Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970)
British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, and social critic.
The fact that a belief has a good moral effect upon a man is no evidence whatsoever in favor of its truth.
It is impossible to describe Bertrand Russell except by saying that he looks like the Mad Hatter.
Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for the others. Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish for ever.
I think modern educational theorists are inclined to attach too much importance to the negative virtue of not interfering with children, and too little to the positive merit of enjoying their company.
Yes, if you happen to be interested in philosophy and good at it, but not otherwise — but so does bricklaying. Anything you're good at contributes to happiness.
In science men have discovered an activity of the very highest value in which they are no longer, as in art, dependent for progress upon the appearance of continually greater genius, for in science the successors stand upon the shoulders of their predecessors; where one man of supreme genius has invented a method, a thousand lesser men can apply it.
It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living.
Certain forms of sex which do not lead to children are at present punished by the criminal law: this is purely superstitious, since the matter is one which affects no one except the parties directly concerned... The peculiar importance attached, at present, to adultery is quite irrational... Moral rules ought not to be such as to make instinctive happiness impossible.
Russell, when asked to give an example of how any statement whatever, say that Russell (a renowned atheist) is the Pope, might follow from the self-contradictory statement 5=2+2, suggested that 3 be subtracted from both sides of this supposed equality; it follows that 2=1, thus two different persons, viz. Bertrand Russell and the Pope, form one person; hence Russell is the Pope.
The fact that all Mathematics is Symbolic Logic is one of the greatest discoveries of our age; and when this fact has been established, the remainder of the principles of mathematics consists in the analysis of Symbolic Logic itself.
It is amusing to hear the modern Christian telling you how mild and rationalistic Christianity really is and ignoring the fact that all its mildness and rationalism is due to the teaching of men who in their own day were persecuted by all orthodox Christians.
There is an artist imprisoned in each one of us. Let him loose to spread joy everywhere.
A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something that he can understand.
'Without effort and change, human life cannot remain good. It is not a finished Utopia that we ought to desire, but a world where imagination and hope are alive and active
The infliction of cruelty with a good conscience is a delight to moralists. That is why they invented Hell.
The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.
Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for co-operation with oneself.
When I was 4 years old ... I dreamt that I'd been eaten by a wolf, and to my great surprise I was in the wolf's stomach and not in heaven.
For want of the apparatus of propositional functions, many logicians have been driven to the conclusion that there are unreal objects. It is argued, e.g., by Meinong, that we can speak about "the golden mountain," "the round square," and so on; we can make true propositions of which these are the subjects; hence they must have some kind of logical being, since otherwise the propositions in which they occur would be meaningless. In such theories, it seems to me, there is a failure of that feeling for reality which ought to be preserved even in the most abstract studies. Logic, I should maintain, must no more admit a unicorn than zoology can; for logic is concerned with the real world just as truly as zoology, though with its more abstract and general features.
Organic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the philosopher, and this development, we are assured, is indubitably an advance. Unfortunately it is the philosopher, not the protozoon, who gives us this assurance.