Bertrand Russell Quotes About Age

• The knowledge exists by which universal happiness can be secured; the chief obstacle to its utilization for that purpose is the teaching of religion. Religion prevents our children from having a rational education; religion prevents us from removing the fundamental causes of war; religion prevents us from teaching the ethic of scientific cooperation in place of the old fierce doctrines of sin and punishment. It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.

  Bertrand Russell

  Children, War, Teaching

  "Why I Am Not a Christian".

• The objections to religion are of two sorts - intellectual and moral. The intellectual objection is that there is no reason to suppose any religion true; the moral objection is that religious precepts date from a time when men were more cruel than they are and therefore tend to perpetuate inhumanities which the moral conscience of the age would otherwise outgrow.

  Bertrand Russell

  Death, Religious, Men

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.30, Simon and Schuster

• Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth - more than ruin, more even than death. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habits; thought is anarchic and lawless, indifferent to authority, careless of the well-tried wisdom of the ages. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid ... Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.

  Bertrand Russell

  Courage, Men, Light

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Why Men Fight”, p.107, Routledge

• Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible. Even if all are miserable, all will believe themselves happy, because the government will tell them that they are so.

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, Character, Government

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “The Impact of Science on Society”, p.45, Routledge

• It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.

  Bertrand Russell

  Birthday, Doors, Dragons

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.47, Simon and Schuster

• The whole conception of a God is a conception derived from the ancient oriental despotisms. It is a conception quite unworthy of free men. We ought to stand up and look the world frankly in the face. We ought to make the best we can of the world, and if it is not so good as we wish, after all it will still be better than what these others have made of it in all these ages.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Wish, Age

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.34, Routledge

• When considering marriage one should ask oneself this question; 'will I be able to talk with this person into old age?' Everything else is transitory, the most time is spent in conversation.

  Bertrand Russell

  Age, Able, Should

• To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.

  Bertrand Russell

  Birthday, Educational, Philosophy

  Bertrand Russell (2008). “History of Western Philosophy”, p.14, Simon and Schuster

• After ages during which the earth produced harmless trilobites and butterflies, evolution progressed to the point at which it generated Neros, Genghis Khans, and Hitlers. This, however, is a passing nightmare; in time the earth will become again incapable of supporting life, and peace will return.

  Bertrand Russell

  Butterfly, Age, Nero

  Bertrand Russell (1992). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959”, p.459, Psychology Press

• [Man] ... his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labour 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 that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins.

  Bertrand Russell

  Inspiration, Science, Men

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays”, p.46, Booklassic

• You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so called age of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burnt as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practised upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.

  Bertrand Russell

  Christian, Believe, Men

• The law of causality, I believe, like much that passes muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm.

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, Law, Age

  'Mysticism and Logic' (1919)

• The fact that all Mathematics is Symbolic Logic is one of the greatest discoveries of our age; and when this fact has been established, the remainder of the principles of mathematics consists of the analysis of Symbolic Logic itself.

  Bertrand Russell

  Discovery, Mathematical Logic, Age

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Principles of Mathematics”, p.5, Routledge

• 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

• 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

• Ever since men became capable of free speculation, their actions, in innumerable important respects, have depended upon their theories as to the world and human life, as to what is good and what is evil. This is true in the present day as at any former time. To understand an age or a nation, we must understand its philosophy, and to understand its philosophy we must ourselves be in some degree philosophers. There is here a reciprocal causation: the circumstances of men s lives do much to determine their philosophy, but, conversely, their philosophy does much to determine their circumstances.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Men, Evil

  "History of Western Philosophy".

• At the age of eleven, I began Euclid, with my brother as my tutor. This was one of the great events of my life, as dazzling as first love. I had not imagined there was anything so delicious in the world. From that moment until I was thirty-eight, mathematics was my chief interest and my chief source of happiness.

  Bertrand Russell

  Life, Brother, First Love

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Autobiography”, p.25, Routledge

• There are certain things that our age needs. It needs, above all, courageous hope and the impulse to creativeness.

  Bertrand Russell

  Hope, Creativity, Age

  Bertrand Russell (1998). “Autobiography”, p.520, Psychology Press

• At the age of eleven, I began Euclid, with my brother as my tutor. ... I had not imagined that there was anything so delicious in the world. After I had learned the fifth proposition, my brother told me that it was generally considered difficult, but I had found no difficulty whatsoever. This was the first time it had dawned on me that I might have some intelligence.

  Bertrand Russell

  Brother, Science, Age

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Autobiography”, p.25, Routledge

• There are certain things that our age needs, and certain things that it should avoid. It needs compassion and a wish that mankind should be happy; it needs the desire for knowledge and the determination to eschew pleasant myths; it needs, above all, courageous hope and the impulse to creativeness.

  Bertrand Russell

  Faith, Determination, Compassion

  Bertrand Russell (1998). “Autobiography”, p.520, Psychology Press

• The solution of the difficulties which formerly surrounded the mathematical infinite is probably the greatest achievement of which our age has to boast.

  Bertrand Russell

  Discovery, Achievement, Age

  Bertrand Russell, Kenneth Blackwell (1985). “The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell: Contemplation and action, 1902-14”, Allen & Unwin Australia

• All the labor of all the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction. So now, my friends, if that is true, and it is true, what is the point?

  Bertrand Russell

  Inspiration, Age, Genius

• My own belief is that in most ages and in most places obscure psychological forces led men to adopt systems involving quite unnecessary cruelty, and that this is still the case among the most civilized races at the present day.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Race, Age

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Marriage and Morals”, p.11, Routledge

• My first advice (on how not to grow old) would be to choose you ancestors carefully.

  Bertrand Russell

  Advice, Age, Would Be

• Admiration of the proletariat, like that of dams, power stations, and aeroplanes, is part of the ideology of the machine age.

  Bertrand Russell

  Birthday, Age, Dams

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.62, Routledge

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