Bertrand Russell: Reference

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Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
Russell in 1950
Full name	Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell
Born	18 May 1872(1872-05-18) Trellech, Monmouthshire, UK
Died	2 February 1970 (aged 97) Penrhyndeudraeth, Wales, UK
Era	20th century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	Analytic philosophy Nobel Prize in Literature 1950
Main interests	Ethics, epistemology, logic, mathematics, philosophy of language, philosophy of science, religion
Notable ideas	.Analytic philosophy, logical atomism, theory of descriptions, knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description, Russell's paradox, Russell's teapot.^ Hence, (1) acquaintance with a thing does not logically involve a knowledge of its relations, and (2) a knowledge of some of its relations does not involve a knowledge of all of its relations nor a knowledge of its 'nature' in the above sense. The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source] ^ In spite of the fact that we can only know truths which are wholly composed of terms which we have experienced in acquaintance, we can yet have knowledge by description of things which we have never experienced. The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source] ^ Our derivative knowledge of things, which we call knowledge by description , always involves both acquaintance with something and knowledge of truths. The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
Influenced by Euclid · Plato · Leibniz · Hume · Shelley · Moore · Mill · Frege · Wittgenstein · Santayana · A.N. Whitehead · Paine · Peano ·^{[citation needed]}
Influenced Wittgenstein · Ayer · Carnap · Gödel · Popper · Quine · Chomsky · Austin · Kripke · Schlick · Tarski · Waismann · Davidson · Eddington · Turing · Arendt · Vuillemin · McDowell · Kumar · Evans · Chisholm · Narhar Ambadas Kurundkar · Ernest Gellner^{[citation needed]}

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS (18 May 1872 – 2 February 1970) was a British^[1] philosopher, logician, mathematician, historian, socialist, pacifist and social critic.^[2] Although he spent most of his life in England, he was born in Wales, where he also died at the age of 97.^[3]

Russell led the British "revolt against idealism" in the early 1900s. .He is considered one of the founders of analytic philosophy along with his protégé Wittgenstein and his elder Frege, and is widely held to be one of the 20th century's premier logicians.^ The doctrine is so widely held, and so interesting in itself, that even the briefest survey of philosophy must give some account of it.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^[2] He co-authored, with A. N. Whitehead, Principia Mathematica, an attempt to ground mathematics on logic. His philosophical essay "On Denoting" has been considered a "paradigm of philosophy."^[4] Both works have had a considerable influence on logic, mathematics, set theory, linguistics, and philosophy.

He was a prominent anti-war activist, championing free trade between nations and anti-imperialism.^[5]^[6] .Russell was imprisoned for his pacifist activism during World War I, campaigned against Adolf Hitler, for nuclear disarmament, criticised Soviet totalitarianism and the United States of America's involvement in the Vietnam War.^ First published in the Home University Library, 1912 First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1959 This reprint, 1971-2 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA .

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ Washington...has become an alien city-state that rules America, and much of the rest of the world, in the way that Rome ruled the Roman Empire.

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^ There are many terrorist states in the world, but the United States is unusual in that it is officially committed to international terrorism.

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^[7]

In 1950, Russell was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought."^[8]

Biography

Ancestry

Bertrand Russell was born on 18 May 1872 at Cleddon Hall, Trellech, Monmouthshire, Wales, into a liberal family of the British aristocracy.

His paternal grandfather, John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, was the third son of John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford, and had twice been asked by Queen Victoria to form a government, serving her as Prime Minister in the 1840s and 1860s.^[9]

Bertrand Russell's father, John Russell, Viscount Amberley

The Russells had been prominent in England for several centuries before this, coming to power and the peerage with the rise of the Tudor dynasty. They established themselves as one of Britain's leading Whig (Liberal) families, and participated in every great political event from the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536–40 to the Glorious Revolution in 1688–89 to the Great Reform Act in 1832.^[9]^[10]

Russell's mother Katherine Louisa (1844–1874) was the daughter of Edward Stanley, 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley, and was the sister of Rosalind Howard, Countess of Carlisle.^[7]

Russell's parents were radical for their times. Russell's father, Viscount Amberley, was an atheist and consented to his wife's affair with their children's tutor, the biologist Douglas Spalding. Both were early advocates of birth control at a time when this was considered scandalous.^[11] John Russell's atheism was evident when he asked the philosopher John Stuart Mill to act as Russell's secular godfather.^[12] Mill died the year after Russell's birth, but his writings had a great effect on Russell's life.

Childhood and adolescence

.Russell had two siblings: Frank (nearly seven years older than Bertrand), and Rachel (four years older).^ We do not know who will be the inhabitants of London a hundred years hence; but we know that any two of them and any other two of them will make four of them.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

In June 1874 Russell's mother died of diphtheria, followed shortly by Rachel's death. In January 1876, his father also died after bronchitis following a long period of depression. Frank and Bertrand were placed in the care of their staunchly Victorian grandparents, who lived at Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park. John Russell, 1st Earl Russell, his grandfather, died in 1878, and was remembered by Russell as a kindly old man in a wheelchair. As a result, his widow, the Countess Russell (née Lady Frances Elliot), was the dominant family figure for the rest of Russell's childhood and youth.^[7]^[11]

The countess was from a Scottish Presbyterian family, and successfully petitioned a British court to set aside a provision in Amberley's will requiring the children to be raised as agnostics. .Despite her religious conservatism, she held progressive views in other areas (accepting Darwinism and supporting Irish Home Rule), and her influence on Bertrand Russell's outlook on social justice and standing up for principle remained with him throughout his life — her favourite Bible verse, 'Thou shalt not follow a multitude to do evil' (Exodus 23:2), became his motto.^ If we ask ourselves what justice is, it is natural to proceed by considering this, that, and the other just act, with a view to discovering what they have in common.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

The atmosphere at Pembroke Lodge was one of frequent prayer, emotional repression and formality; Frank reacted to this with open rebellion, but the young Bertrand learned to hide his feelings.

Russell's adolescence was very lonely, and he often contemplated suicide. .He remarked in his autobiography that his keenest interests were in sex, religion and mathematics, and that only the wish to know more mathematics kept him from suicide.^ He remarked in his autobiography that his keenest interests were in sex, religion and mathematics, and that only the wish to know more mathematics kept him from suicide.

Betrand Russell --Great Minds, Great Thinkers 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.edinformatics.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
Bertrand Russell Why I am not a Christian. A Response to an Atheist Writings 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.hellandjustice.com [Source type: Original source]
The Infidels - Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.theinfidels.org [Source type: Original source]
Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC pustakalaya.olenepal.org [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

^ Wishing that more people were like him is like wishing that the pope would suddenly realise the crimes he has commited and hang himself.

MilkandCookies - Bertrand Russell on God, 1959 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.milkandcookies.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

^ The result would not be that he would cease to be interested in trains; on the contrary, he would become more interested than ever but would have a morbid sense of sin, because this interest had been represented to him as improper.

Bertrand Russell: Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.solstice.us [Source type: Original source]

^[13] He was educated at home by a series of tutors.^[8] His brother Frank introduced him to the work of Euclid, which transformed Russell's life.^[11]^[14]

.Also, during these formative years, he discovered the works of Percy Bysshe Shelley.^ Percy Bysshe Shelley .

