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
Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that is happiness.
Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd.
When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief which he finds in himself.
If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years.
The secret to happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible.
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
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.
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
Democracy is the process by which people choose the man who'll get the blame.
Extreme hopes are born from extreme misery.
People will tell us that without the consolations of religion they would be intolerably unhappy. So far as this is true, it is a coward's argument. Nobody but a coward would consciously choose to live in a fool's paradise. When a man suspects his wife of infidelity, he is not thought the better of for shutting his eyes to the evidence. And I cannot see why ignoring evidence should be contemptible in one case and admirable in the other.
To understand the actual world as it is, not as we should wish it to be, is the beginning of wisdom.