and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it. ~ Bertrand Russell

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine. ~ Bertrand Russell

But truth is not the only merit that a metaphysic can possess. It may have beauty, and this is certainly to be found in Plotinus; there are passages that remind one of the later cantos of Dante's Para- diso, and of almost nothing else in literature. Now ~ Bertrand Russell

One of the most painful circumstances of recent advances in science is that each one makes us know less than we thought we did ~ Bertrand Russell

Wealth can often purchase not only the semblance of love but its reality. This is unjust and undesirable but nonetheless a fact. ~ Bertrand Russell

There is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action. ~ Bertrand Russell

Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed. ~ Bertrand Russell

The citizens of Athens, like those of other cities in other ages and continents, showed a certain hostility to those who attempted to introduce a higher level of culture than that to which they were accustomed. ~ Bertrand Russell

For the inexperienced, however, it is very difficult to distinguish passionate love from mere sex hunger; especially is this the case with well-brought-up girls, who have been taught that they could not possibly like to kiss a man unless they loved him. ~ Bertrand Russell

The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake. ~ Bertrand Russell

One of the causes of unhappiness among intellectuals in the present day is that so many of them, especially those whose skill is literary, find no opportunity for the independent exercise of their talents, but have to hire themselves out to rich corporations directed by Philistines, who insist upon their producing what they themselves regard as pernicious nonsense. If you were to inquire among journalists in either England or America whether they believed in the policy of the newspaper for which they worked, you would find, I believe, that only a small minority do so; the rest, for the sake of a livelihood, prostitute their skill to purposes which they believe to be harmful. Such work cannot bring any real satisfaction, and in the course of reconciling himself to the doing of it, a man has to make himself so cynical that he can no longer derive whole-hearted satisfaction from anything whatever. I cannot condemn men who undertake work of this sort, since starvation is too serious an alternative, but I think that where it is possible to do work that is satisfactory to man's constructive impulses without entirely starving, he will be well advised from the point of view of his own happiness if he chooses it in preference to work much more highly paid but not seeming to him worth doing on its own account. Without self-respect genuine happiness is scarcely possible. And the man who is ashamed of his work can hardly achieve self-respect. ~ Bertrand Russell

Cynicism such as one finds very frequently among the most highly educated young men and women of the West, results from the combination of comfort and powerlessness. ~ Bertrand Russell

There are 2 motives for reading a book; 1. That you enjoy it, 2. that can boast about it on goodreads. ~ Bertrand Russell

In his school, Bertrand Russell thought it was better if they had the sex, so they could give their undivided attention to mathematics, which was the main thing. ~ Paul Goodman