Quotes from Bertrand Russell

I come now to the question of forms of government, and it is natural to begin with absolute monarchy, as the oldest, simplest, and most widespread of the constitutions known in historical times.

Very few men can be genuinely happy in a life involving continual self-assertion against the skepticism of the mass of mankind, unless they can shut themselves up in a coterie and forget the cold outer world.

tener fe, es decir, tener una convicción que no puede ser debilitada por la evidencia contraria.

Bolshevism is a close tyrannical bureaucracy, with a spy system more elaborate and terrible than the Tsar's, and an aristocracy as insolent and unfeeling, composed of Americanised Jews. No vestige of liberty remains, in thought or speech or action. I was stifled and oppressed by the weight of the machine as by a cope of lead. Yet I think it the right government for Russia at this moment. If you ask yourself how Dostoevsky's characters should be governed, you will understand. Yet it is terrible.

All who are capable of absorption in an inward passion must have experienced at times the strange feeling of unreality in common objects, the loss of contact with daily things, in which the solidity of the outer world is lost, and the soul seems, in utter loneliness, to bring forth, out of its own depths, the mad dance of fantastic phantoms which have hitherto appeared as independently real and living.

El daño que hace una religión es de dos clases, una dependiente de la clase de creencia que se considera que se debe profesar, y otra dependiente de los dogmas particulares en que se cree.

The most important matters in Plato's philosophy are: first, his Utopia, which was the earliest of a long series; second, his theory of ideas, which was a pioneer attempt to deal with the still unsolved problem of universals; third, his arguments in favour of immortality; fourth, his cosmogony; fifth, his conception of knowledge as reminiscence rather than perception.

A limerick by Ronald Knox, with a reply, sets forth Berkeley's theory of material objects: There was a young man who said, "God Must think it exceedingly odd If he finds that this tree Continues to be When there's no one about in the Quad." REPLY Dear Sir: Your astonishment's odd: I am always about in the Quad. And that's why the tree Will continue to be, Since observed by Yours faithfully, GOD

When there are rational grounds for an opinion, people are content to set them forth and wait for them to operate. In such cases, people do not hold their opinions with passion; they hold them calmly, and set forth their reasons quietly. The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder's lack of rational conviction.

We are not only aware of things, but we are often aware of being aware of them.

There is here a reciprocal causation: the circumstances of men's lives do much to determine their philosophy, but, conversely, their philosophy does much to determine their circumstances

A king or despot can maintain his power if he is astute in internal politics and successful externally. If he is quasi-divine, his dynasty may be prolonged indefinitely. But the growth of civilisation puts an end to belief in his divinity; defeat in war is not always avoidable; and political astuteness cannot be an invariable attribute of monarchs. Therefore sooner or later, if there is no external conquest, there is revolution, and the monarchy is either abolished or shorn of its power.

The implication of the free-will doctrine are not realized by those who hold it. We say "why did you do it?" and expect the answer to mention beliefs and desires which caused action. When a man does not himself know why he acted as he did, we may search his unconscious for a cause, but it never occurs to us that there may have been no cause.

But between theology and science there is a No Man's Land, exposed to attack from both sides; this No Man's Land is philosophy.

Querría ver un mundo en el que la educación tendiese a la libertad mental en lugar de encerrar la mente de la juventud en la rígida armadura del dogma, calculado para protegerla durante toda su vida contra los dardos de la prueba imparcial.

Political and social institutions are to be judged by the good or harm that they do to individuals. Do they encourage creativeness rather than possessiveness? Do they embody or promote a spirit of reverence between human beings? Do they preserve self-respect? In

The conceptions of life and the world which we call 'philosophical' are a product of two factors: one, inherited religious and ethical conceptions; the other, the sort of investigation which may be called 'scientific

be indifferent to the goods that fortune has to bestow, and you will be emancipated from fear.

But without going to such extremes prudence may easily involve the loss of some of the best things in life. The worshipper of Dionysus reacts against prudence. In intoxication, physical or spiritual, he recovers an intensity of feeling which prudence had destroyed; he finds the world full of delight and beauty, and his imagination is suddenly liberated from the prison of every-day preoccupations

Is there a way of living that is noble and another that is base, or are all ways of living merely futile?

Santayana....reasoned that the young men who were being killed in the war would die anyhow sooner or later, and would be good for nothing while they lived.

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.

And always, in our highly regularised way of life, he is obsessed by thoughts of the morrow. Of all the precepts in the Gospels the one that Christians have most neglected is the commandment to take no thought for the morrow. If a man is prudent, thought for the morrow will lead him to save; if he is imprudent, it will make him apprehensive of being unable to pay his debts. In either case the moment loses its savour. Everything is organised, nothing is spontaneous.

In England, under the Blasphemy Laws, it is illegal to express disbelief in the Christian religion, though in practice the law is not set in motion against the well-to-do. It is also illegal to teach what Christ taught on the subject of non-resistance. Therefore, whoever wishes to avoid becoming a criminal must profess to agree with Christ's teaching, but must avoid saying what that teaching was.