Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 14

• The skill of the politician consists in guessing what people can be brought to think advantageous to themselves; the skill of the expert consists in calculating what really is advantageous, provided people can be brought to think so.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Skills, People

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.109, Psychology Press

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• The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. So long as men are not trained to withhold judgment in the absence of evidence, they will be led astray by cocksure prophets, and it is likely that their leaders will be either ignorant fanatics or dishonest charlatans. To endure uncertainty is difficult, but so are most of the other virtues.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Long, Leader

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• We know very little, and yet it is astonishing that we know so much, and still more astonishing that so little knowledge can give us so much power.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophical, Science, Engineering

  Bertrand Russell (1985). “The ABC of relativity”, Signet

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• A man who has once perceived, however temporarily and however briefly, what makes greatness of soul, can no longer be happy if he allows himself to be petty, self-seeking, troubled by trivial misfortunes, dreading what fate may have in store for him. The man capable of greatness of soul will open wide the windows of his mind, letting the winds blow freely upon it from every portion of the universe.

  Bertrand Russell

  Fate, Blow, Greatness

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.132, Lulu Press, Inc

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• All knowledge, we feel, must be built up upon our instinctive beliefs; and if these are rejected, nothing is left.

  Bertrand Russell

  Belief, Rejected, Feels

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• We love our habits more than our income, often more than our life.

  Bertrand Russell

  Addiction, Income, Habit

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.113, Psychology Press

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• Man has existed for about a million years. He has possessed writing for about 6,000 years, agriculture somewhat longer, but perhaps not much longer. Science, as a dominant factor in determining the belief of educated men, has existed for about 300 years; as a source of economic technique, for about 150 years. In this brief period it has proved itself an incredibly powerful revolutionary force. When we consider how recently it has risen to power, we find ourselves forced to believe that we are at the very beginning of its work in transforming human life.

  Bertrand Russell

  Powerful, Believe, Writing

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “The Impact of Science on Society”, p.1, Routledge

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• I had supposed until that time that it was quite common for parents to love their children, but the war persuaded me that it is a rare exception. I had supposed that most people liked money better than almost anything else, but I discovered that they liked destruction even better. I had supposed that intellectuals frequently loved truth, but I found here again that not ten per cent of them prefer truth to popularity.

  Bertrand Russell

  Love, Children, War

  Bertrand Russell (1998). “Autobiography”, p.240, Psychology Press

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• The reformative effect of punishment is a belief that dies hard, chiefly I think, because it is so satisfying to our sadistic impulses.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Punishment, Belief

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.144, Routledge

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• Historically, it is quite doubtful whether Christ ever existed at all, and if He did we do not know anything about Him.

  Bertrand Russell

  Religion, Atheism, Christ

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.573, Routledge

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• Affection cannot be created; it can only be liberated.

  Bertrand Russell

  Best Love, Affection, Liberated

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “On Education”, p.136, Routledge

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• I think people who are unhappy are always proud of being so, and therefore do not like to be told that there is nothing grand about their unhappiness. A man who is melancholy because lack of exercise has upset his liver always believes that it is the loss of God, or the menace of Bolshevism, or some such dignified cause that makes him sad. When you tell people that happiness is a simple matter, they get annoyed with you.

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, Loss, Exercise

  Bertrand Russell (1998). “Autobiography”, p.440, Psychology Press

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• Obviousness is always the enemy of correctness.

  Bertrand Russell

  Enemy, Obviousness, Economics

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.48, 谷月社

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• I never held Negroes to be inherently inferior. The statement in Marriage and Morals refers to environmental conditioning. I have had it withdrawn from subsequent editions because it is clearly ambiguous.

  Bertrand Russell

  Environmental, Moral, Conditioning

  Bertrand Russell, Barry Feinberg, Ronald Kasrils (1969). “Dear Bertrand Russell ... a selection of his correspondence with the general public, 1950-1968”, Allen & Unwin

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• The man who is unhappy will, as a rule, adopt an unhappy creed, while the man who is happy will adopt a happy creed; each may attribute his happiness or unhappiness to his beliefs, while the real causation is the other way round.

  Bertrand Russell

  Real, Men, Unhappy

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.89, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Scientific societies are as yet in their infancy. It is to be expected that advances in physiology and psychology will give governments much more control over individual mentality than they now have even in totalitarian countries. Fitche laid it down that education should aim at destroying free will, so that, after pupils have left school, they shall be incapable, throughout the rest of their lives, of thinking or acting otherwise than as their schoolmasters would have wished.

  Bertrand Russell

  Country, School, Thinking

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• There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.

  Bertrand Russell

  Inspirational, Funny, Book

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.28, Lulu Press, Inc

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• The happiness that is genuinely satisfying is accompanied by the fullest exercise of our faculties and the fullest realization of the world in which we live.

  Bertrand Russell

  Happiness, Exercise, Joy

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.63, Lulu Press, Inc

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• A world without delight and without affection is a world destitute of value.

  Bertrand Russell

  Delight, World, Affection

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Scientific Outlook”, p.202, Routledge

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• I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its Churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

  Bertrand Russell

  Death, Christian, Atheist

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.21, Simon and Schuster

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• The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Believe, Simple

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism”, p.20, Routledge

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• The whole of theology, in regard to hell no less than to heaven, takes it for granted that Man is what is of most importance in the Universe of created beings. Since all theologians are men, this postulate has met with little opposition.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Heaven, Littles

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.53, Routledge

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• The . . . increase in the power of officials is a constant source of irritation to everybody else.

  Bertrand Russell

  Irritation, Increase, Source

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “The Impact of Science on Society”, p.32, Routledge

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• An extra-terrestrial philosopher, who had watched a single youth up to the age of twenty-one and had never come across any other human being, might conclude that it is the nature of human beings to grow continually taller and wiser in an indefinite progress towards perfection; and this generalization would be just as well founded as the generalization which evolutionists base upon the previous history of this planet.

  Bertrand Russell

  Science, History, Perfection

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.66, 谷月社

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• I think it would be just to say the most essential characteristic of mind is memory, using this word in its broadest sense to include every influence of past experience on present reactions.

  Bertrand Russell

  Memories, Science, Past

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.285, Psychology Press

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