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
The institution of representative government to us seems an essential part of democracy, but the ancients never thought of it. Its immense merit was that it enabled a large constituency to exert indirect power, and thus made possible the distribution of political responsibility throughout the great states of modern times.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Government
Many people when they fall in love look for a little haven of refuge from the world, where they can be sure of being admired when they are not admirable, and praised when they are not praiseworthy.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Love
I had supposed until that time that it was quite common for parents to love their children, but the war persuaded me that it is a rare exception. I had supposed that most people liked money better than almost anything else, but I discovered that they liked destruction even better. I had supposed that intellectuals frequently loved truth, but I found here again that not ten per cent of them prefer truth to popularity.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: War
The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as poetry.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Mathematics
Some ‘advanced thinkers’ are of the opinion that anyone who differs from the conventional opinion must be in the right. This is a delusion; if it were not, truth would be easier to come by than it is
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Opinions
To teach how to live with uncertainty, yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy can do.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Uncertainty, Philosophy, Doubt
Extreme hopes are born of extreme misery.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Hope
Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Swearing, Insults, Justice, Profanity, Vulgarity
The essence of the liberal outlook is a belief that men should be free to question anything if they can support their questioning by solid arguments.
—Bertrand A. Russell
To the young I should offer two maxims: Don’t accept superficial solutions of difficult problems. It is better to do a little good than much harm. I should not offer anything more specific; every young person should decide on his or her own credo.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Youth
What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry combined with a belief that the torture of millions is not desirable, whether inflicted by Stalin or by a Deity imagined in the likeness of the believer.
—Bertrand A. Russell
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: Religion, Unhappiness
If rational men cooperated and used their scientific knowledge to the full, they could now secure the economic welfare of all.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Science
By religion I mean a set of beliefs held as dogmas, dominating the conduct of life, going beyond or contrary to evidence, and inculcated by methods which are emotional or authoritarian, not intellectual
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Religion
Men fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth—
more than ruin—more even than death….
Thought is subversive and revolutionary,
destructive and terrible, thought is merciless to privilege,
established institutions, and comfortable habit.
Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid.
Thought is great and swift and free,
the light of the world, and the chief glory of man.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Thoughts, Thinking, Fear, Thought
Worry is a form of fear.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Worry, Fear
Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Scientists, Science
One of the troubles about vanity is that it grows with what it feeds on. The more you are talked about, the more you will wish to be talked about
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Vanity
It is because modern education is so seldom inspired by a reat hope that it so seldom achieves great results. The wish to preserve the past rather than the hope of creating the future ominates the minds of those who control the teaching of the young.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Inspiration
The biggest cause of trouble in the world today is that the stupid people are so sure about things and the intelligent folks are so full of doubts.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Trouble
A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Time, Time Management
Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Science
It is only in marriage with the world that our ideals can bear fruit, divorced from it, they remain barren.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Ideals
Although this may seem a paradox, all exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation. When a man tells you that he knows the exact truth about anything, you are safe in inferring that he is an inexact man.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Facts, Truth
To be able to concentrate for a considerable time is essential to difficult achievement.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Focus, Concentration
Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Happiness, Love, Caution
Thinking you know when in fact you don’t is a fatal mistake, to which we are all prone
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Mistakes
To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Wisdom
Reason is a harmonizing, controlling force rather than a creative one.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Reason
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
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
Continuity of purpose is one of the most essential ingredients of happiness in the long run, and for most men this comes chiefly through their work.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Happiness
Happiness is not best achieved by those who seek it directly.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Happiness
There is much pleasure to be gained from useless knowledge.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Pleasure, Knowledge
Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man.
—Bertrand A. Russell
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
A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says is never accurate because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Stupidity
What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires—desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Illusion
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the second chance were offered me.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Decisions
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