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
Do not feel certain of anything.
Law in origin was merely a codification of the power of dominant groups, and did not aim at anything that to a modern man would appear to be justice
The pleasure of work is open to anyone who can develop some specialised skill, provided that he can get satisfaction from the exercise of his skill without demanding universal applause.
Science tells us what we can know, but what we can know is little, and if we forget how much we cannot know we become insensitive to many things of great importance.
Philosophy seems to me on the whole a rather hopeless business.
The essence of life is doing things for their own sakes.
A habit of basing convictions upon evidence, and of giving to them only that degree or certainty which the evidence warrants, would, if it became general, cure most of the ills from which the world suffers.
Even in civilized mankind faint traces of monogamous instinct can be perceived.
Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, the chief glory of man.
People are zealous for a cause when they are not quite positive that it is true.
There is no greater reason for children to honour parents than for parents to honour children except, that while the children are young, the parents are stronger than children.
What science cannot tell us, mankind cannot know.
Mankind has become so much one family that we cannot insure our own prosperity except by insuring that of everyone else.
Right conduct can never, except by some rare accident, be promoted by ignorance or hindered by knowledge.