Bertrand Russell Quotes - Page 45

• Measures of sterilization should, in my opinion, be very definitely confined to persons who are mentally defective

  Bertrand Russell

  Opinion, Sterilization, Should

  Bertrand Russell (1971). “Bertrand Russell's best: silhouettes in satire”, Allen & Unwin

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• Some `advanced thinkers' are of the opinion that anyone who differs from the conventional opinion must be in the right. This is a delusion; if it were not, truth would be easier to come by than it is.

  Bertrand Russell

  Would Be, Opinion, Easier

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Bertrand Russell's Best”, p.62, Routledge

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• The argument against the persecution of opinion does not depend upon what the excuse for persecution may be. The argument is that we none of us know all truth, that the discovery of new truth is promoted by free discussion and rendered very difficult by suppression.

  Bertrand Russell

  Truth, Discovery, Doe

  Bertrand Russell (1935). “Religion and science”

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• A fanatical belief in democracy makes democratic institutions impossible.

  Bertrand Russell

  Democracy, Belief, Impossible

  Bertrand Russell, John G. Slater, Peter Köllner (1997). “Last Philosophical Testament: 1943-68”, p.400, Psychology Press

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• Mystery is delightful, but unscientific, since it depends upon ignorance.

  Bertrand Russell

  Ignorance, Mystery, Delightful

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “The Analysis of Mind”, p.52, Bertrand Russell

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• The best authorities are unanimous in saying that a war with H-bombs might possibly put an end to the human race. It is feared that if many H-bombs are used there will be universal death, sudden only for a minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration.

  Bertrand Russell

  War, Race, Majority

  Bertrand Russell, Andrew G. Bone (2003). “Man's Peril, 1954-55”, p.319, Psychology Press

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• Man can be scientifically manipulated.

  Bertrand Russell

  Men

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.61, Routledge

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• Aristotle and Plato considered Greeks so innately superior to barbarians that slavery is justified so long as the master is Greek and the slave barbarian.

  Bertrand Russell

  Plato, Long, Greek

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell”, p.56, Routledge

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• From that awful encounter of the soul with the outer world, enunciation, wisdom, and charity are born; and with their birth a new life begins. To take into the inmost shrine of the soul the irresistible forces whose puppets we seem to be - Death and change, the irrevocableness of the past, and the powerlessness of Man before the blind hurry of the universe from vanity to vanity - to feel these things and know them is to conquer them.

  Bertrand Russell

  Past, Men, Vanity

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays”, p.52, Booklassic

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• I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached.

  Bertrand Russell

  Country, Thinking, Different

  Bertrand Russell (2004). “In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays”, p.1, Psychology Press

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• War grows out of ordinary human nature.

  Bertrand Russell

  War, Ordinary, Human Nature

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Why Men Fight: A Method of Abolishing the International Duel”, p.5, Lulu Press, Inc

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• Of course not. After all, I may be wrong.

  Bertrand Russell

  Intelligence, May, Courses

  Attributed in "The Times book of quotations" by Philip Howard, (p. 84), 2000.

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• One of the chief triumphs of modern mathematics consists in having discovered what mathematics really is.

  Bertrand Russell

  Science, Triumph, Modern

  Bertrand Russell (2015). “Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays: Top Philosophy Collections”, p.46, 谷月社

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• It is only in marriage with the world that our ideals can bear fruit; divorced from it, they remain barren.

  Bertrand Russell

  Life, World, Fruit

  Bertrand Russell (2016). “Mysticism and Logic”, p.15, Bertrand Russell

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• Much of the most important evils that mankind have to consider are those which they inflict upon each other through stupidity or malevolence or both.

  Bertrand Russell

  Evil, Stupidity, Important

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.143, Routledge

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• Ideas and principles that do harm are as a rule, though not always, cloaks for evil passions.

  Bertrand Russell

  Passion, Ideas, Evil

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.143, Routledge

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• The method of "postulating" what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil.

  Bertrand Russell

  Honesty, Math, Toil

  Bertrand Russell (2007). “Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy”, p.71, Spokesman Books

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• We are ... led to a somewhat vague distinction between what we may call "hard" data and "soft" data. This distinction is a matter of degree, and must not be pressed; but if not taken too seriously it may help to make the situation clear. I mean by "hard" data those which resist the solvent influence of critical reflection, and by "soft" data those which, under the operation of this process, become to our minds more or less doubtful.

  Bertrand Russell

  Taken, Mean, Science

  Bertrand Russell (1914). “Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy”

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• It is odd that neither the Church nor modern public opinion condemns petting, provided it stops short at a certain point. At what point sin begins is a matter as to which casuists differ. One eminently orthodox Catholic divine laid it down that a confessor may fondle a nun's breasts, provided he does it without evil intent. But I doubt whether modern authorities would agree with him on this point.

  Bertrand Russell

  Evil, Catholic, Doubt

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Unpopular Essays”, p.77, Routledge

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• In the higher walks of politics the same sort of thing occurs. The statesman who has gradually concentrated all power within himself ... may have had anything but a public motive... The phrases which are customary on the platform and in the Party Press have gradually come to him to seem to express truths, and he mistakes the rhetoric of partisanship for a genuine analysis of motives... He retires from the world after the world has retired from him.

  Bertrand Russell

  Truth, Mistake, Party

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• Arithmetic must be discovered in just the same sense in which Columbus discovered the West Indies, and we no more create numbers than he created the Indians.

  Bertrand Russell

  Science, West Indies, Discovery

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “Principles of Mathematics”, p.457, Routledge

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• But it is just this characteristic of simplicity in the laws of nature hitherto discovered which it would be fallacious to generalize, for it is obvious that simplicity has been a part cause of their discovery, and can, therefore, give no ground for the supposition that other undiscovered laws are equally simple.

  Bertrand Russell

  Science, Simple, Discovery

  Bertrand Russell (1981). “Mysticism and Logic, and Other Essays”, p.78, Rowman & Littlefield

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• There is as much difference between a collection of mentally free citizens and a community molded by modern methods of propaganda as there is between a heap of raw materials and a battleship.

  Bertrand Russell

  Science, Differences, Community

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

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• Every living thing is a sort of imperialist, seeking to transform as much as possible of its environment into itself.

  Bertrand Russell

  Fear, Atheism, Environment

  Bertrand Russell (2009). “An Outline of Philosophy”, p.31, Routledge

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• In regard to the past, where contemplation is not obscured by desire and the need for action, we see, more clearly than in the lives about us, the value for good and evil, of the aims men have pursued and the means they have adopted. It is good, from time to time, to view the present as already past, and to examine what elements it contains that will add to the world's store of permanent possessions, that will live and give life when we and all our generation have perished.

  Bertrand Russell

  Mean, Men, Past

  Bertrand Russell (1985). “Contemplation and Action, 1902-14”, p.80, Psychology Press

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