Quotes About Bertrand Russell

It remains to define successor. Given any number n, let ? be a class which has n members, and let x be a term which is not a member of ?. Then the class consisting of ? with x added on will have n+1 members.

Philosophy, if it cannot answer so many questions as we could wish, has at least the power of asking questions which increase the interest of the world, and show the strangeness and wonder lying just below the surface even in the commonest things of daily life. CHAPTER

I will not say that the average forethought of a community is inversely proportional to the rate of interest, though this is a view that might be upheld.

The fundamental principle in the analysis of propositions containing descriptions is this: Every proposition which we can understand must be composed wholly of constituents with which we are acquainted.

the fact that the actual inequalities of power exceed what is made necessary by technical causes, can only be explained in terms of individual psychology and physiology.

Physics is mathematical not because we know so much about the physical world, but because we know so little: it is only its mathematical properties that we can discover.

I think that these is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached

Unul dintre cele mai triste aspecte ale vremurilor noastre este c? cei care au certitudini sunt pro?ti, iar cei cu imagina?ie ?i competen?? sunt plini de dubii ?i indecizie.

For my part, I prefer the ontological argument, the cosmological argument and the rest of the old stock-in-trade, to the sentimental illogicality that has sprung from Rousseau.

I'm like Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein in that I have a respect for life - in any form. I believe in nature, in the birds, the sea, the sky, in everything I can see or that there is real evidence for. If these things are what you mean by God, then I believe in God.

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already 3-parts dead.

The method of "postulating" what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil.

Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half of the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.

I remember the philosopher Bertrand Russell was asked why he spent his time protesting against nuclear war and getting arrested on demonstrations. Why didn't he continue to work on the serious philosophical and logical problems which have major intellectual significance? And his answer was pretty good. He said: "Look, if I and others like me only work on those problems, there won't be anybody around to appreciate it or be interested.

Bertrand Russell noted this in a famous article, writing emphatically that "The law of causality . . . is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm.

The secret of happiness is this: Let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile.

Those who in principle oppose birth control are either incapable of arithmetic or else in favour of war, pestilence and famine as permanent features of human life.

In the Principia Mathematica, Bertrand Russell and Alfred Whitehead attempted to give a rigorous foundation to mathematics using formal logic as their basis. They began with what they considered to be axioms, and used those to derive theorems of increasing complexity. By page 362, they had established enough to prove "1 + 1 = 2.

Bertrand Russell would not have wished to be called a saint of any description; but he was a great and good man.

There is an element of the busybody in our conception of virtue: unless a man makes himself a nuisance to a great many people, we do not think he can be an exceptionally good man.

The ideological distance between Jim Webb and Bertrand Russell can be measured in light years. An author who reaches both of them exerts something like universal appeal.

I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its Churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

Elogio de la ociosidad y otros ensayos (Diario Público, 2010), de Bertrand Russell.

"The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile."