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
I do not believe that I am now dreaming, but I cannot prove that I am not. I am, however, quite certain that I am having certain experiences, whether they be those of a dream or those of waking life.
America ... where laws and customs alike are based on the dreams of spinsters.
I do not believe that I am now dreaming, but I cannot prove that I am not.
It is for this reason that rationality is of supreme importance to the well-being of the human species...even more, in those less fortunate times in which it is despised and rejected as the vain dream of men who lack the virility to kill where they cannot agree.
The man who only loves beautiful things is dreaming, whereas the man who knows absolute beauty is wide awake.
Every isolated passion, is, in isolation, insane; sanity may be defined as synthesis of insanities. Every dominant passion generates a dominant fear, the fear of its non-fulfillment. Every dominant fear generates a nightmare, sometimes in form of explicit and conscious fanaticism, sometimes in paralyzing timidity, sometimes in an unconscious or subconscious terror which finds expression only in dreams. The man who wishes to preserve sanity in a dangerous world should summon in his own mind a parliament of fears, in which each in turn is voted absurd by all the others.
I can't tell whether I am living in a dream or a nightmare.
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is its exact opposite.
Cruelty is in theory a perfectly adequate ground for divorce, but it may be interpreted so as to become absurd
Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
Mathematics, rightly viewed, posses not only truth, but supreme beauty a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture.
Mathematics, rightly viewed, posses not only truth, but supreme beauty; a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture
Mathematics possesses not only truth, but also supreme beauty
Male superiority in former days was easily demonstrated, because if a woman questioned her husband's he could beat her. From superiority in this respect others were thought to follow. Men were more reasonable than women, more inventive, less swayed b