Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 45

• No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?

  Bertrand Russell

  Beauty, Beautiful, Real

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• Machines are worshipped because they are beautiful and valued because they confer power; they are hated because they are hideous and loathed because they impose slavery.

  Bertrand Russell

  Beautiful, Power, Machines

  Sceptical Essays (1928) "Machines and Emotions"

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• In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word experience have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word.

  Bertrand Russell

  Realist, Results, Idealism

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “Theory of Knowledge: The 1913 Manuscript”, p.6, Routledge

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• 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

  Past, Men, Vanity

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays”, p.52, Booklassic

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• I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached.

  Bertrand Russell

  Country, Thinking, Different

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays”, p.1, Psychology Press

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• Of course not. After all, I may be wrong.

  Bertrand Russell

  Intelligence, May, Courses

  Attributed in "The Times book of quotations" by Philip Howard, (p. 84), 2000.

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• One of the chief triumphs of modern mathematics consists in having discovered what mathematics really is.

  Bertrand Russell

  Science, Triumph, Modern

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.46, 谷月社

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• It is only in marriage with the world that our ideals can bear fruit; divorced from it, they remain barren.

  Bertrand Russell

  Life, World, Fruit

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “Mysticism and Logic”, p.15, Bertrand Russell

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• Much of the most important evils that mankind have to consider are those which they inflict upon each other through stupidity or malevolence or both.

  Bertrand Russell

  Evil, Stupidity, Important

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.143, Routledge

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

  Bertrand Russell

  Passion, Ideas, Evil

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.143, Routledge

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• The significance of a fact is relative to [the general body of scientific] knowledge. To say that a fact is significant in science, is to say that it helps to establish or refute some general law; for science, though it starts from observation of the particular, is not concerned essentially with the particular, but with the general. A fact, in science, is not a mere fact, but an instance. In this the scientist differs from the artist, who, if he deigns to notice facts at all, is likely to notice them in all their particularity.

  Bertrand Russell

  Art, Knowledge, Science

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• The method of "postulating" what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil.

  Bertrand Russell

  Honesty, Math, Toil

  Bertrand Russell (2007). “Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy”, p.71, Spokesman Books

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• We are ... led to a somewhat vague distinction between what we may call "hard" data and "soft" data. This distinction is a matter of degree, and must not be pressed; but if not taken too seriously it may help to make the situation clear. I mean by "hard" data those which resist the solvent influence of critical reflection, and by "soft" data those which, under the operation of this process, become to our minds more or less doubtful.

  Bertrand Russell

  Taken, Mean, Science

  Bertrand Russell (1914). “Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy”

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• It is odd that neither the Church nor modern public opinion condemns petting, provided it stops short at a certain point. At what point sin begins is a matter as to which casuists differ. One eminently orthodox Catholic divine laid it down that a confessor may fondle a nun's breasts, provided he does it without evil intent. But I doubt whether modern authorities would agree with him on this point.

  Bertrand Russell

  Evil, Catholic, Doubt

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.77, Routledge

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• In the higher walks of politics the same sort of thing occurs. The statesman who has gradually concentrated all power within himself ... may have had anything but a public motive... The phrases which are customary on the platform and in the Party Press have gradually come to him to seem to express truths, and he mistakes the rhetoric of partisanship for a genuine analysis of motives... He retires from the world after the world has retired from him.

  Bertrand Russell

  Truth, Mistake, Party

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• Arithmetic must be discovered in just the same sense in which Columbus discovered the West Indies, and we no more create numbers than he created the Indians.

  Bertrand Russell

  Science, West Indies, Discovery

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Principles of Mathematics”, p.457, Routledge

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• But it is just this characteristic of simplicity in the laws of nature hitherto discovered which it would be fallacious to generalize, for it is obvious that simplicity has been a part cause of their discovery, and can, therefore, give no ground for the supposition that other undiscovered laws are equally simple.

  Bertrand Russell

  Science, Simple, Discovery

  Bertrand Russell (1981). “Mysticism and Logic, and Other Essays”, p.78, Rowman & Littlefield

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• There is as much difference between a collection of mentally free citizens and a community molded by modern methods of propaganda as there is between a heap of raw materials and a battleship.

  Bertrand Russell

  Science, Differences, Community

  Bertrand Russell (1986). “Bertrand Russell on God and Religion”

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• With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway about the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

  Bertrand Russell

  Stars, Passion, Heart

  Bertrand Russell (1993). “The Quotable Bertrand Russell”

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• You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go.

  Bertrand Russell

  Giving, Wicked, Petrol

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.40, Simon and Schuster

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• Great God in Boots! – the ontological argument is sound!

  Bertrand Russell

  Sound, Boots, Argument

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.60, Routledge

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• The military superiority of Europe to Asia is not an eternal law of nature, as we are tempted to think, and our superiority in civilization is a mere delusion.

  Bertrand Russell

  Military, Thinking, Europe

  Bertrand Russell (2007). “The Problem of China”, p.27, Cosimo, Inc.

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• The dictum that human nature cannot be changed is one of those tiresome platitudes that conceal from the ignorant the depths of their own ignorance.

  Bertrand Russell

  Ignorance, Ignorant, Depth

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• I think periods of browsing during which no occupation is imposed from without are important in youth because they give time for the formation of these apparently fugitive but really vital impressions.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Giving, Important

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.15, Routledge

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

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, Men, Thinking

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.153, Routledge

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