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
When I was a child . . . Only virtue was prized, virtue at the expense of intellect, health, happiness, and every mundane good.
Christianity offers reasons for not fearing death or the universe, and in so doing it fails to teach adequately the virtue of courage.
Science is no substitute for virtue; the heart is as necessary for a good life as the head.
no one ever gossips about the virtues of others
Humanistic ethics is based on the principle that only humans themselves can determine the criterion for virtue and not an authority transcending us.
It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly
It is not by prayer and humility that you cause things to go as you wish, but by acquiring a knowledge of natural laws
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.
Reason is a harmonizing, controlling force rather than a creative one.
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
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.
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.
Orthodoxy is the grave of intelligence, no matter what orthodoxy it may be.
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.