Bertrand Russell quotes - page 11

The State is a collection of officials, different for difference purposes, drawing comfortable incomes so long as the status quo is preserved. The only alteration they are likely to desire in the status quo is an increase of bureaucracy and the power of bureaucrats. (Bertrand Russell)
Mystery is delightful, but unscientific, since it depends upon ignorance. View quote
Bertrand Russell
A life devoted to science is therefore a happy life, and its happiness is derived from the very best sources that are open to dwellers on this troubled and passionate planet. View quote
Bertrand Russell
In spite of Death, the mark and seal of the parental control, Man is yet free, during his brief years, to examine, to criticise, to know, and in imagination to create. To him alone, in the world with which he is acquainted, this freedom belongs; and in this lies his superiority to the resistless forces that control his outward life. View quote
Bertrand Russell
Whatever we know without inference is mental. View quote
Bertrand Russell
We are ... led to a somewhat vague distinction between what we may call "hard" data and "soft" data. This distinction is a matter of degree, and must not be pressed; but if not taken too seriously it may help to make the situation clear. I mean by "hard" data those which resist the solvent influence of critical reflection, and by "soft" data those which, under the operation of this process, become to our minds more or less doubtful. View quote
Bertrand Russell
Arithmetic must be discovered in just the same sense in which Columbus discovered the West Indies, and we no more create numbers than he created the Indians. View quote
Bertrand Russell
The conception of the necessary unit of all that is resolves itself into the poverty of the imagination, and a freer logic emancipates us from the straitwaistcoated benevolent institution, which idealism palms off as the totality of being. View quote
Bertrand Russell
The tendency of our perceptions is to emphasise increasingly the objective elements in an impression, unless we have some special reason, as artists have, for doing the opposite. View quote
Bertrand Russell
A physicist looks for causes; that does not necessarily imply that there are causes everywhere. A man may look for gold without assuming that there is gold everywhere; if he finds gold, well and good, if he doesn't he's had bad luck. The same is true when the physicists look for causes. View quote
Bertrand Russell
The above proposition is occasionally useful. (Bertrand Russell)
One who believes, as I do, that the free intellect is the chief engine of human progress, cannot but be fundamentally opposed to Bolshevism, as much as to the Church of Rome. View quote
Bertrand Russell
When I found myself regarded as respectable, I began to wonder what sins I had committed. I must be very wicked, I thought. I began to engage in the most uncomfortable introspection. View quote
Bertrand Russell
No man who believes that all is for the best in this suffering world can keep his ethical values unimpaired, since he is always having to find excuses for pain and misery. View quote
Bertrand Russell
The camera is as subjective as we are. View quote
Bertrand Russell
[One] must look into hell before one has any right to speak of heaven. View quote
Bertrand Russell
The rules of logic are to mathematics what those of structure are to architecture. View quote
Bertrand Russell
I cannot escape from the conclusion that the great ages of progress have depended upon a small number of individuals of transcendent ability. View quote
Bertrand Russell
We need a science to save us from science. View quote
Bertrand Russell
Philosophy seems to me on the whole a rather hopeless business. View quote
Bertrand Russell
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd; indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible. (Bertrand Russell)
Either Man will abolish war, or war will abolish Man. View quote
Bertrand Russell
Sin is geographical. View quote
Bertrand Russell
This is one of those views which are so absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them. View quote
Bertrand Russell
Civilized life has grown altogether too tame, and, if it is to be stable, it must provide harmless outlets for the impulses which our remote ancestors satisfied in hunting. View quote
Bertrand Russell