Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 34

• Common sense, however it tries,
  cannot avoid being surprised from time to time.

  Bertrand Russell

  Common Sense, Trying, Logic

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• Calculating machines do sums better than even the cleverest people… As arithmetic has grown easier, it has come to be less respected.

  Bertrand Russell

  Respect, People, Machines

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.46, Routledge

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• A million million years gives us some time to prepare for the end . . . let us make the best of it.

  Bertrand Russell

  Years, Giving, Ends

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.35, Routledge

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• How about Pithecanthropus Erectus? Was it really he who ate the apple? Or was it Homo Pekiniensis?

  Bertrand Russell

  Apples

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.30, Routledge

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• Neither acquiescence in skepticism nor acquiescence in dogma is what education should produce.

  Bertrand Russell

  Acquiescence, Dogma, Should

  Bertrand Russell (1993). “The Quotable Bertrand Russell”

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• There are certain things that our age needs, and certain things that it should avoid. It needs compassion and a wish that mankind should be happy; it needs the desire for knowledge and the determination to eschew pleasant myths; it needs, above all, courageous hope and the impulse to creativeness.

  Bertrand Russell

  Faith, Determination, Compassion

  Bertrand Russell (1998). “Autobiography”, p.520, Psychology Press

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• Bad philosophers may have a certain influence; good philosophers, never.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, May, Philosopher

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• Those who in principle oppose birth control are either incapable of arithmetic or else in favour of war, pestilence and famine as permanent features of human life.

  Bertrand Russell

  Life, War, Pestilence

  Bertrand Russell (1971). “Ladislas Reymont: Romain Rolland ; Bertrand Russell”

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• Undoubtedly the desire for food has been and still is one of the main causes of political events.

  Bertrand Russell

  Political, Desire, Events

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.447, Routledge

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• It is impossible to read in America, except on a train, because of the telephone. Everyone has a telephone, and it rings all day and most of the night.

  Bertrand Russell

  Book, Reading, Night

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• One of the troubles about vanity is that it grows with what it feeds on. The more you are talked about, the more you will wish to be talked about.

  Bertrand Russell

  Vanity, Wish, Trouble

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.448, Routledge

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• The reason is, and by rights ought to be, slave to the emotions.

  Bertrand Russell

  Rights, Emotion, Slave

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• Adventurous men enjoy shipwrecks, mutinies, earthquakes, conflagrations, and all kinds of unpleasant experiences. They say to themselves, for example, 'So this is what an earthquake is like,' and it gives them pleasure to have their knowledge of the world increased by this new item.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Earthquakes, Giving

  Bertrand Russell (2012). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.114, Routledge

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• I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of WORK, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in the organised diminution of work.

  Bertrand Russell

  Lying, Done, World

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays”, p.3, Psychology Press

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• It is obviously possible that what we call waking life may only be an unusual and persistent nightmare.

  Bertrand Russell

  Waking Life, May, Nightmare

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• Right conduct can never, except by some rare accident, be promoted by ignorance or hindered by knowledge.

  Bertrand Russell

  Ignorance, Knowledge, Right Conduct

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Marriage and Morals”, p.58, Routledge

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• 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

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• Philosophy is that part of science which at present people chose to have opinions about, but which they have no knowledge about. Therefore every advance in knowledge robs philosophy of some problems which formerly it had ...and will belong to science.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Knowledge, Science

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Philosophy of Logical Atomism”, p.124, Routledge

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• Nothing of importance is ever achieved without discipline. I feel myself sometimes not wholly in sympathy with some modern educational theorists, because I think that they underestimate the part that discipline plays. But the discipline you have in your life should be one determined by your own desires and your own needs, not put upon you by society or authority.

  Bertrand Russell

  Educational, Thinking, Play

  Bertrand Russell (1987). “Bertrand Russell on ethics, sex, and marriage”

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• To a modern mind, it is difficult to feel enthusiastic about a virtuous life if nothing is going to be achieved by it.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mind, Enthusiasm, Modern

  Bertrand Russell (2008). “History of Western Philosophy”, p.255, Simon and Schuster

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• ... the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be.

  Bertrand Russell

  Pain, Loneliness, World

  Bertrand Russell (2014). “The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell”, p.9, Routledge

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• Something of the hermit's temper is an essential element in many forms of excellence, since it enables men to resist the lure of popularity, to pursue important work in spite of general indifference or hostility, and arrive at opinions which are opposed to prevalent errors.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Errors, Solitude

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Power: A New Social Analysis”, p.37, Routledge

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• 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

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• A proverb is one man's wit and all men's wisdom.

  Bertrand Russell

  Wisdom, Men, Wit

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• 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 to many things of great importance.

  Bertrand Russell

  Littles, Forget, Importance

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

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