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
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 desire to understand the world and the desire to reform it are the two great engines of progress, without which human society would stand still or retrogress. It's coexistence or no existence.
The use of force stands in need of control by a public neutral authority, in the interests of liberty no less than of justice. Within a nation, this public authority will naturally be the state; in relations between nations, if the present anarchy is to cease, it will have to be some international parliament.
It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won't go.
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.
...The universe is just there, and that's all.
A large proportion of the human race, it is true, is obliged to work so hard in obtaining the necessaries that little energy is left over for the other purposes; but those whose livelihood is assured do not, on that account, cease to be active
It is true that if we ever did stop to think about the cosmos we might find it uncomfortable. The sun may grow cold or blow up; the earth may lose its atmosphere and become uninhabitable
It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no reason whatsoever for supposing it to be true
It's a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won't go
Everybody has had at some time nightmares of falling, which seem to suggest an origin in the lives of our arboreal ancestors, though this perhaps is fanciful
Marx's father became a Christian when Marx was a little boy, and some, at least, of the dogmas he must have then accepted seem to have born fruit in his son's psychology.