Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 32

• Civilized life, if it is to be stable, must provide a harmless outlets for the impulses which our remote ancestors satisfied in hunting. In Australia, where people are few, and rabbits are many, I watched the whole populace satisfying the primitive impulse in the primitive manner by the skilful slaughter of many thousands of rabbits.

  Bertrand Russell

  Hunting, Australia, People

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.5, Routledge

  6 Copy quote

• What is best in mathematics deserves not merely to be learnt as a task, but to assimilated as a part of daily thought, and brought again and again before the mind with ever-renewed encouragement.

  Bertrand Russell

  Encouragement, Learning, Science

  Bertrand Russell (1985). “Contemplation and Action, 1902-14”, p.86, Psychology Press

  9 Copy quote

• A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.

  Bertrand Russell

  Motivational, Courage, Atheist

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.23, Simon and Schuster

  52 Copy quote

• Brief and powerless is man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark.

  Bertrand Russell

  Life, Death, Fall

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.115, Simon and Schuster

  7 Copy quote

• How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty?

  Bertrand Russell

  World, Cruelty, Endure

  Bertrand Russell, Ray Perkins (Jr.) (2002). “Yours Faithfully, Bertrand Russell: A Lifelong Fight for Peace, Justice, and Truth in Letters to the Editor”, p.411, Open Court Publishing

  19 Copy quote

• 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

  Agriculture, Long, Machines

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.57, W. W. Norton & Company

  9 Copy quote

• 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

  Real, Thinking, Self

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Problems of Philosophy”, p.10, Lulu.com

  7 Copy quote

• Mysticism is, in essence, little more than a certain intensity and depth of feeling in regard to what is believed about the universe.

  Bertrand Russell

  Essence, Feelings, Depth

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “Mysticism and Logic”, p.9, Bertrand Russell

  8 Copy quote

• Science is what we know, and philosophy is what we don't know.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Knowledge, Science

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.378, Psychology Press

  7 Copy quote

• Civilized people cannot fully satisfy their sexual instinct without love.

  Bertrand Russell

  Sex, People, Instinct

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Marriage and Morals”, p.76, Routledge

  7 Copy quote

• It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true

  Bertrand Russell

  Atheist, Philosophy, Believe

  Sceptical Essays (1928) "On the Value of Scepticism"

  8 Copy quote

• That Plato's Republic should have been admired, on its political side, by decent people, is perhaps the most astonishing example of literary snobbery in all history.

  Bertrand Russell

  Plato, Should Have, People

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.436, Routledge

  6 Copy quote

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

  Bertrand Russell

  Happiness, Happy, Spring

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.127, Routledge

  7 Copy quote

• No nation was ever so virtuous as each believes itself, and none was ever so wicked as each believes the other.

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, Humility, Wicked

  Bertrand Russell (2007). “Justice in War-time”, p.68, Cosimo, Inc.

  7 Copy quote

• If the youth is content to abandon his previous associates and to throw in his lot whole-heartedly with the rulers, he may, after suitable tests, be promoted, but if he shows any regrettable solidarity with his previous associates, the rulers will reluctantly conclude that there is nothing to be done with him except to send him to the lethal chamber before his ill-disciplined intelligence has had time to spread revolt. This will be a painful duty to the rulers, but I think they will not shrink from performing it.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Done, May

  6 Copy quote

• The "social contract," in the only sense in which it is not completely mythical, is a contract among conquerors, which loses its raison d'être if they are deprived of the benefits of conquest.

  Bertrand Russell

  Benefits, Social, Contracts

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Power: A New Social Analysis”, p.149, Psychology Press

  10 Copy quote

• Is there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Doubt, World

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

  9 Copy quote

• The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Men, Animal

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “Mysticism and Logic”, p.28, Bertrand Russell

  13 Copy quote

• Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Ignorance, Knowing

  Bertrand Russell (1996). “Unpopular Essays”, p.38, Psychology Press

  11 Copy quote

• Collective wisdom, alas, is no adequate substitute for the intelligence of individuals. Individuals who opposed received opinions have been the source of all progress, both moral and intellectual. They have been unpopular, as was natural.

  Bertrand Russell

  Intellectual, Progress, Adequate

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I am not a Christian, and other essays on religion and related subjects”, Touchstone

  7 Copy quote

• A word is used "correctly" when the average hearer will be affected by it in the way intended. This is a psychological, not a literary, definition of "correctness". The literary definition would substitute, for the average hearer, a person of high education living a long time ago; the purpose of this definition is to make it difficult to speak or write correctly.

  Bertrand Russell

  Writing, Average, Long

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Analysis of Mind: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.115, 谷月社

  7 Copy quote

• It will be found, as men grow more tolerant in their instincts,
  that many uniformities now insisted upon are useless and even harmful.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Useless, Instinct

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “Political Ideals”, p.23, Bertrand Russell

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Desire, Quests, Belief

  Bertrand Russell, Andrew G. Bone (2005). “Détente Or Destruction, 1955-57”, p.83, Psychology Press

  9 Copy quote

• More cranks take up unfashionable errors than unfashionable truths.

  Bertrand Russell

  Errors, Crank

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.93, Routledge

  6 Copy quote

• As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our trouble. . . . No Catholic, for instance, takes seriously the text which says that a Bishop should be the husband of one wife.

  Bertrand Russell

  Husband, Rely Upon, Wife

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.90, Routledge

  7 Copy quote

You May Also Like:

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Gottlob Frege

Alfred North Whitehead

David Hume

Russell Crowe

G. H. Hardy

Immanuel Kant

Jean-Paul Sartre