Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 23

• A good man will never suspect his friends of shady actions: this is part of his goodness. A good man will never be suspected by the public of using his goodness to screen villains: this is part of his utility

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Good Man, Action

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.95, Psychology Press

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• In science the successors stand upon the shoulders of their predecessors; where one man of supreme genius has invented a method, a thousand lesser men can apply it. ... In art nothing worth doing can be done without genius; in science even a very moderate capacity can contribute to a supreme achievement.

  Bertrand Russell

  Art, Science, Men

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays”, p.41, Booklassic

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• 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

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• 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

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• It seems to me now that mathematics is capable of an artistic excellence as great as that of any music, perhaps greater; not because the pleasure it gives (although very pure) is comparable, either in intensity or in the number of people who feel it, to that of music, but because it gives in absolute perfection that combination, characteristic of great art, of godlike freedom, with the sense of inevitable destiny; because, in fact, it constructs an ideal world where everything is perfect and yet true.

  Bertrand Russell

  Art, Destiny, Numbers

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.162, Routledge

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• It is, of course, clear that a country with a large foreign population must endeavour, through its schools, to assimilate the children of immigrants. It is, however, unfortunate that a large part of this process should be effected by means of a somewhat blatant nationalism.

  Bertrand Russell

  Country, Children, Mean

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays”, p.135, Psychology Press

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• To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.

  Bertrand Russell

  Names, Particular

  Bertrand Russell, Robert Charles Marsh (1988). “Logic and Knowledge: Essays 1901-1950”, p.205, Psychology Press

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• The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them. We all feel instinctively, that our children's success reflect glory upon ourselves, while their failures make us feel shame. Unfortunately, the successes which cause us to swell with pride are often of an undesirable kind.... Neither happiness nor virtue, but worldly success, is what the average father desires for his children.

  Bertrand Russell

  Children, Father, Pride

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• The puritanism of Christianity has played havoc with the moderation that an enlightened and tolerant critical spirit would have produced. I've noticed that in whatever country, county, town, or other region there is a regulation enjoining temperance, the population seems to be entirely composed of teetotallers and drunkards. There's a Bible on that shelf there. But I keep it next to Voltaire - poison and antidote.

  Bertrand Russell

  Country, Next, Towns

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• Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Religion, Atheism

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.553, Routledge

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• Folly is perennial and yet the human race has survived.

  Bertrand Russell

  Race, Fool, Folly

  "Basic writings, 1903-1959".

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• Upon hearing via Littlewood an exposition on the theory of relativity: To think I have spent my life on absolute muck.

  Bertrand Russell

  Life, Thinking, Hearing

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• Power is sweet; it is a drug, the desire for which increases with a habit.

  Bertrand Russell

  Sweet, War, Political

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• The governors of the world believe, and have always believed, that virtue can only be taught by teaching falsehood, and that any man who knew the truth would be wicked. I disbelieve this, absolutely and entirely. I believe that love of truth is the basis of all real virtue, and that virtues based upon lies can only do harm.

  Bertrand Russell

  Peace, Real, Lying

  Bertrand Russell, Dora Russell (1959). “The Prospects of Industrial Civilization”, p.216, Psychology Press

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• I mean by intellectual integrity the habit of deciding vexed questions in accordance with the evidence, or of leaving them undecided where the evidence is inconclusive. This virtue, though it is underestimated by almost all adherents of any system of dogma, is to my mind of the very greatest social importance and far more likely to benefit the world than Christianity or any other system of organized beliefs.

  Bertrand Russell

  Integrity, Mean, Leaving

  Bertrand Russell (1992). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959”, p.598, Psychology Press

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• Of all evils of war the greatest is the purely spiritual evil: the hatred, the injustice, the repudiation of truth, the artificial conflict.

  Bertrand Russell

  Spiritual, War, Evil

  Charles Chatfield, Bertrand Russell, Ralph Barton Perry (1972). “ETHICS OF WAR”, Dissertations-G

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• Although this may seem a paradox, all exact science is based on the idea of approximation. If a man tells you he knows a thing exactly, then you can be safe in inferring that you are speaking to an inexact man.

  Bertrand Russell

  Math, Men, Ideas

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• a generation that cannot endure boredom will be a generation of little men, of men unduly divorced from the slow process of nature, of men in whom every vital impulse slowly withers as though they were cut flowers in a vase.

  Bertrand Russell

  Flower, Cutting, Men

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.36, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Organic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the philosopher, and this development, we are assured, is indubitably an advance. Unfortunately it is the philosopher, not the protozoon, who gives us this assurance.

  Bertrand Russell

  Wisdom, Science, Giving

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.66, 谷月社

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• The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them.

  Bertrand Russell

  Children, Dad, Father

  Sceptical Essays (1928) "Freedom versus Authority in Education"

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• We are condemned to kill time, thus we die bit by bit. - Octavio Paz The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

  Bertrand Russell

  Wasting Time, Wasted Time, Enjoy

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• Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.

  Bertrand Russell

  Math, Men, Wife

  Impact of Science on Society ch. 1 (1952)

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• It is no credit to the orthodox that they do not now believe all the absurdities that were believed 150 years ago. The gradual emasculation of the Christian doctrine has been effected in spite of the most vigorous resistance, and solely as the result of the onslaughts of freethinkers.

  Bertrand Russell

  Christian, Believe, Years

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “Why I Am Not a Christian”, p.60, Lulu Press, Inc

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• As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

  Bertrand Russell

  Atheist, Men, Thinking

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.91, Psychology Press

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• It seems to us unwise to have insisted on teaching geometry to the younger Dionysius, tyrant of Syracuse, in order to make him a good king, but from Plato's point of view it was essential. He was sufficiently Pythagorean to think that without mathematics no true wisdom is possible.

  Bertrand Russell

  Kings, Plato, Teaching

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition”, p.95, Routledge

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