Bertrand Russell (1872–1970,) fully Bertrand Arthur William Russell, was a British philosopher, mathematician, logician, social critic, and peace activist. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of analytic philosophy, which is today the dominant philosophical tradition in the English-speaking world.
Russell was born in Trellech, Wales, into a prominent aristocratic family. His parents were radical thinkers, his father an atheist. After his parents died, Russell was raised by his grandparents in a strict Christian household. As a teenager, he kept a diary in which he described his doubts about God and his ideas about free will in a dairy. He wrote his diary in Greek letters so that his conservative family couldn’t read it.
Russell studied mathematics and philosophy at Cambridge and later returned as a fellow and lecturer. In Principia Mathematica (1910–13,) he and the British mathematician Alfred North Whitehead attempted to express all of mathematics in formal logic terms. Russell’s most significant and famous idea, the theory of descriptions, had profound consequences for his discipline. He further expounded logical atomism in Our Knowledge of the External World (1914) and neutral monism in The Analysis of Mind (1921.)
Russell was one of the greatest public intellectuals of the 20th century. He was active in many social and political campaigns until his death. In reaction to World War I, he became a radical pacifist, incurring government fines, a dismissal from Cambridge, and finally, a 6-month prison sentence. He supported women’s suffrage and advocated against nuclear weapons.
In 1944, Russell returned to England and was reelected a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1950, he won the Nobel Prize in Literature for “his many-sided and significant writings, in which he appeared as the champion of humanity and freedom of thought.”
Russell’s enduring works shaped the face of 20th-century British philosophy. He wrote several books aimed at the public, including the bestselling The History of Western Philosophy (1945.) His other notable works include Problems of Philosophy (1912,) The Analysis of Mind (1921,) and Roads to Freedom (1918.)
Russell was a famous would-be-atheist and a confirmed agnostic—his agnosticism was reinforced by his recognition that the word “religion” does not have a very definite meaning. His well-known lecture Why I Am Not A Christian (1927) remains, to this day, a definitive, nearly creedal, proclamation of his commitment to atheism. Russell described God’s existence as “a large and serious question.” He rejected some of the classical theistic arguments (the first cause argument, the design argument, and the moral argument) for lack of evidence.
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Bertrand A. Russell
Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for cooperation with oneself.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Ethics
Throughout the long period of religious doubt, I had been rendered very unhappy by the gradual loss of belief, but when the process was completed, I found to my surprise that I was quite glad to be done with the whole subject
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Unhappiness, Religion
The fundamental defect with fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Fathers, Father
Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who’ll get the blame.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Blame
A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Illusion
The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holders lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.
—Bertrand A. Russell
As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Reason
Every living thing is a sort of imperialist, seeking to transform as much as possible of its environment into itself…. When we compare the (present) human population of the globe with … that of former times, we see that “chemical imperialism” has been … the main end to which human intelligence has been devoted.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Folly is perennial and yet the human race has survived.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Foolishness, Fools
Society cannot exist without law and order, and cannot advance except through vigorous innovators.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Law
Reason is a harmonizing, controlling force rather than a creative one.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Reason
A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Adventure
Three passions simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life; the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Passion
To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Contentment, Blessings, Happiness, Joy, Adversity
Envy is the basis of Democracy
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Welfare
One of the most interesting and harmful delusions to which men and nations can be subjected is that of imagining themselves special instruments of the Divine Will.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Bores, Boredom, Morality
A great many worries can be diminished by realizing the unimportance of the matter which is causing anxiety.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Worry, Managing Worries
Civilized life has altogether grown too tame, and, if it is to be stable, it must provide a harmless outlets for the impulses which our remote ancestors satisfied in hunting
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Hunting
The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilized men.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Understanding
It is clear that thought is not free if the profession of certain opinions makes it impossible to earn a living.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Opinions, Opinion
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Time Management, Time, Waste
Freedom of opinion can only exist when the government thinks itself secure.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Freedom, Opinion
The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: One liners, Love
This idea of weapons of mass exterminations utterly horrible and is something which no one with one spark of humanity can tolerate. I will not pretend to obey a government which is organizing a mass massacre of mankind.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Peace, Weapon
One must care about a world one will not see.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Responsibility
The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Happiness
Every advance in civilization has been denounced as unnatural while it was recent
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Civilization
Mathematics takes us into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual word, but every possible word, must conform.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Mathematics
Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Religion
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