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
Clergymen almost necessarily fail in two ways as teachers of morals. They condemn acts which do no harm and they condone acts which do great harm.
There seems scarcely any limit to what could be done in the way of producing a good world, if only men would use science wisely.
It is entirely clear that there is only one way in which great wars can be permanently prevented, and that is the establishment of an international government with a monopoly of serious armed force.
BERTRAND RUSSELL, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism We've associated that word philosophy with academic study that in its own way has gotten so far beyond the layman that if you read contemporary philosophy you've no clue, because it's almost become math. And it's odd that if you don't do that and you call yourself a philosopher that you always get 'homespun' attached to it.
I do not pretend that birth control is the only way in which population can be kept from increasing. There are others, which, one must suppose, opponents of birth control would prefer.
The mind is a strange machine which can combine the materials offered to it in the most astonishing ways.
The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
That the world is in a bad shape is undeniable, but there is not the faintest reason in history to suppose that Christianity offers a way out.
Love can flourish only as long as it is free and spontaneous; it tends to be killed by the thought of duty. To say that it is your duty to love so-and-so is the surest way to cause you to hate him of her.
Machines have altered our way of life, but not our instincts. Consequently, there is maladjustment.
Perhaps the best hope for the future of mankind is that ways will be found of increasing the scope and intensity of sympathy.
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.