Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 28

• A drop of water is not immortal; it can be resolved into oxygen and hydrogen. If, therefore, a drop of water were to maintain that it had a quality of aqueousness which would survive its dissolution we should be inclined to be skeptical. In like manner we know that the brain is not immortal.

  Bertrand Russell

  Oxygen, Water, Brain

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.51, Simon and Schuster

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• Throughout the long period of religious doubt, I had been rendered very unhappy by the gradual loss of belief, but when the process was completed, I found to my surprise that I was quite glad to be done with the whole subject.

  Bertrand Russell

  Faith, Religious, Loss

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Autobiography”, p.30, Routledge

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• The scientific attitude of mind involves a sweeping away of all other desires in the interest of the desire to know.

  Bertrand Russell

  Attitude, Knowledge, Science

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.29, 谷月社

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• A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short.

  Bertrand Russell

  Travel, Adventure, Cohesion

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Authority and the Individual”, p.11, Routledge

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• Envy, in fact, is one form of a vice, partly moral, partly intellectual, which consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations.

  Bertrand Russell

  Envy, Desire, May

  "The Conquest of Happiness".

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• 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

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• Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people's happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race.

  Bertrand Russell

  Happiness, Race, People

  "Portraits from Memory and Other Essays". Book by Bertrand Russell (p. 198), 1956.

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• Religions which have any very strong hold over men's actions have generally some instinctive basis.

  Bertrand Russell

  Strong, Men, Religion

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Marriage and Morals”, p.12, Routledge

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• I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue.

  Bertrand Russell

  Atheist, Religion, Atheism

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.272, Simon and Schuster

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• Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.

  Bertrand Russell

  Truth, Trying, Ifs

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.554, Routledge

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• While the dogmatist is harmful, the sceptic is useless ...; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or of ignorance. Knowledge is not so precise a concept as is commonly thought. Instead of saying 'I know this', we ought to say 'I more or less know something more or less like this'. ... Knowledge in practical affairs has not the certainty or the precision of arithmetic.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Ignorance, Knowledge

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• There is a further advantage [to hydrogen bombs]: the supply of uranium in the planet is very limited, and it might be feared that it would be used up before the human race was exterminated, but now that the practically unlimited supply of hydrogen can be utilized, there is considerable reason to hope that homo sapiens may put an end to himself, to the great advantage of such less ferocious animals as may survive. But it is time to return to less cheerful topics.

  Bertrand Russell

  Animal, Race, Hydrogen Bomb

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• Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.

  Bertrand Russell

  Political, Next, Acquisition

  'Sceptical Essays' (1928) 'Recrudescence of Puritanism'

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• We know that the exercise of virtue should be its own reward, and it seems to follow that the enduring of it on the part of the patient should be its own punishment.

  Bertrand Russell

  Exercise, Punishment, Rewards

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.91, Psychology Press

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• Nine-tenths of the activities of a modern Government are harmful; therefore the worse they are performed, the better.

  Bertrand Russell

  Government, Nine, Modern

  Bertrand Russell (2007). “The Problem of China”, p.204, Cosimo, Inc.

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• We are told that Sin consists in acting contrary to God's commands, but we are also told that God is omnipotent. . . . This leads to frightful results. . . . The British State considers it the duty of an Englishman to kill people who are not English whenever a collection of elderly gentlemen in Westminster tells him to do so. . . . Church and State are placable enemies of both intelligence and virtue.

  Bertrand Russell

  Elderly, People, Gentleman

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• Whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Wish, Philosopher

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “The Problems of Philosophy”, p.24, Bertrand Russell

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• I am as drunk as a lord, but then, I am one, so what does it matter ?

  Bertrand Russell

  Drunk, Alcohol, Does It Matter

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• If a law were passed giving six months to every writer of a first book, only the good ones would do it.

  Bertrand Russell

  Book, Law, Giving

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• The whole realm of thought and opinion is utterly unsuited to public control; it ought to be as free, and as spontaneous as is possible. The state is justified in insisting that children shall be educated, but it is not justified in forcing their education to proceed on a uniform plan and to be directed to the production of a dead level of glib uniformity.

  Bertrand Russell

  Children, Levels, Uniforms

  Bertrand Russell, Richard A. Rempel (1995). “Pacifism and Revolution, 1916-18”, p.261, Psychology Press

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• When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavor to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.

  Bertrand Russell

  Wisdom, Children, Husband

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.553, Routledge

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• If we were all given by magic the power to read each other’s thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be almost all friendships would be dissolved; the second effect, however, might be excellent, for a world without any friends would be felt to be intolerable, and we should learn to like each other without needing a veil of illusion to conceal from ourselves that we did not think each other absolutely perfect.

  Bertrand Russell

  Friendship, Thinking, Perfect

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.65, Lulu Press, Inc

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• In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Equality, America

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.154, Routledge

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• When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Belief, Certain

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “Why I Am Not a Christian”, p.22, Lulu Press, Inc

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• If you had the power to destroy the world, would you do so?

  Bertrand Russell

  World, Ifs

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.62, Routledge

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