Quotes from Bertrand Russell

The free intellect will see as God might see, without a here and now, without hopes and fears, without the trammels of customary beliefs and traditional prejudices, calmly, dispassionately, in the sole and exclusive desire of knowledge -- knowledge as impersonal, as purely contemplative, as it is possible for man to attain.

Il fatto che un'opinione sia ampiamente condivisa, non è affatto una prova che non sia completamente assurda. Anzi, considerata la stupidità della maggioranza degli uomini, è più probabile che un'opinione diffusa sia cretina anziché sensata.

Creo que esta infelicidad se debe en muy gran medida a conceptos del mundo erróneos, a éticas erróneas, a hábitos de vida erróneos, que conducen a la destrucción de ese entusiasmo natural, ese apetito de cosas posibles del que depende toda felicidad, tanto la de las personas como la de los animales.

Another effect of compulsion in education is that it destroys originality and intellectual interest. Desire for knowledge, at any rate for a good deal of knowledge, is natural to the young, but is generally destroyed by the fact that they are given more than they desire or can assimilate.

The trouble, in fact, is a difficult one to deal with, since it is inflamed alike by sympathy and by lack of sympathy. The person inclined to persecution mania, when he finds a hard-luck story believed, will embellish it until he reaches the frontier of credibility; when, on the other hand, he finds it disbelieved, he has merely another example of the peculiar hard-heartedness of mankind towards himself.

Bir trenle Kaliforniya ovalar?n? geçerken bir sabun reklam?n?n hoparlörden yükselen gürültüsünü duymamaya çal???yordum; o s?rada yaÅŸl? bir çiftçi güleç bir yüzle yan?ma yaklaÅŸarak, Bu zamanda nereye gidersen git, uygarl?ktan yakan? kurtaramazs?n, dedi. Heyhat! Ne kadar doÄŸru!..

If Russia were governed democratically, according to the will of the majority, the inhabitants of Moscow and Petrograd would die of starvation. As it is, Moscow and Petrograd just manage to live, by having the whole civil and military power of the State devoted to their needs.

When we see what looks like our best friend approaching us, we shall have no reason to suppose that his body is not inhabited by the mind of our worst enemy or of some total stranger. All

Where the environment is stupid or prejudiced or cruel, it is a sign of merit to be out of harmony with it. And to some degree these characteristics exist in almost every environment.

Ideas are merely points that memory selects in the flow of thought

The immense majority of even the noblest persons' actions have self-regarding motives, nor is this to be regretted, since if it were otherwise, the human race could not survive. A man who spent his time seeing that others were fed and forgot to feed himself would perish.

De façon générale, on estime que gagner de l'argent, c'est bien, mais que le dépenser, c'est mal. Quelle absurdité, si l'on songe qu'il y a toujours deux parties dans une transaction: autant soutenir que les clés, c'est bien, mais les trous de serrures, non.

If there is to be less envy, means must be found for remedying this state of affairs, and if no such means are found our civilization is in danger of going down to destruction in an orgy of hatred.

A bad teacher will will aim at imposing his opinion, and turning out a set of pupils all of whom will give the same definite answer on a doubtful point

gloom is a useless emotion. In order to escape from it, I have been driven to study the past with more attention than I had formerly given to it, and have found, as Erasmus found, that folly is perennial and yet the human race has survived.

the man who seeks intoxication, in whatever form, has given up hope except in oblivion.

the Puritans did not succeed in subduing the purely corporeal part of our human nature, since what they took away from sex they added to gluttony

Descubrir un sistema para evitar la guerra es una necesidad vital para nuestra civilización, pero ningún sidtema tiene posibilidades de funcionar mientras los hombres sean tan desdichados que el exterminio mutuo les parezca menos terrible que afrontar continuamente la luz del día.

Old-fashioned people still say "bless you" when one sneezes, but they have forgotten the reason for the custom. The reason was that people were thought to sneeze out their souls, and before their souls could get back lurking demons were apt to enter the un-souled body; but if any one said "God bless you," the demons were frightened off.

Tanr?bilimin kötü yan?, y?k?c? eÄŸilimler yaratmak deÄŸil, böyle davran??lara yüksek bir töre süsü vermek, bilgisiz, barbar çaÄŸlardan kalma al??kanl?klara aç?kça kutsal bir özellik tan?mak olmuÅŸtur.

In one sense it must be admitted that we can never prove the existence of things other than ourselves and our experiences. No logical absurdity results from the hypothesis that the world consists of myself and my thoughts and feelings and sensations, and that everything else is mere fancy.

Fiecare mare idee porneÅŸte cu o blasfemie.

Hence, two very difficult questions at once arise; namely, (1) Is there a real table at all? (2) If so, what sort of object can it be?

There is, however, a further development which is very common in the present day. A man may feel so completely thwarted that he seeks no form of satisfaction, but only distraction and oblivion. He then becomes a devotee of 'pleasure'. That is to say he seeks to make life bearable by becoming less alive. Drunkenness, for example, is temporary suicide; the happiness that it brings is merely negative, a momentary cessation of unhappiness.