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Bertrand Russell
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I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy.
- Bertrand Russell
#Language
#Obstacles
#Progress
#Thoughts
If any philosopher had been asked for a definition of infinity, he might have produced some unintelligible rigmarole, but he would certainly not have been able to give a definition that had any meaning at all.
- Bertrand Russell
#Definition
#He
#Infinity
#Meaning
#Would
In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word experience have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word.
- Bertrand Russell
#Been
#Experience
#Idealism
#More
#Result
The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.
- Bertrand Russell
#Anything
#Death
#Fate
#Thoughts
#Time
To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.
- Bertrand Russell
#Must
#Name
#Understand
#Which
#You
When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief which he finds in himself.
- Bertrand Russell
#Belief
#Habit
#Man
#Search
#Will
Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires.
- Bertrand Russell
#Indignation
#Our
#Submission
#Thoughts
Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and justification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical.
- Bertrand Russell
#Analysis
#Either
#Necessary
#Sense
A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.
- Bertrand Russell
#Image
#Stream
#Time
#View
#World
It seems to be the fate of idealists to obtain what they have struggled for in a form which destroys their ideals.
- Bertrand Russell
#Fate
#Form
#Ideals
#Seems
#Which
Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.
- Bertrand Russell
#Happens
#Ignorant
#Shock
#Some
#Whatever
Thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible, Thought is merciless to privilege, established institutions, and comfortable habit. Thought is great and swift and free.
- Bertrand Russell
#Comfortable
#Free
#Great
#Habit
#Swift
No; we have been as usual asking the wrong question. It does not matter a hoot what the mockingbird on the chimney is singing. The real and proper question is: Why is it beautiful?
- Bertrand Russell
#Beautiful
#Matter
#Real
#Singing
#Why
Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one.
- Bertrand Russell
#Controlling
#Force
#Rather
#Reason
#Than
A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known.
- Bertrand Russell
#Agree
#Man
#Opinion
#Process
#Progress
Order, unity, and continuity are human inventions, just as truly as catalogues and encyclopedias.
- Bertrand Russell
#Continuity
#Human
#Just
#Order
#Unity
The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilised men.
- Bertrand Russell
#Aim
#Great
#Men
#Understanding
#World
I do not pretend to start with precise questions. I do not think you can start with anything precise. You have to achieve such precision as you can, as you go along.
- Bertrand Russell
#Achieve
#Go
#Precision
#Questions
#Start
I believe in using words, not fists. I believe in my outrage knowing people are living in boxes on the street. I believe in honesty. I believe in a good time. I believe in good food. I believe in sex.
- Bertrand Russell
#Food
#Good Food
#Good
#Sex
#Time
Awareness of universals is called conceiving, and a universal of which we are aware is called a concept.
- Bertrand Russell
#Awareness
#Concept
#Universal
#Which
The coward wretch whose hand and heart Can bear to torture aught below, Is ever first to quail and start From the slightest pain or equal foe.
- Bertrand Russell
#Bear
#Coward
#Heart
#Pain
#Start
Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.
- Bertrand Russell
#Ask
#Freedom
#Life
#Personal
#Time
Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attributable to science, which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century.
- Bertrand Russell
#Almost
#Everything
#Most
#Science
#World
Many people when they fall in love look for a little haven of refuge from the world, where they can be sure of being admired when they are not admirable, and praised when they are not praiseworthy.
- Bertrand Russell
#Fall
#Look
#Love
#People
#World
Right discipline consists, not in external compulsion, but in the habits of mind which lead spontaneously to desirable rather than undesirable activities.
- Bertrand Russell
#Discipline
#Lead
#Mind
#Rather
#Right
Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people's happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race.
- Bertrand Russell
#Happiness
#Hatred
#Human
#People
#Race
Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself.
- Bertrand Russell
#Art
#Cooperation
#Ethics
#Origin
#Others
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
#Excellence
#Man
#Mathematics
#Poetry
Admiration of the proletariat, like that of dams, power stations, and aeroplanes, is part of the ideology of the machine age.
- Bertrand Russell
#Admiration
#Age
#Dams
#Ideology
#Power
Against my will, in the course of my travels, the belief that everything worth knowing was known at Cambridge gradually wore off. In this respect my travels were very useful to me.
