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Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell Quotes

Philosopher

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Famous Bertrand Russell Quotes

“Man has existed for about a million years. He has possessed writing for about 6,000 years, agriculture somewhat longer, but perhaps not much longer. Science, as a dominant factor in determining the belief of educated men, has existed for about 300 years; as a source of economic technique, for about 150 years. In this brief period it has proved itself an incredibly powerful revolutionary force. When we consider how recently it has risen to power, we find ourselves forced to believe that we are at the very beginning of its work in transforming human life.”

MenWritingYearsBelieveHumansScienceBeliefForcePowerfulHistoryMillionsPowerLearningEconomicSourcePeriodsEconomicsTechniqueFactorsEducatedHuman LifeRevolutionaryPossessedAgricultureDominantTransformingRisenEducated Man
Book:The Impact of Science On Society
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“The opposition of instinct and reason is mainly illusory. Instinct, intuition, or insight is what first leads to the beliefs which subsequent reason confirms or confutes; but the confirmation, where it is possible, consists, in the last analysis, of agreement with other beliefs no less instinctive. Reason is a harmonizing, controlling force rather than a creative one. Even in the most purely logical realms, it is insight that first arrives at what is new.”

FirstsReasonLastsBeliefForceCreativeInstinctInsightIntuitionAnalysisRealmsOppositionAgreementLogicalConfirmationIllusoryInstinct Intuition
Book:Mysticism and Logic, and Other Essays
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“Science tells us what we can know but what we can know is little and if we forget how much we cannot know we become insensitive of many things of very great importance. Theology, on the other hand induces a dogmatic belief that we have knowledge where in fact we have ignorance and by doing so generates a kind of impertinent insolence towards the universe. Uncertainty in the presence of vivid hopes and fears is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales.”

IfsKnowsKindLittlesFactsHandsUniverseBeliefWishForgetSupportIgnoranceImportancePainfulTheologyTalesUncertaintyFairyFairy TaleComfortingVividDogmaticInsensitiveHopes And FearsInsolence
Book:History of Western Philosophy: Collectors Edition
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“People are said to believe in God, or to disbelieve in Adam and Eve. But in such cases what is believed or disbelieved is that there is an entity answering a certain description. This, which can be believed or disbelieved is quite different from the actual entity (if any) which does answer the description. Thus the matter of belief is, in all cases, different in kind from the matter of sensation or presentation, and error is in no way analogous to hallucination. A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.”

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Book:Logic and Knowledge: Essays 1901-1950
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“The scientific attitude of mind involves a sweeping away of all other desires in the interests of the desire to know-it involves suppression of hopes and fears, loves and hates, and the whole subjective emotional life, until we become subdued to the material, able to see it frankly, without preconceptions, without bias, without any wish except to see it as it is, and without any belief that what it is must be determined by some relation, positive or negative, to what we should like it to be, or to what we can easily imagine it to be.”

KnowsShouldMindWholeAbleDesireHateBeliefWishInterestAttitudeImagineEmotionalMaterialsNegativeRelationDeterminedBiasSubjectiveSweepingLove And HateSuppressionPreconceptionsFear Of LoveHopes And FearsEmotional Life
Book:Mysticism and Logic
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“If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do. [...] 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. So whenever you find yourself getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard; you will probably find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence warrants.”

IfsThinkingWayMatterReasonUsedBeliefDifferencesOpinionEvidenceAngryContraryTheologyFinding YourselfSavagesPersecutionControversyExaminationArithmeticWarrantsDifferences Of Opinion
Author:Bertrand Russell
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“What makes a free thinker is not his beliefs, but the way in which he holds them. If he holds them because his elders told him they were true when he was young, or if he holds them because if he did not he would be unhappy, his thought is not free; but if he holds them because, after careful thought, he finds a balance in their favor, then his thought is free, however odd his conclusions may seem.”

IfsWayMaySeemsWould BeYoungBeliefAtheismBalanceCarefulPositive AtheismFavorsUnhappyConclusionOddThinkerEldersFree Thinkers
Book:The Value of Free Thought: How to Become a Truth-seeker and Break the Chains of Mental Slavery
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“The more intense has been the religion of any period and the more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs.”

Has BeensStatesReligionBeliefGreaterPeriodsProfoundAffairIntenseCrueltyDogmaticAnti ReligiousMorality And ReligionReligious Dogma
Book:Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects
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“Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving; his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; no fire, no heroism, no intensity of though and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave.”

MenEndsFeelingsIndividualBeliefCausesGrowthFireAchieveProductsGravesPreservesOutcomesIntensityAtomsHeroismHis LoveHopes And FearsIndividual LifeUnyieldingPrevision
Book:Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects
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“Americans and Englishmen, when they become acquainted with the Balkans, feel an astonished contempt when they study the mutual enmities of Bulgarians and Serbs, of Hungarians and Rumanians. It is evident to them that these enmities are absurd and that the belief of each little nation in its own superiority has no objective basis. But most of them are quite unable to see that the national pride of a Great Power is essentially as unjustifiable as that of a little Balkan country.”

