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
With civilized men..., it is, I think, chiefly love of excitement which makes the populace applaud when war breaks out; the emotion is exactly the same as at a football match, although the results are sometimes somewhat more serious.
Religion and Science are two aspects of social life, of which the former has been important as far back as we know anything of man
An individual human existence should be like a river
What else is there to make life tolerable? We stand on the shore of an ocean, crying to the night and to emptiness. Sometimes a voice of one drowning, and in a moment the silence returns. The world seems to me quite dreadful, the unhappiness of many people is very great, and I often wonder how they all endure it. It is usually the central thing around which their lives are built, and I suppose if they did not live most of their lives in the things of the moment, they would not be able to go on.
The difficulty is old, but none the less real. An omnipotent being who created a world containing evil not due to sin must Himself be at least partially evil.
It will be said that the joy of mental adventure must be rare, that there are few who can appreciate it, and that ordinary education can take no account of so aristocratic a good. I do not believe this. The joy of mental adventure is far commoner in the young than in grown men and women. ...It is rare in later life because everything is done to kill it during education.
The first step in wisdom, as well as in morality, is to open the windows of the ego as wide as possible.
... the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be.
One's work is never so bad as it appears on bad days, nor so good as it appears on good days.
We know that the exercise of virtue should be its own reward, and it seems to follow that the enduring of it on the part of the patient should be its own punishment.
It is only theory that makes men completely incautious.
We believe, first and foremost, what makes us feel that we are fine fellows.
Whether science-and indeed civilization in general-can long survive depends upon psychology, that is to say, it depends upon what human beings desire.
Answering questions is a major part of sex education. Two rules cover the ground. First, always give a truthful answer to a question; secondly, regard sex knowledge as exactly like any other knowledge.