Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 29

• The man who has fed the chicken every day throughout its life at last wrings its neck instead, showing that more refined views as to the uniformity of nature would have been useful to the chicken.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Views, Lasts

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.123, Routledge

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• 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

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• Perhaps the nuclear physicists have come so near to the ultimate secrets that He thinks it time to bring their activities to a stop. And what simpler method could He devise than to let them carry their ingenuity to the point where they exterminate the human race?

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Race, Secret

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.131, Routledge

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• [There are m]oral precepts that we consider really important, such as 'don't pick your nose' or 'don't eat peas with a knife'. There may, for ought I know, be admirable reasons for eating peas with a knife, but . . . early persuasion has made me completely incapable of appreciating them.

  Bertrand Russell

  Knives, Appreciate, Important

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Power: A New Social Analysis”, p.221, Psychology Press

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• There was a law in Connecticut - I believe it is still formally unrepealed - making it illegal for a man to kiss his wife on Sunday.

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, Sunday, Kissing

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “Human Society in Ethics and Politics”, p.30, Routledge

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• Thomas Aquinas states parenthetically, as something entirely obvious, that men are more rational than women. For my part, I see no evidence of this.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, States, Obvious

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.154, Routledge

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• We ought to look the world frankly in the face.

  Bertrand Russell

  Looks, World, Faces

  Bertrand Russell, John Greer Slater, Peter Köllner (1996). “A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42”, p.193, Psychology Press

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• Joy of life... depends upon a certain spontaneity in regard to sex. Where sex is repressed, only work remains, and a gospel of work for work's sake never produced any work worth doing.

  Bertrand Russell

  Sex, Joy, Sake

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.330, Routledge

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• Citizens as conceived by governments are persons who admire the status quo and are prepared to exert themselves for its preservation. Oddly enough, while all governments aim at producing men of this type to the exclusion of all other types, their heroes in the past are of exactly the sort that they aim at preventing in the present. Americans admire George Washington and Jefferson, but imprison those who share their political opinions.

  Bertrand Russell

  Hero, Men, Past

  Bertrand Russell (2013). “Education and the Social Order”, p.11, Routledge

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• I suppose the advocates of unreason think that there is a better chance of profitably deceiving the populace if they keep it in a state of effervescence.

  Bertrand Russell

  Thinking, Chance, Deceiving

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.425, Psychology Press

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• A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.

  Bertrand Russell

  People, Wish, Patient

  Conquest of Happiness (1930) ch. 10

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• The main things which seem to me important on their own account, and not merely as means to other things, are knowledge, art, instinctive happiness, and relations of friendship or affection.

  Bertrand Russell

  Happiness, Art, Mean

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.19, Routledge

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• I consider the official Catholic attitude on divorce, birth control, and censorship exceedingly dangerous to mankind.

  Bertrand Russell

  Attitude, Divorce, Catholic

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

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• Morality in sexual relations, when it is free from superstition, consists essentially in respect for the other person, and unwillingness to use that person solely as a means of personal gratification, without regard to his or her desires.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mean, Desire, Use

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Marriage and Morals”, p.98, Routledge

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• The world that I should wish to see would be one freed from the virulence of group hostilities and capable of realizing that happiness for all is to be derived rather from co-operation than from strife. I should wish to see a world in which education aimed at mental freedom rather than imprisoning the minds of the young in rigid armor of dogma calculated to protect them through life against the shafts of impartial evidence.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mind, Wish, Armor

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.7, Simon and Schuster

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• So in everything: power lies with those who control finance, not with those who know the matter upon which the money is to be spent. Thus, the holders of power are, in general, ignorant and malevolent, and the less they exercise their power the better.

  Bertrand Russell

  Lying, Exercise, Ignorant

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Sceptical Essays”, p.153, Psychology Press

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• St. Paul introduced an entirely novel view of marriage, that it existed primarily to prevent the sin of fornication. It is just as if one were to maintain that the sole reason for baking bread is to prevent people from stealing cake.

  Bertrand Russell

  Marriage, Views, Cake

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• No Carthaginian denied Moloch, because to do so would have required more courage that was required to face death in battle.

  Bertrand Russell

  Religion, Battle, Faces

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.70, Routledge

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• There are two ways of avoiding fear: one is by persuading ourselves that we are immune from disaster, and the other is by the practice of sheer courage. The latter is difficult, and to everybody becomes impossible at a certain point. The former has therefore always been more popular. Primitive magic has the purpose of securing safety, either by injuring enemies, or by protecting oneself by talismans, spells, or incantations.

  Bertrand Russell

  Practice, Two, Safety

  Bertrand Russell (1986). “Bertrand Russell on God and Religion”

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• The best practical advice I can give to the present generation is to practice the virtue which the Christians call love.

  Bertrand Russell

  Love, Christian, Kindness

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• The first man who said "fire burns" was employing scientific method, at any rate if he had allowed himself to be burnt several times. This man had already passed through the two stages of observation and generalization. He had not, however, what scientific technique demands - a careful choice of significant facts on the one hand, and, on the other hand, various means of arriving at laws otherwise than my mere generalization.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mean, Science, Men

  "The Scientific Outlook".

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• Formality Thus the absence of all mention of particular things or properties in logic or pure mathematics is a necessary result of the fact that this study is, as we say, "purely formal".

  Bertrand Russell

  Facts, Logic, Study

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• Philosophy arises from an unusually obstinate attempt to arrive at real knowledge. What passes for knowledge in ordinary life suffers from three defects: it is cocksure, vague and self-contradictory. The first step towards philosophy consists in becoming aware of these defects, not in order to rest content with a lazy scepticism, but in order to substitute an amended kind of knowledge which shall be tentative, precise and self-consistent.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Real, Self

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “An Outline of Philosophy”, p.2, Routledge

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• The question of "unreality"is a very important one. Misled by grammar, the great majority of those logicians who have dealt with this question have dealt with it on mistaken lines. They have regarded grammatical form as a surer guide in analysis than, in fact, it is. And they have not known what differences in grammatical form are important.

  Bertrand Russell

  Reality, Differences, Important

  Bertrand Russell (1993). “Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy”, p.168, Courier Corporation

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• Protestants, from the first, have been distinguished from their opponents by what they do not believe; to throw over one more dogma is, therefore, merely to carry the movement one stage further. Moral fervor is the essence of the matter.

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, Essence, Movement

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.119, Simon and Schuster

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