Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRSwas a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic, political activist and Nobel laureate. At various points in his life he considered himself a liberal, a socialist, and a pacifist, but he also admitted that he had "never been any of these things, in any profound sense". He was born in Monmouthshire into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in the United Kingdom...
NationalityBritish
ProfessionPhilosopher
Date of Birth18 May 1872
country land quality
Patriotism which has the quality of intoxication is a danger not only to its native land but to the world, and "My country never wrong" is an even more dangerous maxim than "My country, right or wrong."
tolerance quality isms
The qualities most needed are charity and tolerance, not some form of fanatical faith such as is offered to us by the various rampant isms
spiritual soul quality
Punctuality is a quality the need of which is bound up with social co-operation. It has nothing to do with the relation of the soul to God, or with mystic insight, or with any of the matters with which the more elevated and spiritual moralists are concerned.
struggle quality needs
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.
freely living men nobly prevents
It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly
acquiring cause humility knowledge laws natural prayer
It is not by prayer and humility that you cause things to go as you wish, but by acquiring a knowledge of natural laws
brother elder free good hankering ignorant intelligence mainly needs partly past primarily religion stand terror troubles unknown uttered wish words
Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes....A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.
creative force rather reason
Reason is a harmonizing, controlling force rather than a creative one.
beat days easily former less male men others questioned reasonable respect swayed woman women
Male superiority in former days was easily demonstrated, because if a woman questioned her husband's he could beat her. From superiority in this respect others were thought to follow. Men were more reasonable than women, more inventive, less swayed b
absence almost knowledge necessity philosophy silly sure
Some kind of philosophy is a necessity to all but the most thoughtless, and in the absence of knowledge it is almost sure to be a silly philosophy.
passion age world
Ignore fact and reason, live entirely in the world of your own fantastic and myth-producing passions; do this whole-heartedly and with conviction, and you will become one of the prophets of your age.
matter orthodoxy may
Orthodoxy is the grave of intelligence, no matter what orthodoxy it may be.
spring evil important
As soon as it is held that any belief, no matter what, is important for some other reason than that it is true, a whole host of evils is ready to spring up.
past kind given
When we perceive any object of a familiar kind, much of what appears subjectively to be immediately given is really derived from past experience.