- Bertrand Russell
#Belief
#Me
#Respect
#Will
#Worth
The man who can centre his thoughts and hopes upon something transcending self can find a certain peace in the ordinary troubles of life, which is impossible to the pure egoist.
- Bertrand Russell
#Impossible
#Life
#Man
#Peace
#Thoughts
Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.
- Bertrand Russell
#Drive
#History
#Men
#Power
#Religions
Italy, and the spring and first love all together should suffice to make the gloomiest person happy.
- Bertrand Russell
#Happy
#Love
#Person
#Spring
#Together
Religions that teach brotherly love have been used as an excuse for persecution, and our profoundest scientific insight is made into a means of mass destruction.
- Bertrand Russell
#Destruction
#Insight
#Love
#Religions
I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe - because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return.
- Bertrand Russell
#God
#Human
#Love
#Mathematics
#Universe
If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.
- Bertrand Russell
#Difficult
#Happiness
#Life
#More
#Up
Machines are worshipped because they are beautiful and valued because they confer power; they are hated because they are hideous and loathed because they impose slavery.
- Bertrand Russell
#Beautiful
#Because
#Machines
#Power
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.
- Bertrand Russell
#Believe
#Doubt
#Measure
#People
#Wish
With the introduction of agriculture mankind entered upon a long period of meanness, misery, and madness, from which they are only now being freed by the beneficent operation of the machine.
- Bertrand Russell
#Agriculture
#Introduction
#Long
#Madness
Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.
- Bertrand Russell
#Evil
#Good And Evil
#Good
#View
#World
Boredom is... a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
- Bertrand Russell
#Boredom
#Fear
#Half
#Mankind
#Problem
The pleasure of work is open to anyone who can develop some specialised skill, provided that he can get satisfaction from the exercise of his skill without demanding universal applause.
- Bertrand Russell
#Exercise
#He
#Satisfaction
#Skill
#Work
A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.
- Bertrand Russell
#Duty
#People
#Resignation
#Wish
#Work
There is no need to worry about mere size. We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man. Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.
- Bertrand Russell
#Fat
#Man
#Respect
#Value
#Worry
The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this purpose has any similarity to ours.
- Bertrand Russell
#Know
#May
#Nothing
#Purpose
#Universe
Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted.
- Bertrand Russell
#Men
#Mistake
#Simple
#Thinking
#Women
Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.
- Bertrand Russell
#More
#Next
#Others
#Pleasure
#Power
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
- Bertrand Russell
#I Can
#Intelligence
#Praise
#Remember
Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one.
- Bertrand Russell
#Courage
#Die
#Man
#Say
#Will
None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.
- Bertrand Russell
#Boast
#Coward
#Fear
#He
#Never
Mathematics takes us into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual word, but every possible word, must conform.
- Bertrand Russell
#Mathematics
#Necessity
#Possible
#Us
The most savage controversies are about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.
- Bertrand Russell
#About
#Evidence
#Good
#Matters
#Way
To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.
- Bertrand Russell
#Democracy
#Eloquence
#Importance
#Utmost
A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.
- Bertrand Russell
#Based
#Error
#Hallucination
#Judgment
Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
- Bertrand Russell
#Die
#People
#Sooner
#Think
#Would
No one gossips about other people's secret virtues.
- Bertrand Russell
#About
#Other
#People
#Secret
#Virtues
Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.
- Bertrand Russell
#Men
#Never
#Teeth
#Twice
#Women
Liberty is the right to do what I like; license, the right to do what you like.
- Bertrand Russell
#Liberty
#License
#Like
#Right
#You
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.
- Bertrand Russell
#Believe
#End
#Simple
#Start
#Will
Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.
- Bertrand Russell
#Because
#Criticism
#Fury
#People
#Regard
Drunkenness is temporary suicide.
- Bertrand Russell
#Drunkenness
#Suicide
#Temporary
All movements go too far.
- Bertrand Russell
#Far
#Go
#Movements
#Too
Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do so.
- Bertrand Russell
#Earth
#Matter
#People
#Position
#Work
Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?
- Bertrand Russell
#Feeling
#Friendly
#Hatred
#More
#Why
Sin is geographical.
- Bertrand Russell
#Geographical
#Sin
Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.
