Bertrand Russell quotes

Quotation MarksRussell, Bertrand (1872 – 1970), British author, mathematician, & philosopher

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it is true.

The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holders lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.

Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.

The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.

It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won’t go.

There are two motives for reading a book: one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.

When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others. It is much more nearly certain that we are assembled here tonight than it is that this or that political party is in the right. Certainly there are degrees of certainty, and one should be very careful to emphasise that fact, because otherwise one is landed in an utter skepticism, and complete skepticism would, of course, be totally barren and completely useless.

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn’t wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.

In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.

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

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.

Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.

There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.

Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man.

So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.

There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.

To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.

Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.

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 in poetry.

Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.

We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side: one which we preach but do not practice, and another which we practice but seldom preach.

One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.

Passive acceptance of the teacher’s wisdom is easy to most boys and girls. It involves no effort of independent thought, and seems rational because the teacher knows more than his pupils; it is moreover the way to win the favour of the teacher unless he is a very exceptional man. Yet the habit of passive acceptance is a disastrous one in later life. It causes man to seek and to accept a leader, and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that position.

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.

Patriots always talk of dying for their country but never of killing for their country.

The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.

It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.

Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer.

A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.

If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinise it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.

Everything is vague to a degree you do not realise till you have tried to make it precise.

The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy – I mean that if you are happy you will be good.

Scientific man cannot survive if he is going to continue to make war.

War does not determine who is right – only who is left.

Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so.

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty – a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture.

When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others.

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.

The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.

The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.

Too little liberty brings stagnation and too much brings chaos.

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.

This is patently absurd; but whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.

Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.

The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.

It is obvious that ‘obscenity’ is not a term capable of exact legal definition; in the practice of the Courts, it means ‘anything that shocks the magistrate.’

Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth – more than ruin – more even than death…. Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.

One should as a rule respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny, and is likely to interfere with happiness in all kinds of ways.

I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong.

If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have paradise in a few years.

In the part of this universe that we know there is great injustice, and often the good suffer, and often the wicked prosper, and one hardly knows which of those is the more annoying.

Life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.

Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.

The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.

The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.

This is one of those views which are so absolutely absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them.

Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.

About Melluvahess

My name is Sean Maguire and I am the founder of Maths Made Elementary. I provide expert one-to-one maths tuition within North London to lower and upper secondary level students studying at Key Stages 3 and 4. For more information about me, and the services I offer, please check out my website www.mathsmadeelementary.co.uk
This entry was posted in Famous Quotations and tagged . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *