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 the introduction of agriculture mankind entered upon a long period of meanness, misery, and madness, from which they are only now being freed by the beneficent operation of the machine.
Calculating machines do sums better than even the cleverest people… As arithmetic has grown easier, it has come to be less respected.
The mind is a strange machine which can combine the materials offered to it in the most astonishing ways.
Machines have altered our way of life, but not our instincts. Consequently, there is maladjustment.
Machines deprive us of two things which are certainly important ingredients of human happiness, namely, spontaneity and variety.
Admiration of the proletariat, like that of dams, power stations, and aeroplanes, is part of the ideology of the machine age.
To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true
Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
The man who can centre his thoughts and hopes upon something transcending self can find a certain peace in the ordinary troubles of life, which is impossible to the pure egoist.
Those who have never known the deep intimacy and the intense companionship of mutual love have missed the best thing that life has to give.
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is its exact opposite.
Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
We have in fact, two kinds of morality, side by side: one that we preach, but do not practice, and another that we practice, but seldom preach.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway about the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.