Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 41

• In his youth, Wordsworth sympathized with the French Revolution, went to France, wrote good poetry and had a natural daughter. At this period, he was a bad man. Then he became good, abandoned his daughter, adopted correct principles and wrote bad poetry.

  Bertrand Russell

  Daughter, Men, Poetry

  Bertrand Russell (1960). “Sceptical Essays”

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• To write tragedy, a man must feel tragedy. To feel tragedy, a man must be aware of the world in which he lives. Not only with his mind, but with his blood and sinews.

  Bertrand Russell

  Writing, Men, Blood

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “The Conquest of Happiness”, p.23, Lulu Press, Inc

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• History is valuable, to begin with, because it is true; and this, though not the whole of its value, is the foundation and condition of all the rest. That all knowledge, as such, is in some degree good, would appear to be at least probable; and the knowledge of every historical fact possesses this element of goodness, even if it posses no other.

  Bertrand Russell

  Knowledge, Historical, Facts

  Bertrand Russell (1985). “Contemplation and Action, 1902-14”, p.76, Psychology Press

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• When conscious activity is wholly concentrated on some one definite purpose, the ultimate result, for most people, is lack of balance accompanied by some form of nervous disorder.

  Bertrand Russell

  People, Focus, Balance

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays”, p.22, Psychology Press

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• The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men, Excellence, Exaltation

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.229, Routledge

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• The use of force stands in need of control by a public neutral authority, in the interests of liberty no less than of justice. Within a nation, this public authority will naturally be the state; in relations between nations, if the present anarchy is to cease, it will have to be some international parliament.

  Bertrand Russell

  Justice, Liberty, Needs

  Bertrand Russell (2006). “Political Ideals”, p.73, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Remote from human passions, remote even from the pitiful facts of nature, the generations have gradually created an ordered cosmos [mathematics], where pure thought can dwell in its natural home.

  Bertrand Russell

  Passion, Home, Cosmos

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “Mysticism and Logic”, p.94, Bertrand Russell

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• As I grew up I became increasingly interested in philosophy, or which [his family] profoundly disapproved. Everytime the subject came up they repeated with unfailing regularity, "What is mind? No matter. What is matter? Never mind." After some fifty or sixty repititions, this remark ceased to amuse me.

  Bertrand Russell

  Philosophy, Mind, Fifty

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• War...seems a mere madness, a collective insanity.

  Bertrand Russell

  War, Insanity, Madness

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• Calculus required continuity, and continuity was supposed to require the infinitely little; but nobody could discover what the infinitely little might be.

  Bertrand Russell

  Math, Littles, Statistics

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.51, 谷月社

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• The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation ... it is common to wish well to oneself, but in our technically unified world, wishing well to oneself is sure to be futile unless it is combined with wishing well to others.

  Bertrand Russell

  Wish, World, Cooperation

  Bertrand Russell, Andrew G. Bone (2003). “Man's Peril, 1954-55”, p.12, Psychology Press

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• Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty-a beauty cold and austere ... yet sublimely pure and capable of stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.

  Bertrand Russell

  Art, Math, Perfection

  "The Study of Mathematics" (1902)

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• A habit of basing convictions upon evidence, and of giving to them only that degree or certainty which the evidence warrants, would, if it became general, cure most of the ills from which the world suffers.

  Bertrand Russell

  Math, Science, Giving

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• I am allowed to use plain English because everybody knows that I could use mathematical logic if I chose.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mathematical Logic, Use, Plain English

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.66, Routledge

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• What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry.

  Bertrand Russell

  Attitude, Curiosity, Needs

  Bertrand Russell (1957). “Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects”, p.206, Simon and Schuster

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• All that passes for knowledge can be arranged in a hierarchy of degrees of certainty, with arithmetic and the facts of perception at the top.

  Bertrand Russell

  Knowledge, Science, Perception

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.380, Psychology Press

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• The atomic bomb embodies the results of a combination genius and patience as remarkable as any in the history of mankind.

  Bertrand Russell

  Genius, Bombs, Atomic Bomb

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• The tendency of our perceptions is to emphasise increasingly the objective elements in an impression, unless we have some special reason, as artists have, for doing the opposite.

  Bertrand Russell

  Artist, Opposites, Perception

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “An Outline of Philosophy”, p.168, Routledge

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• The above proposition is occasionally useful.

  Bertrand Russell

  Propositions

  On the proof that 1+1=2. "Principia Mathematica". Book by Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell, 1st edition, p. 86, 1912.

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• It must not be supposed that the subjective elements are any less 'real' than the objective elements; they are only less important... because they do not point to anything beyond ourselves.

  Bertrand Russell

  Real, Important, Elements

  "An Outline of Philosophy". Book by Bertrand Russell, Ch.15 The Nature of our Knowledge of Physics, 1927.

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• One who believes, as I do, that the free intellect is the chief engine of human progress, cannot but be fundamentally opposed to Bolshevism, as much as to the Church of Rome.

  Bertrand Russell

  Believe, Rome, Progress

  Bertrand Russell, Richard A. Rempel, Beryl Haslam (2000). “Uncertain Paths to Freedom: Russia and China, 1919-22”, p.197, Psychology Press

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• I greatly doubt whether the men who become pirate chiefs are those who are filled with retrospective terror of their fathers, or whether Napoleon , at Austerlitz, really felt that he was getting even with Madame Mère. I know nothing of the mother of Attila , but I rather suspect that she spoilt the little darling, who subsequently found the world irritating because it sometimes resisted his whims.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mother, Father, Men

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “Power: A New Social Analysis”, p.32, Routledge

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• When I found myself regarded as respectable, I began to wonder what sins I had committed. I must be very wicked, I thought. I began to engage in the most uncomfortable introspection.

  Bertrand Russell

  Wicked, Wonder, Sin

  Bertrand Russell, Andrew G. Bone (2005). “Détente Or Destruction, 1955-57”, p.363, Psychology Press

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• The camera is as subjective as we are.

  Bertrand Russell

  Cameras, Subjective

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “An Outline of Philosophy”, p.168, Routledge

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• Socrates was the chief saint of the Stoics throughout their history ; his attitude at the time of his trial, his refusal to escape, his calmness in the face of death , and his contention that the perpetrator of injustice injures himself more than his victim, all fitted in perfectly with Stoic teaching. So did his indifference to heat and cold, his plainness in matters of food and dress, and his complete independence of all bodily comforts.

  Bertrand Russell

  Attitude, Teaching, Independence

  Bertrand Russell (2008). “History of Western Philosophy”, p.253, Simon and Schuster

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