BERTRAND RUSSELL QUOTES Quicklyfind - Quotes on just about anything!
(1872 - 1970) , and Verified "I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: 'The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair.' In these words he epitomized the history of the human race." Source: Education and the Social Order "The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion." Source: An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish "Man is a rational animal - so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favor of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three continents." Source: An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish "'Philosophy' is a word which has been used in many ways, some wider, some narrower. I propose to use it in a very wide sense, which I will now try to explain." Source: A History of Western Philosophy "Since the world is what it is, it is clear that valid reasoning from sound principles cannot lead to error; but a principle may be so nearly true as to deserve theoretical respect, and yet may lead to practical consequences which we feel to be absurd. There is therefore a justification for common sense in philosophy, but only as showing that our theoretical principles cannot be quite correct so long as their consequences are condemned by an appeal to common sense which we feel to be irresistible. The theorist may retort that common sense is no more infallible than logic. But this retort, though made by Berkeley and Hume, would have been wholly foreign to Locke's intellectual temper." Source: A History of Western Philosophy "In a man whose reasoning powers are good, fallacious arguments are evidence of bias." Source: Unpopular Essays "The habit of looking to the future and thinking that the whole meaning of the present lies in what it will bring forth is a pernicious one. There can be no value in the whole unless there is value in the parts. Life is not to be conceived on the analogy of a melodrama in which the hero and heroine go through incredible misfortunes for which they are compensated by a happy ending. I live and have my day, my son succeeds me and has his day, his son in turn succeeds him. What is there in all this to make a tragedy about?" Source: The Conquest of Happiness "In adolescence, I hated life and was continually on the verge of suicide, from which, however, I was restrained by the desire to know more mathematics. Now, on the contrary, I enjoy life; I might almost say that with every year that passes I enjoy it more. This is due partly to having discovered what were the things that I most desired and having gradually acquired many of these things. Partly it is due to having successfully dismissed certain objects of desire . . . as essentially unattainable. But very largely it is due to a diminishing preoccupation with myself . . . . I learned to be indifferent to myself and my deficiencies; I came to center my attention increasingly upon external objects." Source: The Conquest of Happiness "The true function of logic,...as applied to matters of experience,...is analytic rather than constructive; taken a priori, it shows the possibility of hitherto unsuspected alternatives more often than the impossibility of alternatives which seemed prima facie possible. Thus, while it liberates imagination as to what the world may be, it refuses to legislate as to what the world is." Source: Our Knowledge of the External World "The conception of the necessary unit of all that is resolves itself into the poverty of the imagination, and a freer logic emancipates us from the straitwaistcoated benevolent institution which idealism palms off as the totality of being." Source: Our Knowledge of the External World "First of all: what is work? Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so." Source: In Praise of Idleness Attributed "Anything you're good at contributes to happiness" "The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge." "Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so." "Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education." "If, as we are told, Oswald was the lone assassin, where is the issue of national security?"[1] "It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it to be true." "The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd." (variant) "Just because an idea is held by the masses does not make it true. Indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, an idea that is widely held is more likely to be false than true." "Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind."
Verified "I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy. I expostulated, but he replied: 'The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair.' In these words he epitomized the history of the human race." Source: Education and the Social Order "The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion." Source: An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish "Man is a rational animal - so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favor of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three continents." Source: An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish "'Philosophy' is a word which has been used in many ways, some wider, some narrower. I propose to use it in a very wide sense, which I will now try to explain." Source: A History of Western Philosophy "Since the world is what it is, it is clear that valid reasoning from sound principles cannot lead to error; but a principle may be so nearly true as to deserve theoretical respect, and yet may lead to practical consequences which we feel to be absurd. There is therefore a justification for common sense in philosophy, but only as showing that our theoretical principles cannot be quite correct so long as their consequences are condemned by an appeal to common sense which we feel to be irresistible. The theorist may retort that common sense is no more infallible than logic. But this retort, though made by Berkeley and Hume, would have been wholly foreign to Locke's intellectual temper." Source: A History of Western Philosophy "In a man whose reasoning powers are good, fallacious arguments are evidence of bias." Source: Unpopular Essays "The habit of looking to the future and thinking that the whole meaning of the present lies in what it will bring forth is a pernicious one. There can be no value in the whole unless there is value in the parts. Life is not to be conceived on the analogy of a melodrama in which the hero and heroine go through incredible misfortunes for which they are compensated by a happy ending. I live and have my day, my son succeeds me and has his day, his son in turn succeeds him. What is there in all this to make a tragedy about?" Source: The Conquest of Happiness "In adolescence, I hated life and was continually on the verge of suicide, from which, however, I was restrained by the desire to know more mathematics. Now, on the contrary, I enjoy life; I might almost say that with every year that passes I enjoy it more. This is due partly to having discovered what were the things that I most desired and having gradually acquired many of these things. Partly it is due to having successfully dismissed certain objects of desire . . . as essentially unattainable. But very largely it is due to a diminishing preoccupation with myself . . . . I learned to be indifferent to myself and my deficiencies; I came to center my attention increasingly upon external objects." Source: The Conquest of Happiness "The true function of logic,...as applied to matters of experience,...is analytic rather than constructive; taken a priori, it shows the possibility of hitherto unsuspected alternatives more often than the impossibility of alternatives which seemed prima facie possible. Thus, while it liberates imagination as to what the world may be, it refuses to legislate as to what the world is." Source: Our Knowledge of the External World "The conception of the necessary unit of all that is resolves itself into the poverty of the imagination, and a freer logic emancipates us from the straitwaistcoated benevolent institution which idealism palms off as the totality of being." Source: Our Knowledge of the External World "First of all: what is work? Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so." Source: In Praise of Idleness Attributed "Anything you're good at contributes to happiness" "The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge." "Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so." "Men are born ignorant, not stupid. They are made stupid by education." "If, as we are told, Oswald was the lone assassin, where is the issue of national security?"[1] "It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatsoever for supposing it to be true." "The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd." (variant) "Just because an idea is held by the masses does not make it true. Indeed, in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, an idea that is widely held is more likely to be false than true." "Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind."