 In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
– Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) |
Category Archives: Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell – Caution in love is fatal
| Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness
– Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) |
Bertrand Russell – In science the man of real genius
| In science the man of real genius is the man who invents a new method. The notable discoveries are often made by his successors, who can apply the method with fresh vigor, unimpaired by the previous labor of perfecting it; but the mental caliber of the thought required for their work, however brilliant, is not so great as that required by the first inventor of the method.
– Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) |
Bertrand Russell – The Milky Way is a tiny fragment
| In the visible world, the Milky Way is a tiny fragment; within this fragment, the solar system is an infinitesimal speck, and of this speck our planet is a microscopic dot.
On this dot, tiny lumps of impure carbon and water, of complicated structure, with somewhat unusual physical and chemical properties, crawl about for a few years, until they are dissolved again into the elements of which they are compounded. – Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) |
Bertrand Russell – To fear love is to fear life
| To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already 3-parts dead.
– Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) |
Bertrand Russell – The kernel of the scientific outlook
| The kernel of the scientific outlook is a thing so simple, so obvious, so seemingly trivial, that the mention of it may almost excite derision. The kernel of the scientific outlook is the refusal to regard our own desires, tastes, and interests as affording a key to the understanding of the world. Stated thus baldly, this may seem no more than a trite truism. But to remember it consistently in matters arousing our passionate partisanship is by no means easy, especially where the available evidence is uncertain and inconclusive.
– Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) |
Bertrand Russell – Three passions, simple but overwhelming
| Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind.
– Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) |
Bertrand Russell – My whole religion is this
| My whole religion is this: do every duty, and expect no reward for it, either here or hereafter.
– Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) |
Bertrand Russell – Things I state should be so obvious
| My desire and wish is that the things I start with should be so obvious that you wonder why I spend my time stating them. This is what I aim at because the point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it.
– Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) |
Bertrand Russell – Bureaucracy and the power of bureaucrats
| 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 (1872-1970) |
Bertrand Russell – The discovery that a question is unanswerable
| From the point of view of philosophy, however, the discovery that a question is unanswerable is as complete an answer as any that could possibly be obtained.
– Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) |
Bertrand Russell – Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion
| Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
– Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) |
