Bertrand Russell quotes - page 15

Many a man will have the courage to die gallantly, but will not have the courage to say, or even to think, that the cause for which he is asked to die is an unworthy one. (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. View quote
Bertrand Russell
Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change. View quote
Bertrand Russell
Stupidity and unconscious bias often work more damage than venality. View quote
Bertrand Russell
To like many people spontaneously and without effort is perhaps the greatest of all sources of personal happiness. View quote
Bertrand Russell
a generation that cannot endure boredom will be a generation of little men, of men unduly divorced from the slow process of nature, of men in whom every vital impulse slowly withers as though they were cut flowers in a vase. View quote
Bertrand Russell
Many people when they fall in love look for a little haven of refuge from the world, where they can be sure of being admired when they are not admirable, and praised when they are not praiseworthy. View quote
Bertrand Russell
Freedom in education has many aspects. There is first of all freedom to learn or not to learn. Then there is freedom as to what to learn. And in later education there is freedom of opinion. View quote
Bertrand Russell
Language serves not only to express thought but to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it. View quote
Bertrand Russell
Ordinary language is totally unsuited for expressing what physics really asserts, since the words of everyday life are not sufficiently abstract. Only mathematics and mathematical logic can say as little as the physicist means to say. View quote
Bertrand Russell
Italy, and the spring and first love all together should suffice to make the gloomiest person happy. (Bertrand Russell)
The use of self control is like the use of brakes on train. It is useful when you find yourself in wrong direction but merely harmful when the direction is right. View quote
Bertrand Russell
I consider the official Catholic attitude on divorce, birth control, and censorship exceedingly dangerous to mankind. View quote
Bertrand Russell
Morality in sexual relations, when it is free from superstition, consists essentially in respect for the other person, and unwillingness to use that person solely as a means of personal gratification, without regard to his or her desires. View quote
Bertrand Russell
Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other matter; second, telling other people to do so. View quote
Bertrand Russell
A man is rational in proportion as his intelligence informs and controls his desires. View quote
Bertrand Russell
Never try to discourage thinking, for you are sure to succeed. View quote
Bertrand Russell
The wise man thinks about his troubles only when there is some purpose in doing so; at other times he thinks about other things, or, if it is night, about nothing at all. View quote
Bertrand Russell
Awareness of universals is called conceiving, and a universal of which we are aware is called a concept. View quote
Bertrand Russell
The scientific attitude of mind involves a sweeping away of all other desires in the interest of the desire to know. View quote
Bertrand Russell
Conquer the world by intelligence, and not merely by being slavishly subdued by the terror that comes from it. (Bertrand Russell)
How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty? View quote
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. View quote
Bertrand Russell
Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing. What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance. View quote
Bertrand Russell
Collective wisdom, alas, is no adequate substitute for the intelligence of individuals. Individuals who opposed received opinions have been the source of all progress, both moral and intellectual. They have been unpopular, as was natural. View quote
Bertrand Russell