FeelsLittlesCountryBeliefNationsStudyPrideBasesObjectivesAbsurdMutualContemptSuperiorityEvidentEnglishmenGreat PowerEnmityBalkansHungariansNational PrideBulgarians
Book:Unpopular Essays
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“The fact that a belief has a good moral effect upon a man is no evidence whatsoever in favor of its truth. I'm not contending in a dogmatic way that there is not a God. What I'm contending is that we don't know that there is. I don't like the word "absolute." I don't think there is anything absolute whatever. The moral law, for example, is always changing. At one period in the development of the human race, almost everybody thought cannibalism was a duty.”

ThinkingKnowsMenWayHumansFactsLawBeliefRaceMoralEffectsExampleDutyDevelopmentPeriodsEvidenceAbsolutesFavorsHuman RaceDogmaticMoral LawCannibalismContendingGood Moral
Author:Bertrand Russell
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“...I am afraid that education is conceived more in terms of indoctrination by most school officials than in terms of enlightenment. My own belief is that education must be subversive if it is to be meaningful. By this I mean that it must challenge all the things we take for granted, examine all accepted assumptions, tamper with every sacred cow, and instill a desire to question and doubt. Without this the mere instruction to memorise data is empty. The attempt to enforce conventional mediocrity on the young is criminal.”

IfsMeanSchoolYoungDesireBeliefTermChallengesMy OwnDoubtEnlightenmentEmptySacredMereCriminalsAcceptedMeaningfulGrantedDataOfficialsAssumptionMediocrityInstructionCowsConventionalSubversiveIndoctrinationInstillSacred CowsThings We Take For Granted
Author:Bertrand Russell
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“One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.”

ImportantSuccessBeliefWorkHuman NatureEgoHumorousStressNervousTensionReliefSymptomsRelaxationBreakdownHuman ResourcesStress ReliefStress ManagementFunny BusinessWorking LifeImportant WorkFunny WorkNervous BreakdownWork StressReduce StressLife StressStress RelievingStress And LifeOffice WorkWork HumorFunny Labor DayInspirational Stress ReliefOffice JobsFunny StressRelaxation And StressApproaching Life
Author:Bertrand Russell
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“If you think your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based upon faith, you will realize that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting or distorting the minds of the young in what is called 'education.'”

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Book:Bertrand Russell's Best
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“I mean by intellectual integrity the habit of deciding vexed questions in accordance with the evidence, or of leaving them undecided where the evidence is inconclusive. This virtue, though it is underestimated by almost all adherents of any system of dogma, is to my mind of the very greatest social importance and far more likely to benefit the world than Christianity or any other system of organized beliefs.”

WorldMindMeanReligionBeliefSocialChristianityVirtueHabitIntegrityBenefitsIntellectualEvidenceImportanceLeavingOrganizedDogmaUnderestimatedUndecided
Book:The basic writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959
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“You find this curious fact, that the more intense has been the religion of any period and more profound has been the dogmatic belief, the greater has been the cruelty and the worse has been the state of affairs. In the so called age of faith, when men really did believe the Christian religion in all its completeness, there was the Inquisition, with its tortures; there were millions of unfortunate women burnt as witches; and there was every kind of cruelty practised upon all sorts of people in the name of religion.”

PeopleMenBelieveKindHas BeensStatesFactsAgeChristianReligionNamesBeliefMillionsGreaterPeriodsProfoundAffairIntenseCrueltyCuriousTortureWitchUnfortunateDogmaticCompletenessInquisition
Author:Bertrand Russell
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“But if thought is to become the possession of many, not the privilege of the few, we must have done with fear. It is fear that holds men back - fear lest their cherished beliefs should prove delusions, fear lest the institutions by which they live should prove harmful, fear lest they themselves should prove less worthy of respect than they have supposed themselves to be.”

IfsThinkingMenShouldDoneBeliefProveInstitutionsPrivilegePossessionWorthyDelusionHold Me
Book:Why Men Fight: A Method of Abolishing the International Duel
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“[Man] ... his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labour of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins.”

MenHumansWholeFeelingsInspirationAgeScienceUniverseIndividualBeliefGrowthFireGeniusAchievementGravesDevotionRuinsPreservesOutcomesTemplesLabourBuriedIntensityAtomsHeroismDestinedHis LoveExtinctionBrightnessSolar SystemThoughts And FeelingsHopes And FearsIndividual LifeDebrisUnyielding
Book:Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays
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“We may define "faith" as the firm belief in something for which there is no evidence. Where there is evidence, no one speaks of "faith." We do not speak of faith that two and two are four or that the earth is round. We only speak of faith when we wish to substitute emotion for evidence. The substitution of emotion for evidence is apt to lead to strife, since different groups, substitute different emotions.”

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Book:The Quotable Bertrand Russell
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