- Bertrand Russell
#Feeling
#Gate
#Real
#Time
#Wisdom
Love is something far more than desire for sexual intercourse; it is the principal means of escape from the loneliness which afflicts most men and women throughout the greater part of their lives.
- Bertrand Russell
#Loneliness
#Love Is
#Love
#Men
#Women
Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.
- Bertrand Russell
#Change
#Enjoyment
#Happiness
#Hope
#Man
Anything you're good at contributes to happiness.
- Bertrand Russell
#Anything
#Good
#Happiness
#You
In America everybody is of the opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors, for, from the time of Jefferson onward, the doctrine that all men are equal applies only upwards, not downwards.
- Bertrand Russell
#America
#Equality
#Men
#Opinion
#Time
The place of the father in the modern suburban family is a very small one, particularly if he plays golf.
- Bertrand Russell
#Dad
#Family
#Father
#Golf
#Place
Freedom in general may be defined as the absence of obstacles to the realization of desires.
- Bertrand Russell
#Absence
#Freedom
#Obstacles
#Realization
The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics.
- Bertrand Russell
#Energy
#Physics
#Power
#Science
#Social
To teach how to live without certainty and yet without being paralysed by hesitation is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can do for those who study it.
- Bertrand Russell
#Age
#Being
#Certainty
#Live
#Philosophy
#Teach
#Without
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
- Bertrand Russell
#Believe
#Find
#Opposite
#Wanted
#Will
We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.
- Bertrand Russell
#Become
#Education
#Freedom
#Intelligence
Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.
- Bertrand Russell
#Intelligence
#Reason
#Religion
#Science
#Will
Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.
- Bertrand Russell
#Always
#Men
#Proud
#Sleep
#Unhappy
I've made an odd discovery. Every time I talk to a savant I feel quite sure that happiness is no longer a possibility. Yet when I talk with my gardener, I'm convinced of the opposite.
- Bertrand Russell
#Discovery
#Feel
#Happiness
#Nature
#Time
It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so, it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that guards the door, and this dragon is religion.
- Bertrand Russell
#Age
#Door
#Golden
#Possible
#Religion
Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
- Bertrand Russell
#Eccentric
#Every
#Fear
#Now
#Once
#Opinion
Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
- Bertrand Russell
#Exist
#Freedom
#Government
#Opinion
#Secure
Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
- Bertrand Russell
#Bad
#Believe
#Good
#Man
#Satisfied
I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its Churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.
- Bertrand Russell
#Enemy
#Moral
#Progress
#Religion
#World
There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths.
- Bertrand Russell
#Comfortable
#Face
#Help
#Life
#Man
Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.
- Bertrand Russell
#Fear
#Great
#Influence
#Man
#Nation
One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
- Bertrand Russell
#Avoid
#Opinion
#Prison
#Respect
#Tyranny
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.
- Bertrand Russell
#Know
#Mathematics
#Never
#Talking
#True
Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.
- Bertrand Russell
#Ignorance
#Knowledge
#Not Knowing
#Sense
Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
- Bertrand Russell
#Patriotism
#Trivial
#Willingness
There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.
- Bertrand Russell
#Knowledge
#Much
#Pleasure
#Useless
The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.
- Bertrand Russell
#Certainty
#Intellectual
#Man
#Natural
Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who'll get the blame.
- Bertrand Russell
#Blame
#Democracy
#Man
#People
#Process
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 a paradise in a few years.
- Bertrand Russell
#Happiness
#Own
#Paradise
#Today
#World
Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.
- Bertrand Russell
#Born
#Extreme
#Hope
#Hopes
#Misery
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.
- Bertrand Russell
#Long
#Mark
#Now And Then
#Now
#Things
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely and nobly.
- Bertrand Russell
#Anything
#Living
#More
#Possessions
#Us
The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.
- Bertrand Russell
#Far
#Friendly
#Happiness
#Possible
#Secret
#Your
The observer, when he seems to himself to be observing a stone, is really, if physics is to be believed, observing the effects of the stone upon himself.
- Bertrand Russell
#He
#Observer
#Physics
#Seems
#Stone
Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.
- Bertrand Russell
#Hatred
#Idealism
#Love
#Much
#Power
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