Bertrand Russell Quotes About Greek

• Aristotle is the last Greek philosopher who faces the world cheerfully; after him, all have, in one form or another, a philosophy of retreat.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Greek, World

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition”, p.195, Routledge

• We may say, in a broad way, that Greek philosophy down to Aristotle expresses the mentality appropriate to the City State; that Stoicism is appropriate to a cosmopolitan despotism; that stochastic philosophy is an intellectual expression of the Church as an organization; that philosophy since Descartes, or at any rate since Locke, tends to embody the prejudices of the commercial middle class; and that Marxism and Fascism are the philosophies appropriate to the modern industrial state.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Expression, Class

• Man is a rational animal—so at least I have been told. … Aristotle, so far as I know, was the first man to proclaim explicitly that man is a rational animal. His reason for this view was … that some people can do sums. … It is in virtue of the intellect that man is a rational animal. The intellect is shown in various ways, but most emphatically by mastery of arithmetic. The Greek system of numerals was very bad, so that the multiplication table was quite difficult, and complicated calculations could only be made by very clever people.

  Bertrand Russell

  Clever, Animal, Men

• Aristotle and Plato considered Greeks so innately superior to barbarians that slavery is justified so long as the master is Greek and the slave barbarian.

  Bertrand Russell

  Plato, Long, Greek

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.56, Routledge

You May Also Like:

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Gottlob Frege

Alfred North Whitehead

David Hume

Russell Crowe

G. H. Hardy

Immanuel Kant