Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 34

• Only mathematics and mathematical logic can say as little as the physicist means to say.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mean, Science, Mathematical Logic

  Bertrand Russell (1992). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959”, p.626, Psychology Press

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• Philosophy, for Plato, is a kind of vision, the 'vision of truth'...Everyone who has done any kind of creative work has experienced, in a greater or less degree, the state of mind in which, after long labour, truth or beauty appears, or seems to appear, in a sudden glory - it may only be about some small matter, or it may be about the universe. I think that most of the best creative work, in art, in science, in literature, and in philosophy, has been a result of just such a moment.

  Bertrand Russell

  Art, Plato, Philosophy

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• Unless a man has been taught what to do with success after getting it, the achievement of it must inevitably leave him a prey to boredom.

  Bertrand Russell

  Success, Boredom, Achievement

  "The Conquest of Happiness".

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• An individual human existence should be like a river

  Bertrand Russell

  Rivers, Individual, Should

  Bertrand Russell, Christopher Farley, David Hodgson (2004). “The life of Bertrand Russell in pictures and in his own words”, Spokesman Pr

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• Our beliefs are, however, often contrary to fact.

  Bertrand Russell

  Facts, Belief, Contrary

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.35, Psychology Press

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• I cannot escape from the conclusion that the great ages of progress have depended upon a small number of individuals of transcendent ability.

  Bertrand Russell

  Small Numbers, Progress, Age

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays”, p.112, Psychology Press

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• A generation educated in fearless freedom will have wider and bolder hopes than are possible to us

  Bertrand Russell

  Fearless, Generations, Educated

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “On Education”, p.205, Routledge

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• The psychology of adultery has been falsified by conventional morals, which assume, in monogamous countries, that attraction to one person cannot coexist with affection for another. Everybody knows that this is untrue.

  Bertrand Russell

  Country, Psychology, Moral

  Marriage and Morals ch. 16 (1929)

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• It is not known why the Lord made the human body as he did, since one might suppose that omnipotence could have made it such as would not have shocked the nice people.

  Bertrand Russell

  Nice, Omnipotence, People

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.153, Simon and Schuster

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• I am aware that many divines are far more marvelous than I am, and that I cannot wholly appreciate merits so far transcending my own. Nevertheless, even after making allowances under this head, I cannot but think that Omnipotence operating through all eternity might have produced something better.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Omnipotence, Appreciate

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.32, Simon and Schuster

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• In a Balkan country, not so many years ago, a party which had been beaten by a narrow margin in a general election retrieved its fortunes by shooting a sufficient number of the representatives of the other side to give it a majority. . . . Cromwell and Robespierre . . . acted likewise.

  Bertrand Russell

  Country, Party, Years

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.136, Routledge

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• In mass cruelty, the expulsions of Germans ordered by the Russians fall not very far short of the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis.

  Bertrand Russell

  Fall, Atrocities, Nazi

  Bertrand Russell (1944). “Pamphlets: The value of free thought; Ideas that have harmed mankind; Ideas that have helped mankind; The faith of a rationalist”

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• In the great depression, things could only be set right by causing the idle plant to work again . . . Roosevelt . . . spent billions of public money and created a huge public debt, but by so doing he revived production and brought his country out of the depression. Businessmen, who in spite of such a sharp lesson continued to believe in old-fashioned economics, were infinitely shocked, and although Roosevelt saved them from ruin, they continued to curse him and to speak of him as 'the madman in the White House.' . . . [It's one more] striking example of inability to learn from experience.

  Bertrand Russell

  Country, Believe, White

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• Look at me. Look at me is one of the fundamental desires of human heart.

  Bertrand Russell

  Heart, Desire, Fundamentals

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• Love and knowledge led upwards to the heavens.

  Bertrand Russell

  Heaven

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• Neither the Church nor modern public opinion condemns petting, provided it stops short at a certain point.

  Bertrand Russell

  Church, Public Opinion, Modern

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.80, Routledge

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• People who are vigorous and brutal often find war enjoyable.

  Bertrand Russell

  War, People, Brutal

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.19, Routledge

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• When anaesthetics were invented they were thought to be wicked as being an attempt to thwart God's will. Insanity was thought to be due to diabolic possession, and it was believed that demons inhabiting a madman could be driven out by inflicting pain upon him, and so making them uncomfortable. In pursuit of this opinion, lunatics were treated for years on end with systematic and conscientious brutality.

  Bertrand Russell

  Pain, Years, Insanity

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.107, Routledge

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• Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Use, Opinion

  Bertrand Russell (1972). “The Collected Stories of Bertrand Russell”, London : G. Allen & Unwin

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• In a democracy it is necessary that people should learn to endure having their sentiments outraged.

  Bertrand Russell

  People, Democracy, Should

  Bertrand Russell, Ray Perkins (Jr.) (2002). “Yours Faithfully, Bertrand Russell: A Lifelong Fight for Peace, Justice, and Truth in Letters to the Editor”, p.161, Open Court Publishing

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• Experience has taught me a technique for dealing with such people [...] I counter the devotees of the Great Pyramid by adoration of the Sphinx; and the devotee of nuts by pointing out that hazelnuts and walnuts are as deleterious as other foods and only Brazil nuts should be tolerated. But when I was younger I had not yet acquired this technique, with the result that my contacts with cranks were sometimes alarming.

  Bertrand Russell

  Nuts, Pyramids, People

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• The degree of one's emotions varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts - the less you know the hotter you get.

  Bertrand Russell

  Wise, Wisdom, Emotional

  "Distilled Wisdom". Book by Alfred Armand Montapert, p. 145, 1964.

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• The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.

  Bertrand Russell

  Funny, Family, Dad

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.158, Simon and Schuster

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• All serious innovation is only rendered possible by some accident enabling unpopular persons to survive.

  Bertrand Russell

  Innovation, Enabling, Serious

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays”, p.74, Psychology Press

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• Man can be stimulated by hope or driven by fear, but the hope and the fear must be vivid and immediate if they are to be effective without producing weariness.

  Bertrand Russell

  Hope, Men, Expectations

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Authority and the Individual”, p.47, Routledge

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