Bertrand Russell Quotes About Philosophy

• Science is what we know, and philosophy is what we don't know.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Knowledge, Science

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.378, Psychology Press

• Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Past, Degrees

  Bertrand Russell, Robert Charles Marsh (1988). “Logic and Knowledge: Essays 1901-1950”, p.180, Psychology Press

• I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.

  Bertrand Russell

  Funny, Fear, Philosophy

  "Bertrand Russell's Greatest Paradox was His Faith" by Dan Delzell, www.christianpost.com. November 4, 2011.

• When people begin to philosophize they seem to think it necessary to make themselves artificially stupid.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Stupid, Thinking

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.201, Routledge

• The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself.

  Bertrand Russell

  Spiritual, Philosophy, Philosophical

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth”, p.15, Routledge

• I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.

  Bertrand Russell

  Inspirational, Philosophy, Believe

• Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know.

  Bertrand Russell

  Life, Badass, Philosophy

  Bertrand Russell (1995). “My Philosophical Development”, p.204, Psychology Press

• All definite knowledge - so I should contend - belongs to science; all dogma as to what surpasses definite knowledge belongs to theology. But between theology and science there is a No Man's Land, exposed to attack by both sides; this No Man's Land is philosophy.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Knowledge, Men

  Bertrand Russell (2008). “History of Western Philosophy”, p.13, Simon and Schuster

• We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.

  Bertrand Russell

  Education, Art, Philosophy

  Bertrand Russell, Richard A. Rempel, Beryl Haslam (2000). “Uncertain Paths to Freedom: Russia and China, 1919-22”, p.356, Psychology Press

• Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind is also rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Greatness, Imagination

  Bertrand Russell (1997). “The Problems of Philosophy”, p.161, Oxford University Press, USA

• Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.

  Bertrand Russell

  Peace, Philosophy, Humanity

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.565, Routledge

• Men who allow their love of power to give them a distorted view of the world are to be found in every asylum: one man will think he is the Governor of the Bank of England, another will think he is the King, and yet another will think he is God. Highly similar delusions, if expressed by educated men in obscure language, lead to professorships of philosophy; and if expressed by emotional men in eloquent language, lead to dictatorships.

  Bertrand Russell

  Kings, Philosophy, Men

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Power: A New Social Analysis”, p.220, Routledge

• 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

• 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

• Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Ignorance, Knowing

  Bertrand Russell (1996). “Unpopular Essays”, p.38, Psychology Press

• If the ordinary wage-earner worked four hours a day, there would be enough for everybody, and no unemployment — assuming a certain very moderate amount of sensible organization. This idea shocks the well-to-do, because they are convinced that the poor would not know how to use so much leisure.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Son, Men

  "In praise of idleness: and other essays".

• Philosophy, if it cannot answer so many questions as we could wish, has at least the power of asking questions which increase the interest of the world, and show the strangeness and wonder lying just below the surface even in the commonest things of daily life.

  Bertrand Russell

  Lying, Philosophy, Asking Questions

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “The Problems of Philosophy”, p.18, Bertrand Russell

• When you are studying any matter or considering any philosophy, ask yourself only: what are the facts, and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted by what you wish to believe, but look only and surely at what are the facts.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Believe, Wish

  BBC interview on "Face to Face", 1959.

• Ethical metaphysics is fundamentally an attempt, however disguised, to give legislative force to our own wishes.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Giving, Wish

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays”, p.97, Booklassic

• It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true

  Bertrand Russell

  Atheist, Philosophy, Believe

  Sceptical Essays (1928) "On the Value of Scepticism"

• The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Men, Animal

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “Mysticism and Logic”, p.28, Bertrand Russell

• Philosophy, though unable to tell us with certainty what is the true answer to the doubts which it raises, is able to suggest many possiblities which enlarge our thoughts and free them from the tyranny of custom. Thus, while diminishing our feeling of certainty as to what things are, it greatly increases our knowledge as to what the may be; it removes the somewhat arrogant dogmatism of those who have never travelled into the region of liberating doubt, and it keeps alive our sense of wonder by showing familar things in an unfamilar aspect

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Feelings, Doubt

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Problems of Philosophy”, p.124, Lulu.com

• I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Addiction, Progress

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.28, Psychology Press

• 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

  Philosophy, Men, People

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.396, Psychology Press

• As I grew up I became increasingly interested in philosophy, or which [his family] profoundly disapproved. Everytime the subject came up they repeated with unfailing regularity, "What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind." After some fifty or sixty repititions, this remark ceased to amuse me.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Mind, Fifty

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