Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 26

• There will still be things that machines cannot do. They will not produce great art or great literature or great philosophy; they will not be able to discover the secret springs of happiness in the human heart; they will know nothing of love and friendship.

  Bertrand Russell

  Love, Art, Philosophy

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• The human race may well become extinct before the end of the century.

  Bertrand Russell

  Race, May, Century

  Playboy Interview, Volume 10, No. 3 (p. 42), March 1963; later quoted in Kenneth Rose "One Nation Underground: The Fallout Shelter in American Culture" (p. 39), 2004.

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• They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom. Those who continually search for happiness will never find it. Happiness is made, not found. To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.

  Bertrand Russell

  Want, Would Be, Made

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• It is in our hearts that evil lies, and it is from our hearts that it must be plucked out.

  Bertrand Russell

  Lying, Heart, Evil

  Bertrand Russell (1962). “Has Man a Future?”

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• Teachers are more than any other group the guardians of civilization.

  Bertrand Russell

  Teacher, Civilization, Groups

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• Every housemaid expects at least once a week as much excitement as would have lasted a Jane Austen heroine throughout a whole novel.

  Bertrand Russell

  Excitement, Week, Heroines

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.33, Lulu Press, Inc

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• One's work is never so bad as it appears on bad days, nor so good as it appears on good days.

  Bertrand Russell

  Work, Good Day, Bad Day

  Bertrand Russell (1998). “Autobiography”, p.127, Psychology Press

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• Every increase in knowledge requires an increase in wisdom

  Bertrand Russell

  Increase

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• The great majority of men and women, in ordinary times, pass through life without ever contemplating or criticising, as a whole, either their own conditions or those of the world at large.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Majority, Ordinary

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Proposed Roads to Freedom”, p.2, Booklassic

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• Well, there are many religions, but I suppose they all worship the same God.

  Bertrand Russell

  Worship, Wells

  Bertrand Russell, Ray Perkins (Jr.) (2002). “Yours Faithfully, Bertrand Russell: A Lifelong Fight for Peace, Justice, and Truth in Letters to the Editor”, p.7, Open Court Publishing

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• All great books contain boring portions, and all great lives have contained uninteresting stretches.

  Bertrand Russell

  Book, Greatness, Boring

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.34, Lulu Press, Inc

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• The thing that I should wish to obtain from money would be leisure with security.

  Bertrand Russell

  Wish, Would Be, Leisure

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.26, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Is the set of all sets which are not members of themselves a member of itself?

  Bertrand Russell

  Members

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• The true spirit of delight...is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.

  Bertrand Russell

  Delight, Spirit, Mathematics

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• A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.

  Bertrand Russell

  Smell, Petroleum

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

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• Marx's father became a Christian when Marx was a little boy, and some, at least, of the dogmas he must have then accepted seem to have born fruit in his son's psychology.

  Bertrand Russell

  Christian, Father, Son

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.147, Routledge

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• Among the Tibetans, one wife has many husbands, because men are too poor to support a whole wife.

  Bertrand Russell

  Husband, Men, Wife

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.59, Routledge

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• [Freedom] is the greatest of political goods. I do not say freedom is the greatest of all goods: the best things come from within they are such things as creative art, and love, and thought. Such things can be helped or hindered by political conditions, but not actually produced by them; and freedom is, both in itself and in its relation to these other goods the best thing that political and economic conditions can secure.

  Bertrand Russell

  Art, Creative, Political

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Proposed Roads to Freedom”, p.85, Booklassic

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• A drop of water is not immortal; it can be resolved into oxygen and hydrogen. If, therefore, a drop of water were to maintain that it had a quality of aqueousness which would survive its dissolution we should be inclined to be skeptical. In like manner we know that the brain is not immortal.

  Bertrand Russell

  Oxygen, Water, Brain

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.51, Simon and Schuster

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• Throughout the long period of religious doubt, I had been rendered very unhappy by the gradual loss of belief, but when the process was completed, I found to my surprise that I was quite glad to be done with the whole subject.

  Bertrand Russell

  Faith, Religious, Loss

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Autobiography”, p.30, Routledge

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• Religions which have any very strong hold over men's actions have generally some instinctive basis.

  Bertrand Russell

  Strong, Men, Religion

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Marriage and Morals”, p.12, Routledge

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• There is a further advantage [to hydrogen bombs]: the supply of uranium in the planet is very limited, and it might be feared that it would be used up before the human race was exterminated, but now that the practically unlimited supply of hydrogen can be utilized, there is considerable reason to hope that homo sapiens may put an end to himself, to the great advantage of such less ferocious animals as may survive. But it is time to return to less cheerful topics.

  Bertrand Russell

  Animal, Race, Hydrogen Bomb

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• The law of causality, I believe, like much that passes muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm.

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, Law, Age

  'Mysticism and Logic' (1919)

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• While the dogmatist is harmful, the sceptic is useless ...; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or of ignorance. Knowledge is not so precise a concept as is commonly thought. Instead of saying 'I know this', we ought to say 'I more or less know something more or less like this'. ... Knowledge in practical affairs has not the certainty or the precision of arithmetic.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Ignorance, Knowledge

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• Self-respect will keep a man from being abject when he is in the power of enemies, and will enable him to feel that he may be in the right when the world is against him.

  Bertrand Russell

  Character, Men, Self

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Authority and the Individual”, p.51, Routledge

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