Quotes from Bertrand Russell

Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle.

When an individual partakes of an idea, the individual and the idea are similar; therefore there will have to be another idea, embracing both the particulars and the original idea. And there will have to be yet another, embracing the particulars and the two ideas, and so on ad infinitum. Thus every idea, instead of being one, becomes an infinite series of ideas.

The fundamental cause of trouble in the world is that the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt. Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)

On the contrary, every appeal to unconstitutional violence helps in the growth of Fascism. Whatever may be the weaknesses of democracy, it is only by means of it and by the help of the popular belief in it that Socialism can hope to succeed in Great Britain or America. Whoever weakens the respect for democratic government is, intentionally or unintentionally, increasing the likelihood, not of Socialism or Communism, but of Fascism.

Men who allow their love of power to give them a distorted view of the world are to be found in every asylum. Highly similar delusions, if expressed by educated men in obscure language, lead to professorships of philosophy; and if expressed by emotional men in eloquent language, lead to dictatorships.

I will not say that the average forethought of a community is inversely proportional to the rate of interest, though this is a view that might be upheld.

The flood of popular scientific books in America is inspired partly, though of course not wholly, by the unwillingness to admit that there is anything in science that only experts can understand. The idea that special training may be necessary to understand, say, the theory of relativity, causes a sort of irritation, although nobody is irritated by the fact that special training is necessary in order to be a first-rate football player.

No sientas envidia de la felicidad de los que viven en el paraíso de los necios, pues sólo un necio pensará que eso es la felicidad.

There is a great danger in the tendency to suppose that opposition to authority is essentially meritorious and that unconventional opinions are bound to be correct: no useful purpose is served by smashing lamp-posts or maintaining Shakespeare to be no poet. Yet this excessive rebelliousness is often the effect that too much authority has on spirited pupils.

although our age far surpasses all previous ages in knowledge, there has been no correlative increase in wisdom.

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.

The world of being is unchangeable, rigid, exact, delightful to the mathematician, the logician, the builder of metaphysical systems, and all who love perfection, more than life. The world of existence is fleeting, vague, without sharp boundaries, without any clear plan or arrangement, but it contains all thoughts and feelings, all the data of sense, and all physical objects, everything that can do either good or harm, everything that makes any difference to the value of life and the world.

Acquaintance with objects essentially consists in a relation between the mind and something other than the mind; it is this that constitutes the mind's power of knowing things. If we say that the things known must be in the mind, we are either unduly limiting the mind's power of knowing, or we are uttering a mere tautology.

A good world needs knowledge, kindness and courage. It does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.

Bir filozof olarak Aristoteles, kendisinden önceki bütün filozoflardan birçok bak?mdan farkl?d?r. Bir profesör gibi yazan ilk kiÅŸidir: yazd?klar? sistematiktir, tart??malar? baÅŸl?klara ayr?l?r, ilhaml? bir peygamber deÄŸil, profesyonel bir öÄŸretmendir. (s. 299)

The above proposition is occasionally useful.

The typical Westerner wishes to be the cause of as many changes as possible in his environment; the typical Chinaman wishes to enjoy as much and as delicately as possible.

If any one asks: 'Why should I accept the results of valid arguments based on true premisses?' we can only answer by appealing to our principle. In fact, the truth of the principle is impossible to doubt, and its obviousness is so great that at first sight it seems almost trivial. Such principles, however, are not trivial to the philosopher, for they show that we may have indubitable knowledge which is in no way derived from objects of sense. The

These same people, transported into another set where their outlook is not thought strange, will seem to change their character entirely. From being serious, shy and retiring they may become gay and self-confident; from being angular they may become smooth and easy; from being self-centred they may become sociable and extrovert.

Throughout the long period of religious doubt, I had been rendered very unhappy by the gradual loss of belief, but when the process was completed, I found to my surprise that I was quite glad to be done with the whole subject.

The State has one purpose which is on the whole good, namely, the substitution of law for force in the relations of men. But

Plato possessed the art to dress up illiberal suggestions in such a way that they deceived future ages, which admired the Republic without ever becoming aware of what was involved in its proposals.

Hegel thought that, if enough was known about a thing to distinguish it from all other things, then all its properties could be inferred by logic. This was a mistake, and from this mistake arose the whole edifice of his system. This illustrates an important truth, namely, that the worse your logic, the more interesting the consequences.

American Conservatives maintain that the finished character of a grown man is mainly due to congenital characteristics, while American Radicals maintain, on the contrary, that education is everything and heredity nothing. I cannot agree with either of these two extreme positions, nor