Bertrand Russell Quotes About Contemplation

• Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of the world.

  Bertrand Russell

  Buddhism, Winning, Islam

  Bertrand Russell (2007). “The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism”, p.74, Cosimo, Inc.

• ... the word "theory" ... was originally an Orphic word, which Cornford interprets as "passionate sympathetic contemplation" ... For Pythagoras, the "passionate sympathetic contemplation" was intellectual, and issued in mathematical knowledge ... To those who have reluctantly learnt a little mathematics in school this may seem strange; but to those who have experienced the intoxicating delight of sudden understanding that mathematics gives, from time to time, to those who love it, the Pythagorean view will seem completely natural.

  Bertrand Russell

  School, Views, Giving

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

• 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

• The wise man will be as happy as circumstances permit, and if he finds the contemplation of the universe painful beyond a point, he will contemplate something else instead.

  Bertrand Russell

  Wise, Men, Religion

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.12, Lulu Press, Inc

• It appeared to me that the dignity of which human existence is capable is not attainable by devotion to the mechanism of life , and that unless contemplation of eternal things is preserved, mankind will become no better than well-fed pigs.

  Bertrand Russell

  Pigs, Dignity, Devotion

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Autobiography”, p.149, Routledge

• There is a possibility in human minds of something mysterious as the night-wind, deep as the sea, calm as the stars, and strong as Death, a mystic contemplation, the “intellectual love of God.” Those who have known it cannot believe in wars any longer, or in any kind of hot struggle. If I could give to others what has come to me in this way, I could make them too feel the futility of fighting. But I do not know how to communicate it: when I speak, they stare, applaud, or smile, but do not understand.

  Bertrand Russell

  Strong, Stars, War

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.319, Routledge

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