Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Bertrand A. Russell (British Philosopher, Mathematician)

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

Few people can be happy unless they hate some other person, nation, or creed.
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Happiness, Hate

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

Our great democracies still tend to think that a stupid man is more likely to be honest than a clever man.
Bertrand A. Russell

To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Civilization, Intelligence

Machines are worshipped because they are beautiful and valued because they confer power; they are hated because they are hideous and loathed because they impose slavery.
Bertrand A. Russell

The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice. … But so long as men are not trained to withhold judgment in the absence of evidence, they will be led astray by cocksure prophets, and it is likely that their leaders will be either ignorant fanatics or dishonest charlatans. To endure uncertainty is difficult, but so are most of the other virtues.
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Facts

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

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Happiness, Blessings, Adversity, Joy, Contentment

There will still be things that machines cannot do. They will not produce great art or great literature or great philosophy; they will not be able to discover the secret springs of happiness in the human heart; they will know nothing of love and friendship.
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Technology, Computers

No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues.
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Gossip, Secrets, Vice

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: Science, Scientists

The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widely spread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Truth, Opinion, Opinions

Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires.
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Anger

One should respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Freedom, Opinions

My sad conviction is that people can only agree about what they’re not really interested in.
Bertrand A. Russell

Beggars do not envy millionaires, though of course they will envy other beggars who are more successful.
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Goals, Opportunities, Reality

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn’t wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Opinions, Philosophy

The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Slavery

All the important human advances that we know of since historical times began have been due to individuals of whom the majority faced virulent public opposition.
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Progress

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite.
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Belief

Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Science

Right discipline consists, not in external compulsion, but in the habits of mind which lead spontaneously to desirable rather than undesirable activities.
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Discipline

To expect a personality to survive the disintegration of the brain is like expecting a cricket club to survive when all of its members are dead.
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Soul

We know too much and feel too little. At least, we feel too little of those creative emotions from which a good life springs.
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Emotions

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

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

The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Love, One liners

Either man will abolish war, or war will abolish man.
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: War

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Doubt, Foolishness, Activism, Wisdom, Fools

The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible
Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Happiness

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