Bertrand Russell Quotes

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Patriotism which has the quality of intoxication is a danger not only to its native land but to the world, and "My country never wrong" is an even more dangerous maxim than "My country, right or wrong."

Bertrand Russell
The belief or unconscious conviction that all propositions are of the subject-predicate form — in other words, that every fact consists in some thing having some quality — has rendered most philosophers incapable of giving any account of the world of science and daily life.

Bertrand Russell
All the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system; and the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins.

Bertrand Russell
The world that we must seek is a world in which the creative spirit is alive, in which life is an adventure full of joy and hope, based rather upon the impulse to construct than upon the desire to retain what we possess or to seize what is possessed by others.

Bertrand Russell
Very many people spend money in ways quite different from those that their natural tastes would enjoin, merely because the respect of their neighbors depends upon their possession of a good car and their ability to give good dinners. As a matter of fact, any man who can obviously afford a car but genuinely prefers travels or a good library will in the end be much more respected than if he behaved exactly like everyone else.

Bertrand Russell
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
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
The fundamental principle in the analysis of propositions containing descriptions is this: Every proposition which we can understand must be composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted.

Bertrand Russell
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
Everyone knows that 'mind' is what an idealist thinks there is nothing else but, and 'matter' is what a materialist thinks the same about.

Bertrand Russell
Common sense starts with the notion that there is matter where we can get sensations of touch, but not elsewhere. Then it gets puzzled by wind, breath, clouds, etc., whence it is led to the conception of "spirit" — I speak etymologically. After "spirit" has been replaced by "gas," there is a further stage, that of the aether.

Bertrand Russell
Another merit of home is that it preserves the diversity between individuals. If we were all alike, it might be convenient for the bureaucrat and the statistician, but it would be very dull, and would lead to a very unprogressive society.

Bertrand Russell
There is exactly the same degree of possibility and likelihood of the existence of the Christian God as there is of the existence of the Homeric god. I cannot prove that either the Christian god or the Homeric gods do not exist, but I do not think that their existence is an alternative that is sufficiently probable to be worth serious consideration.

Bertrand Russell
One's work is never so bad as it appears on bad days, nor so good as it appears on good days.

Bertrand Russell
Physics and perception are like two people on opposite sides of a brook which slowly widens as they walk; at first it is easy to jump across, but imperceptibly it grows more difficult, and at last a vast labor is required to get from one side to the other.

Bertrand Russell
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
The tendency of scientific technique is to cause everything to be regarded as not just a brute datum, but raw material for the carrying out of some human purpose.

Bertrand Russell
The wise use of leisure, it must be conceded, is a product of civilization and education.

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

Bertrand Russell
To create a healthy philosophy you should renounce metaphysics but be a good mathematician.

Bertrand Russell
In human relations one should penetrate to the core of loneliness in each person and speak to that.

Bertrand Russell
Science is no substitute for virtue; the heart is as necessary for a good life as the head.

Bertrand Russell
Morally, a philosopher who uses his professional competence for anything except a disinterested search for truth is guilty of a kind of treachery.

Bertrand Russell
Scientific method... consists mainly in eliminating those beliefs which there is reason to think a source of shocks, while retaining those against which no definite argument can be brought.

Bertrand Russell
Intelligence, it might be said, has caused our troubles; but it is not unintelligence that will cure them. Only more and wiser intelligence can make a happier world

Bertrand Russell
The aspect of science as knowledge is being thrust into the background by the aspect of science as the power of manipulating nature.

Bertrand Russell
As men begin to grow civilized, they cease to be satisfied with mere taboos.

Bertrand Russell
The teaching of Christ, as it appears in the Gospels, has had extraordinarily little to do with the ethics of Christians.

Bertrand Russell
How little, as a rule, is the teacher of algebra able to explain the chasm which divides it from arithmetic, and how little is the learner assisted in his groping efforts at comprehension!

Bertrand Russell
Hegel's philosophy is so odd that one would not have expected him to be able to get sane men to accept it, but he did. He set it out with so much obscurity that people thought it must be profound. It can quite easily be expounded lucidly in words of one syllable, but then its absurdity becomes obvious.

Bertrand Russell