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
Bertrand Russell quotes about
Intelligence, it might be said, has caused our troubles; but it is not unintelligence that will cure them. Only more and wiser intelligence can make a happier world
In the higher walks of politics the same sort of thing occurs. The statesman who has gradually concentrated all power within himself ... may have had anything but a public motive... The phrases which are customary on the platform and in the Party Press have gradually come to him to seem to express truths, and he mistakes the rhetoric of partisanship for a genuine analysis of motives... He retires from the world after the world has retired from him.
Worry is a form of fear.
Organized people are just too lazy to look for things
Be isolated, be ignored, be attacked, be in doubt, be frightened, but do not be silenced.
All exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation.
Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed.
To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.
Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible. Even if all are miserable, all will believe themselves happy, because the government will tell them that they are so.
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.
I did not, however, commit suicide, because I wished to know more of mathematics.
People are zealous for a cause when they are not quite positive that it is true.
It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living.