Bertrand Russell Quotes About Universe

• Mysticism is, in essence, little more than a certain intensity and depth of feeling in regard to what is believed about the universe.

  Bertrand Russell

  Essence, Feelings, Depth

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “Mysticism and Logic”, p.9, Bertrand Russell

• 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

• In the part of this universe that we know there is great injustice, and often the good suffer, and often the wicked prosper, and one hardly knows which of those is the more annoying.

  Bertrand Russell

  Suffering, Wicked, Injustice

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.814, Routledge

• [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

• The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.

  Bertrand Russell

  Science, Doubt, Atheism

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.92, Simon and Schuster

• The world is full of magical things patiently waiting for our wits to grow sharper.

  Bertrand Russell

  Inspirational, Funny, Patience

• I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe - because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return.

  Bertrand Russell

  Math, Science, Return

  Bertrand Russell (1992). “The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell: The private years, 1884-1914”, Allen Lane

• Science tells us what we can know but what we can know is little and if we forget how much we cannot know we become insensitive of many things of very great importance. Theology, on the other hand induces a dogmatic belief that we have knowledge where in fact we have ignorance and by doing so generates a kind of impertinent insolence towards the universe. Uncertainty in the presence of vivid hopes and fears is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales.

  Bertrand Russell

  Ignorance, Hands, Support

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition”, p.2, Routledge

• He will see himself and life and the world as truly as our human limitations will permit; realizing the brevity and minuteness of human life, he will realize also that in individual minds is concentrated whatever of value the known universe contains.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mind, World, Realizing

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.133, Lulu Press, Inc

• William James describes a man who got the experience from laughing-gas; whenever he was under its influence, he knew the secret of the universe, but when he came to, he had forgotten it. At last, with immense effort, he wrote down the secret before the vision had faded. When completely recovered, he rushed to see what he had written. It was 'A smell of petroleum prevails throughout'.

  Bertrand Russell

  Laughter, Men, Smell

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition”, p.109, Routledge

• Science, in its ultimate ideal, consists of a set of propositions arranged in a hierarchy, the lowest level of the hierarchy being concerned with particular facts, and the highest with some general law, governing everything in the universe. The various levels in the hierarchy have a two-fold logical connection, travelling one up, one down; the upward connection proceeds by induction, the downward by deduction.

  Bertrand Russell

  Science, Law, Two

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Scientific Outlook”, p.38, Routledge

• He will see himself and life and the world as truly as our human limitations will permit; realizing the brevity and minuteness of human life, he will realize also that in individual minds is concentrated whatever of value the known universe contains. And he will see that the man whose mind mirrors the world becomes in a sense as great as the world. In emancipation from the fears that beset the slave of circumstance he will experience a profound joy, and through all the vicissitudes of his outward life he will remain in the depths of his being a happy man.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Mirrors, Profound

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.133, Lulu Press, Inc

• From that awful encounter of the soul with the outer world, enunciation, wisdom, and charity are born; and with their birth a new life begins. To take into the inmost shrine of the soul the irresistible forces whose puppets we seem to be - Death and change, the irrevocableness of the past, and the powerlessness of Man before the blind hurry of the universe from vanity to vanity - to feel these things and know them is to conquer them.

  Bertrand Russell

  Past, Men, Vanity

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays”, p.52, Booklassic

• 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

• Philosophy, for Plato, is a kind of vision, the 'vision of truth'...Everyone who has done any kind of creative work has experienced, in a greater or less degree, the state of mind in which, after long labour, truth or beauty appears, or seems to appear, in a sudden glory - it may only be about some small matter, or it may be about the universe. I think that most of the best creative work, in art, in science, in literature, and in philosophy, has been a result of just such a moment.

  Bertrand Russell

  Art, Plato, Philosophy

• Christianity offers reasons for not fearing death or the universe, and in so doing it fails to teach adequately the virtue of courage.

  Bertrand Russell

  Failing, Christianity, Virtue

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

• 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

• The man who suffers from a sense of sin is suffering from a particular kind of self-love. In all this vast universe the thing that appears to him of most importance is that he himself should be virtuous. It is a grave defect in certain forms of traditional religion that they have encouraged this particular kind of self-absorption.

  Bertrand Russell

  Love, Men, Self

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.142, Lulu Press, Inc

• It can be shown that a mathematical web of some kind can be woven about any universe containing several objects. The fact that our universe lends itself to mathematical treatment is not a fact of any great philosophical significance.

  Bertrand Russell

  Kindness, Philosophical, Math

• Through the greatness of the universe, which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Greatness, Mind

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

• 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

• Each act of cruelty is eternally a part of the universe; nothing that happens later can make that act good rather than bad, or can confer perfection on the whole of which it is a part.

  Bertrand Russell

  Perfection, Cruelty, Whole

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition”, p.467, Routledge

• Even if it is indifferent to human desires, as it seems to be; if human life is a passing episode, hardly noticeable in the vastness of cosmic processes; if there is no superhuman purpose, and no hope of ultimate salvation, it is better to know and acknowledge this truth than to endeavor, in futile self-assertion, to order the universe to be what we find comfortable.

  Bertrand Russell

  Order, Self, Desire

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