Quotes by Bertrand Russell

About Bertrand Russell:

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell was a British philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, writer, social critic and political activist. 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 in any profound sense. He was born in Monmouthshire into one of the most prominent aristocratic families in Britain.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.

Bertrand Russell

To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.

Bertrand Russell

A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not known.

Bertrand Russell

I think we ought always to entertain our opinions with some measure of doubt. I shouldn't wish people dogmatically to believe any philosophy, not even mine.

Bertrand Russell

When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief which he finds in himself.

Bertrand Russell

Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and justification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical.

Bertrand Russell

Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one.

Bertrand Russell

I do not pretend to start with precise questions. I do not think you can start with anything precise. You have to achieve such precision as you can, as you go along.

Bertrand Russell

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.

Bertrand Russell

All movements go too far.

Bertrand Russell

If our logic is to find the common world intelligible, it must not be hostile, but must be inspired by a genuine acceptance such as is not usually to be found among metaphysicians.

Bertrand Russell

I have frequently experienced myself the mood in which I felt that all is vanity; I have emerged from it not by any philosophy, but owing to some imperative necessity of action.

Bertrand Russell

I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end...

Bertrand Russell

As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one can prove that there is not a God. On the other...

Bertrand Russell

It is possible that mankind is on the threshold of a golden age; but, if so,it will be necessary first to slay the dragon that gaurds the door,and this dragon is religion

Bertrand Russell

The centre of me is always and eternally in terrible pain ... A searching for something beyond what the world contains, something transfiguring and infinite.

Bertrand Russell

When two men of science disagree, they do not invoke the secular arm; they wait for further evidence to decide the issue, because, as men of science, they know that neither is infallible. But when two theologians differ, since there is no criteria to...

Bertrand Russell

It is not what the man of science believes that distinguishes him, but how and why he believes it. His beliefs are tentative, not dogmatic; they are based on evidence, not on authority or intuition.

Bertrand Russell

There are two motives for reading a book; one, that you enjoy it; the other, that you can boast about it.

Bertrand Russell

Boredom is essentially a thwarted desire for events, not necessarily pleasant ones, but just occurrences such as will enable the victim of ennui to know one day from another. The opposite of boredom, in a word, is not pleasure, but excitement.

Bertrand Russell

Love is wise; hatred is foolish. In this world, which is getting more and more closely interconnected, we have to learn to tolerate each other, we have to learn to put up with the fact that some people say things that we don't like. We can only live ...

Bertrand Russell

Author Bio

  • NameBertrand Russell
  • Descriptionlogician and one of the first analytic philosophers
  • AliasesBertrand Arthur William Russell
  • BornMay 18, 1872
  • DiedFebruary 2, 1970
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionMathematician; Social Critic; Essayist; Logician; Epistemologist; Philosopher Of Language; Political Activist; Metaphysician; Analytic Philosopher; Autobiographer; Writer
  • AwardsNobel Prize In Literature; Fellow Of The Royal Society; ; Kalinga Prize