Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 14

• 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

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• Happiness is not best achieved by those who seek it directly.

  Bertrand Russell

  Inspirational, Happiness, Happy

  Bertrand Russell (1985). “Contemplation and Action, 1902-14”, p.176, Psychology Press

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• Man has existed for about a million years. He has possessed writing for about 6,000 years, agriculture somewhat longer, but perhaps not much longer. Science, as a dominant factor in determining the belief of educated men, has existed for about 300 years; as a source of economic technique, for about 150 years. In this brief period it has proved itself an incredibly powerful revolutionary force. When we consider how recently it has risen to power, we find ourselves forced to believe that we are at the very beginning of its work in transforming human life.

  Bertrand Russell

  Powerful, Believe, Writing

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “The Impact of Science on Society”, p.1, Routledge

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• The legacy of Greece to Western philosophy is Western philosophy.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Legacy, Western

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• Thinking you know when in fact you don't is a fatal mistake, to which we are all prone

  Bertrand Russell

  Mistake, Thinking, Facts

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.66, Routledge

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• Scientific societies are as yet in their infancy. It is to be expected that advances in physiology and psychology will give governments much more control over individual mentality than they now have even in totalitarian countries. Fitche laid it down that education should aim at destroying free will, so that, after pupils have left school, they shall be incapable, throughout the rest of their lives, of thinking or acting otherwise than as their schoolmasters would have wished.

  Bertrand Russell

  Country, School, Thinking

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• It would now be technically possible to unify the world, abolish war and poverty altogether, if men desired their own happiness more than the misery of their enemies.

  Bertrand Russell

  War, Men, Enemy

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• Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.

  Bertrand Russell

  Wisdom, Time, Real

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “Mysticism and Logic”, p.35, Bertrand Russell

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• Modern technique has made it possible for leisure, within limits, to be not the prerogative of small privileged classes, but a right evenly distributed throughout the community. The morality of work is the morality of slaves, and the modern world has no need of slavery.

  Bertrand Russell

  Wisdom, Class, Community

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “In Praise of Idleness”, p.7, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Even if we could be certain that one of the world's religions were perfectly true, given the sheer number of conflicting faiths on offer, every believer should expect damnation purely as a matter of probability.

  Bertrand Russell

  Numbers, Religion, World

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• Mankind has become so much one family that we cannot insure our own prosperity except by insuring that of everyone else.

  Bertrand Russell

  Prosperity, Mankind, Humankind

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.97, Routledge

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• Upon hearing via Littlewood an exposition on the theory of relativity: To think I have spent my life on absolute muck.

  Bertrand Russell

  Life, Thinking, Hearing

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• The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.

  Bertrand Russell

  Science, Doubt, Atheism

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.92, Simon and Schuster

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• There have been poverty, pestilence, and famine, which were due to man's inadequate mastery of nature. There have been wars, oppressions and tortures which have been due to men's hostility to their fellow men.

  Bertrand Russell

  War, Men, Mastery

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.81, Routledge

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• For my part, the thing I would wish to obtain from money would be leisure with security. But what the typical modern man desires to get with it is more money, with a view to ostentation, splendour, and the outshining of those who have hitherto been his equals.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Views, Wish

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.26, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Men have physical needs, and they have emotions. While physical needs are unsatisfied, they take first place; but when they are satisfied, emotions unconnected with them become important in deciding whether a man is to be happy or unhappy.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Important, Unhappy

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.65, Psychology Press

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• Since Adam and Eve ate the apple, man has never refrained from any folly of which he was capable.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Apples, Adam

  "History of the World in Epitome (For Use in Martian Infant Schools)". Book by Bertrand Russell, as quoted in Slater Bertrand Russell (1994), p. 136, 1959.

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• What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is not to make people happy.

  Bertrand Russell

  People, Moral, Humans

  Bertrand Russell, Louis I. Greenspan, Stefan Andersson (1999). “Russell on Religion: Selections from the Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.90, Psychology Press

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• It is in our hearts that evil lies, and it is from our hearts that it must be plucked out.

  Bertrand Russell

  Lying, Heart, Evil

  Bertrand Russell (1962). “Has Man a Future?”

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• How much good it would do if one could exterminate the human race.

  Bertrand Russell

  Race, Humans, Human Race

  "Bibliography of Bertrand Russell". Book by Kenneth Blackwell and Harry Ruja, 1994.

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• BERTRAND RUSSELL, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism We've associated that word philosophy with academic study that in its own way has gotten so far beyond the layman that if you read contemporary philosophy you've no clue, because it's almost become math. And it's odd that if you don't do that and you call yourself a philosopher that you always get 'homespun' attached to it.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Math, Way

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• The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. So long as men are not trained to withhold judgment in the absence of evidence, they will be led astray by cocksure prophets, and it is likely that their leaders will be either ignorant fanatics or dishonest charlatans. To endure uncertainty is difficult, but so are most of the other virtues.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Long, Leader

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• It is not my prayer and humility that you cause things to go as you wish, but by acquiring a knowledge of natural laws.

  Bertrand Russell

  Prayer, Humility, Law

  Bertrand Russell (1967). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”

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• Only in thought is man a God; in action and desire we are the slaves of circumstance.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Desire, Action

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.172, Routledge

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• If a Black Death could be spread throughout the world once in every generation survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full.

  Bertrand Russell

  Eugenics, Black, Population

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Impact of Science On Society”, p.85, Lulu Press, Inc

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