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

.In his Autobiography, he writes: "I spent all my spare time reading him, and learning him by heart, knowing no one to whom I could speak of what I thought or felt, I used to reflect how wonderful it would have been to know Shelley, and to wonder whether I should meet any live human being with whom I should feel so much sympathy."^ It is hard to see how we could know this truth, or even understand what is meant by it, unless we were acquainted with something which we call 'I'.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ This immediate knowledge by memory is the source of all our knowledge concerning the past: without it, there could be no knowledge of the past by inference we should never know that there was anything past to be inferred.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ All this seems to be so evident as to be hardly worth stating, except in answer to a man who doubts whether I know anything.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^[15] Russell claimed that beginning at age 15, he spent considerable time thinking about the validity of Christian religious dogma, and by 18 had decided to discard the last of it.^[16]

University and first marriage

Russell won a scholarship to read for the Mathematical Tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge, and commenced his studies there in 1890.^[17] He became acquainted with the younger G.E. Moore and came under the influence of Alfred North Whitehead, who recommended him to the Cambridge Apostles. He quickly distinguished himself in mathematics and philosophy, graduating with a B.A. in the former subject in 1893 and adding a fellowship in the latter in 1895.^[18]^[19]

Russell first met the American Quaker Alys Pearsall Smith when he was seventeen years old. He became a friend of the Pearsall Smith family—they knew him primarily as 'Lord John's grandson' and enjoyed showing him off—and travelled with them to the continent; it was in their company that Russell visited the Paris Exhibition of 1889 and was able to climb the Eiffel Tower soon after it was completed.^[20]

He soon fell in love with the puritanical, high-minded Alys, who was a graduate of Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, and, contrary to his grandmother's wishes, he married her on 13 December 1894. Their marriage began to fall apart in 1901 when it occurred to Russell, while he was out on his bicycle, that he no longer loved her. She asked him if he loved her and he replied that he didn't. Russell also disliked Alys's mother, finding her controlling and cruel. It was to be a hollow shell of a marriage and they finally divorced in 1921, after a lengthy period of separation.^[21] During this period, Russell had passionate (and often simultaneous) affairs with a number of women, including Lady Ottoline Morrell and the actress Lady Constance Malleson.^[22]

Early career

.Russell began his published work in 1896 with German Social Democracy, a study in politics that was an early indication of a lifelong interest in political and social theory.^ About the quote : From "Political Parties: A Sociological Study of the Oligarchical Tendencies of Modern Democracy", Collier Books, 1962, p.

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

In 1896, he taught German social democracy at the London School of Economics, where he also lectured on the science of power in the autumn of 1937.^[23] He was also a member of the Coefficients dining club of social reformers set up in 1902 by the Fabian campaigners Sidney and Beatrice Webb.^[24]

In 1905 he wrote the essay "On Denoting", which was published in the philosophical journal Mind. Russell became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1908.^[7] The first of three volumes of Principia Mathematica, written with Whitehead, was published in 1910, which, along with the earlier The Principles of Mathematics, soon made Russell world famous in his field. .In 1911, he became acquainted with the Austrian engineering student Ludwig Wittgenstein, whom he viewed as a genius and a successor who would continue his work on logic.^ The student who wishes to acquire an elementary knowledge of philosophy will find it both easier and more profitable to read some of the works of the great philosophers than to attempt to derive an all-round view from handbooks.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

.He spent hours dealing with Wittgenstein's various phobias and his frequent bouts of despair.^ He spent hours dealing with Wittgenstein's various phobias and his frequent bouts of despair.

The Infidels - Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.theinfidels.org [Source type: Original source]
Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC pustakalaya.olenepal.org [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

This was often a drain on Russell's energy, but Russell continued to be fascinated by him and encouraged his academic development, including the publication of Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus in 1922.^[25]

First World War

.During the First World War, Russell was one of a very small number of intellectuals engaged in pacifist activities, and, in 1916, he was dismissed from Trinity College following his conviction under the Defence of the Realm Act.^ All wars are follies, very expensive and very mischievous ones.

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^ War: first, one hopes to win...in the end, one is surprised that everyone has lost.

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^ During times of war, hatred becomes quite respectable even though it has to masquerade often under the guise of patriotism.

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

.A later conviction resulted in six months' imprisonment in Brixton prison (see Bertrand Russell's views on society).^ It will view its purposes and desires as parts of the whole, with the absence of insistence that results from seeing them as infinitesimal fragments in a world of which all the rest is unaffected by any one man's deeds.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^[26] Russell was released from prison in September 1918.

