Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 47

• In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them.

  Bertrand Russell

  War, Mean, Government

  The Russell-Einstein Manifesto, July 9, 1955.

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• A priori Logical propositions are such as can be known a priori without study of the actual world.

  Bertrand Russell

  World, Study, Logical

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.155, Routledge

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• The pure mathematician, like the musician, is a free creator of his world of ordered beauty.

  Bertrand Russell

  Science, Musician, World

  Bertrand Russell (2008). “History of Western Philosophy”, p.33, Simon and Schuster

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• Even if it is indifferent to human desires, as it seems to be; if human life is a passing episode, hardly noticeable in the vastness of cosmic processes; if there is no superhuman purpose, and no hope of ultimate salvation, it is better to know and acknowledge this truth than to endeavor, in futile self-assertion, to order the universe to be what we find comfortable.

  Bertrand Russell

  Order, Self, Desire

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• The time has come, or is about to come, when only large-scale civil disobedience, which should be nonviolent, can save the populations from the universal death which their governments are preparing for them.

  Bertrand Russell

  Government, Population, Should

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Fact and Fiction”, p.283, Routledge

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• Punctuality is a quality the need of which is bound up with social co-operation.

  Bertrand Russell

  Quality, Needs, Punctuality

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “Education and the Social Order”, p.25, Routledge

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• The Axiom of Choice is necessary to select a set from an infinite number of socks, but not an infinite number of shoes.

  Bertrand Russell

  Shoes, Numbers, Choices

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• Every living thing is a sort of imperialist, seeking to transform as much as possible of its environment into itself.

  Bertrand Russell

  Fear, Atheism, Environment

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “An Outline of Philosophy”, p.31, Routledge

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• In regard to the past, where contemplation is not obscured by desire and the need for action, we see, more clearly than in the lives about us, the value for good and evil, of the aims men have pursued and the means they have adopted. It is good, from time to time, to view the present as already past, and to examine what elements it contains that will add to the world's store of permanent possessions, that will live and give life when we and all our generation have perished.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mean, Men, Past

  Bertrand Russell (1985). “Contemplation and Action, 1902-14”, p.80, Psychology Press

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• Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, the chief glory of man.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Men, Light

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Why Men Fight: A Method of Abolishing the International Duel”, p.96, Lulu Press, Inc

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• The conception of the necessary unit of all that is resolves itself into the poverty of the imagination, and a freer logic emancipates us from the straitwaistcoated benevolent institution, which idealism palms off as the totality of being.

  Bertrand Russell

  Imagination, Poverty, Logic

  "Our Knowledge of the External World". Book by Bertrand Russell, p. 9, 1914.

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• Love is a little haven of refuge from the world.

  Bertrand Russell

  Love, Romance, Engagement

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.66, W. W. Norton & Company

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• To expect a personality to survive the disintegration of the brain is like expecting a cricket club to survive when all of its members are dead.

  Bertrand Russell

  Personality, Soul, Brain

  Bertrand Russell (1997). “Religion and Science”, p.143, Oxford University Press, USA

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• Modern definitions of truth, such as those as pragmatism and instrumentalism, which are practical rather than contemplative, are inspired by industrialisation as opposed to aristocracy.

  Bertrand Russell

  Political, Aristocracy, Definitions

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• Physics, owing to the simplicity of its subject matter, has reached a higher state of development than any other science.

  Bertrand Russell

  Simplicity, Development, Owing

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Scientific Outlook”, p.42, Routledge

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• Certain characteristics of the subject are clear. To begin with, we do not in this subject deal with particular things or particular properties: we deal formally with what can be said about any thing or any property. We are prepared to say that one and one are two, but not that Socrates and Plato are two.

  Bertrand Russell

  Plato, Two, Preparation

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.150, Routledge

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• I am delighted to know that Principia Mathematica can now be done by machinery. . . I am quite willing to believe that anything in deductive logic can be done by machinery.

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, Done, Belief

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• Every living thing is a sort of imperialist, seeking to transform as much as possible of its environment into itself . . . When we compare the (present) human population of the globe with . . . that of former times, we see that "chemical imperialism" has been . . . the main end to which human intelligence has been devoted.

  Bertrand Russell

  Life, Intelligence, Population

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• The qualities most needed are charity and tolerance, not some form of fanatical faith such as is offered to us by the various rampant isms

  Bertrand Russell

  Tolerance, Quality, Isms

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.160, Routledge

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• There is... in our day, a powerful antidote to nonsense, which hardly existed in earlier times - I mean science. Science cannot be ignored or rejected, because it is bound up with modern technique; it is essential alike to prosperity in peace and to victory in war. That is, perhaps from an intellectual point of view, the most hopeful feature of our age, and the one which makes it most likely that we shall escape complete submersion in some new or old superstition.

  Bertrand Russell

  Powerful, Spring, War

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• If a philosophy is to bring happiness it should be inspired by kindly feelings. Marx pretended that he wanted the happiness of the proletariat; what he really wanted was the unhappiness of the bourgeois.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Inspiration, Feelings

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• He will see himself and life and the world as truly as our human limitations will permit; realizing the brevity and minuteness of human life, he will realize also that in individual minds is concentrated whatever of value the known universe contains. And he will see that the man whose mind mirrors the world becomes in a sense as great as the world. In emancipation from the fears that beset the slave of circumstance he will experience a profound joy, and through all the vicissitudes of his outward life he will remain in the depths of his being a happy man.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Mirrors, Profound

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.133, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Emphatic and reiterated assertion, especially during childhood, produces in most people a belief so firm as to have a hold even over the unconscious.

  Bertrand Russell

  People, Childhood, Belief

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Marriage and Morals”, p.35, Routledge

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• You may, if you are an old-fashioned schoolmaster, wish to consider yourself full of universal benevolence and at the same time derive great pleasure from caning boys. In order to reconcile these two desires you have to persuade yourself that caning

  Bertrand Russell

  Fashion, Boys, Order

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.425, Psychology Press

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• In any closet, you can find it, if it is too small, or out of style, or there is just one of it where there should be two

  Bertrand Russell

  Fashion, Two, Style

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