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Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell Quotes

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Famous Bertrand Russell Quotes

“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. There is a deep-seated fear, in most people, of the cold world and the possible cruelty of the herd; there is a longing for affection, which is often concealed by roughness, boorishness or a bullying manner in men, and by nagging and scolding in women. Passionate mutual love while it lasts puts an end to this feeling; it breaks down the hard walls of the ego, producing a new being composed of two in one.”

LoveDesireSexFearLonelinessAffection
Book:Marriage and Morals
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“All who are not lunatics are agreed about certain things. That it is better to be alive than dead, better to be adequately fed than starved, better to be free than a slave. Many people desire those things only for themselves and their friends; they are quite content that their enemies should suffer. These people can be refuted by science: mankind has become so much one family that we cannot insure our own prosperity except by insuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy.”

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Author:Bertrand Russell
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“All who are not lunatics are agreed about certain things. That it is better to be alive than dead, better to be adequately fed than starved, better to be free than a slave. Many people desire those things only for themselves and their friends; they are quite content that their enemies should suffer. These people can only be refuted by science: Humankind has become so much one family that we cannot ensure our own prosperity except by ensuring that of everyone else. If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy.”

PeopleIfsShouldDesireCertainSufferingWishEnemyAliveSeeingSlaveProsperityFedsHumankind
Author:Bertrand Russell
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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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“The fundamental defect of fathers, in our competitive society, is that they want their children to be a credit to them. We all feel instinctively, that our children's success reflect glory upon ourselves, while their failures make us feel shame. Unfortunately, the successes which cause us to swell with pride are often of an undesirable kind.... Neither happiness nor virtue, but worldly success, is what the average father desires for his children.”

WantFeelsKindChildrenDesireFatherCausesVirtuePrideGloryShameOur ChildrenFundamentalsAverageCreditWorldlyDefectsUndesirable
Author:Bertrand Russell
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“Even if it is indifferent to human desires, as it seems to be; if human life is a passing episode, hardly noticeable in the vastness of cosmic processes; if there is no superhuman purpose, and no hope of ultimate salvation, it is better to know and acknowledge this truth than to endeavor, in futile self-assertion, to order the universe to be what we find comfortable.”

IfsKnowsHumansSelfSeemsLife IsDesirePurposeOrderUniverseProcessComfortableUltimateSalvationPassingPassingsHuman LifeAcknowledgeEndeavorCosmicEpisodesIndifferentAssertionNo HopeVastnessSuperhuman
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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“The practice of inhibiting impulses, which is to a great extent necessary to civilized life, makes mistakes easier, by preventing experience of the actions to which a desire would otherwise lead, and by often causing the inhibited impulses themselves to be unnoticed or quickly forgotten.”

ActionDesireMistakePracticeEasierForgottenImpulseMaking MistakesCivilizedPreventingUnnoticed
Book:The Analysis of Mind: Top Philosophy Collections
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“These illustrations suggest four general maxims[...]. The first is: remember that your motives are not always as altruistic as they seem to yourself. The second is: don't over-estimate your own merits. The third is: don't expect others to take as much interest in you as you do yourself. And the fourth is: don't imagine that most people give enough thought to you to have any special desire to persecute you.”

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Book:The Conquest of Happiness
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“There are certain things that our age needs, and certain things that it should avoid. It needs compassion and a wish that mankind should be happy; it needs the desire for knowledge and the determination to eschew pleasant myths; it needs, above all, courageous hope and the impulse to creativeness.”

NeedsShouldAgeDesireCertainFaithWishCompassionMankindDeterminationCuriosityMythImpulsePleasantCourageousCreativenessDesire For Knowledge
Book:Autobiography
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“To abandon the struggle for private happiness, to expel all eagerness of temporary desire, to burn with passion for eternal things-this is emancipation, and this is the free man's worship... United with his fellow men by the strongest of all ties, the tie of a common doom, the free man finds that a new vision is with him always, shedding over every daily task the light of love.”

MenLightSpiritualDesirePassionUnitedCommonVisionStruggleEternalWorshipTasksFellowsTiesAbandonTemporaryStrongestDoomFellow ManFree ManEmancipationEagernessLight Of LoveNew VisionDaily Tasks
Book:Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays: Top Philosophy Collections
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“Nothing of importance is ever achieved without discipline. I feel myself sometimes not wholly in sympathy with some modern educational theorists, because I think that they underestimate the part that discipline plays. But the discipline you have in your life should be one determined by your own desires and your own needs, not put upon you by society or authority.”

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Book:Bertrand Russell on ethics, sex, and marriage
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“In regard to the past, where contemplation is not obscured by desire and the need for action, we see, more clearly than in the lives about us, the value for good and evil, of the aims men have pursued and the means they have adopted. It is good, from time to time, to view the present as already past, and to examine what elements it contains that will add to the world's store of permanent possessions, that will live and give life when we and all our generation have perished.”

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Book:Contemplation and Action, 1902-14
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