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
Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country.
The painter has to unlearn the habit of thinking that things seem to have the color which common sense says they 'really' have, and to learn the habit of seeing things as they appear.
There is something feeble and a little contemptible about a man who cannot face the perils of life without the help of comfortable myths.
Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.
a generation that cannot endure boredom will be a generation of little men, of men unduly divorced from the slow process of nature, of men in whom every vital impulse slowly withers as though they were cut flowers in a vase.
It is not what the man of science believes that distinguishes him, but how and why he believes it. His beliefs are tentative, not dogmatic; they are based on evidence, not on authority or intuition.
What will be the good of the conquest of leisure and health, if no one remembers how to use them?
Belief systems provide a programme which relieves the necessity of thought.
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken.
Patience and boredom are closely related. Boredom, a certain kind of boredom, is really impatience. You don't like the way things are, they aren't interesting enough for you, so you deccide- and boredom is a decision-that you are bored.
Envy was one of the most potent causes of unhappiness.
One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
The human race may well become extinct before the end of the century. Speaking as a mathematician, I should say the odds are about three to one against survival.
Most of the greatest evils that man has inflicted upon man have come through people feeling quite certain about something which, in fact, was false.