Bertrand Russel
Bertrand Russel
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...
hard-work labor life mental physical severe suited
Our mental make-up is suited to a life of very severe physical labor
arises community content either fact men remain unmarried virtuous wives
The need for prostitution arises from the fact that many men are either unmarried or away from their wives on journeys, that such men are not content to remain continent, and that in a conventionally virtuous community they do not find respectable women.
begin cease commands divine grow men mere satisfied substitute
As men begin to grow civilized, they cease to be satisfied with mere tabus, and substitute divine commands and prohibitions
austen difficulty excitement expects heroine jane lasted less meet men novel throughout week women
Young men and young women meet each other with much less difficulty than was formerly the case, and every housemaid expects at least once a week as much excitement as would have lasted a Jane Austen heroine throughout a whole novel
chief earth fear glory great hell light looks men merciless pit ruin subversive swift
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.
earth fear men merciless ruin subversive
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.
aims anguish children compel men mothers opponents ordinary political pursuit quite submit
Men, quite ordinary men, will compel children to look on while their mothers are raped. In pursuit of political aims men will submit their opponents to long years of unspeakable anguish
anxious benefit easier enemies good great hate hatred injure intense large love men opponents
Hatred of enemies is easier and more intense than love of friends. But from men who are more anxious to injure opponents than to benefit the world at large no great good is to be expected.
certainty men
What men want is not knowledge, but certainty.
admit america everybody men opinion since social
In America everybody is of opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors.
anybody cannot children conveyed male men since
The idea that men are God's children is one which cannot be conveyed to the Trobriand Islanders, since they do not think that anybody is the child of any male
almost birth both men rate unusual upbringing
All men are scoundrels, or at any rate almost all. The men who are not must have had unusual luck, both in their birth and in their upbringing
accept acting affords against believes desires evidence explained fact goes himself man myths offered origin reason refuse slightest unless
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.
action adequate cannot creed majority nonsense vast
There is no nonsense so arrant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action