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Quote by Bertrand Russell

“The supreme maxim in scientific philosophising is this: wherever possible, logical constructions are to be substituted for inferred entities.”

Quote by Bertrand Russell

Book:Mysticism and Logic

Work

Mysticism and Logic

This book delves into the conceptual relationship between mystical experiences and the principles of logical thought, examining how these two realms may be interconnected. more

Author

Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell was a British philosopher, mathematician, and logician born on May 18, 1872, and died on February 2, 1970. He is known for his contributions to logic and mathematics, particularly in the fields of mathematical logic and philosophical analysis. His works spanned a wide range of subjects, including ethics, political philosophy, history, and literary criticism. more

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“[The church] is in its major part an opponent still of progress and improvement in all the ways that diminish suffering in the world, because it has chosen to label as morality a certain narrow set of rules of conduct which have nothing to do with human happiness; and when you say that this or that ought to be done because it would make for human happiness, they think that has nothing to do with the matter at all. "What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is not to make people happy.”

Source: Why I Am Not a Christian

“You have freedom, so you have to make choices - and at the point when I make a choice, the building starts to look like a Frank Gehry building. It's a signature.”

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“A world without delight and without affection is a world destitute of value.”

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Book:The Scientific Outlook

Source: The Scientific Outlook

“No rules, however wise, are a substitute for affection and tact.”

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Book:In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays

Source: In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays

“The "social contract," in the only sense in which it is not completely mythical, is a contract among conquerors, which loses its raison d'être if they are deprived of the benefits of conquest.”

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Book:Power: A New Social Analysis

Source: Power: A New Social Analysis

“When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others. It is much more nearly certain that we are assembled here tonight than it is that this or that political party is in the right. Certainly there are degrees of certainty, and one should be very careful to emphasize that fact, because otherwise one is landed in an utter skepticism, and complete skepticism would, of course, be totally barren and completely useless.”

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Book:Why I Am Not a Christian

Source: Why I Am Not a Christian

“The criminal law has, from the point of view of thwarted virtue, the merit of allowing an outlet for those impulses of aggression which cowardice, disguised as morality, restrains in their more spontaneous forms. War has the same merit. You must not kill you neighbor, whom perhaps you genuinely hate, but by a little propaganda this hate can be transferred to some foreign nation, against whom all your murderous impulses become patriotic heroism.”

“I resolved from the beginning of my quest that I would not be misled by sentiment and desire into beliefs for which there was no good evidence.”

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Book:Détente Or Destruction, 1955-57

Source: Détente Or Destruction, 1955-57

“To choose one sock from each of infinitely many pairs of socks requires the Axiom of Choice, but for shoes the Axiom is not needed.”

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Author:Bertrand Russell

“Christ said "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself" and when asked "who is thy neighbour? went on to the parable of the Good Samaritan. If you wish to understand this parable as it was understood by his hearers, you should substitute "Germans and Japanese" for Samaritan. I fear my modern day Christians would resent such a substitution, because it would compel them to realize how far they have departed from the teachings of the founder of their religion.”