Between the wars, and second marriage

In August 1920, Russell travelled to Russia as part of an official delegation sent by the British government to investigate the effects of the Russian Revolution.^[27] He met Lenin and had an hour-long conversation with him. In his autobiography, he mentions that he found Lenin rather disappointing, and that he sensed an "impish cruelty" in him. He also cruised down the Volga on a steam-ship. .Russell's lover Dora Black also visited Russia independently at the same time — she was enthusiastic about the revolution, but Russell's experiences destroyed his previous tentative support for it.^ Knowledge of things, when it is of the kind we call knowledge by acquaintance , is essentially simpler than any knowledge of truths, and logically independent of knowledge of truths, though it would be rash to assume that human beings ever, in fact, have acquaintance with things without at the same time knowing some truth about them.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

.Russell subsequently lectured in Beijing on philosophy for one year, accompanied by Dora.^ Russell subsequently lectured in Peking on philosophy for one year, accompanied by Dora.

The Infidels - Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.theinfidels.org [Source type: Original source]

^ Russell subsequently lectured in Beijing on philosophy for one year, accompanied by Dora.

Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC pustakalaya.olenepal.org [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

^ En route to one of his lectures in Trondheim, Russell survived a plane crash in October 1948.

Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC pustakalaya.olenepal.org [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

He went there with optimism and hope as China was then on a new path, among other scholars was Rabindranath Tagore, the Indian poet and also a Nobel Laureate.^[8] While in China, Russell became gravely ill with pneumonia, and incorrect reports of his death were published in the Japanese press.^[28] When the couple visited Japan on their return journey, Dora notified the world that "Mr. Bertrand Russell, having died according to the Japanese press, is unable to give interviews to Japanese journalists." The press were not amused and did not appreciate the sarcasm.^[29]

On the couple's return to England on 26 August 1921, Dora was six months pregnant, and Russell arranged a hasty divorce from Alys, marrying Dora six days after the divorce was finalised, on 27 September 1921. Their children were John Conrad Russell, 4th Earl Russell, born on 16 November 1921 and Katharine Jane Russell (now Lady Katharine Tait) born on 29 December 1923. Russell supported himself during this time by writing popular books explaining matters of physics, ethics, and education to the layman. Some have suggested that at this point he had an affair with Vivienne Haigh-Wood, first wife of T. S. Eliot.^[30]

Together with Dora, he also founded the experimental Beacon Hill School in 1927. The school was run from a succession of different locations, including its original premises at the Russell's residence, Telegraph House, near Harting, West Sussex. After he left the school in 1932, Dora continued it until 1943.^[31]^[32]

.Upon the death of his elder brother Frank, in 1931, Russell became the 3rd Earl Russell.^ Earl Russell 1931–1970 .

Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC pustakalaya.olenepal.org [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

^ Upon the death of his elder brother Frank, in 1931, Russell became the 3rd Earl Russell.

The Infidels - Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.theinfidels.org [Source type: Original source]
Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC pustakalaya.olenepal.org [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

^ On his brother's death in 1931, Russell succeeded to the title as 3rd Earl.

WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN----Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC skeptically.org [Source type: Original source]

He once said that his title was primarily useful for securing hotel rooms.

Russell's marriage to Dora grew increasingly tenuous, and it reached a breaking point over her having two children with an American journalist, Griffin Barry.^[32] They separated in 1932 and finally divorced. On 18 January 1936, Russell married his third wife, an Oxford undergraduate named Patricia ("Peter") Spence, who had been his children's governess since the summer of 1930. Russell and Peter had one son, Conrad Sebastian Robert Russell, 5th Earl Russell, who became a prominent historian and one of the leading figures in the Liberal Democrat party.^[7]

Second World War

.Russell opposed rearmament against Nazi Germany, but in 1940 changed his view that avoiding a full scale world war was more important than defeating Hitler.^ What is more immoral than war?

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^ The demands of internal growth are incomparably more important to us...than the need for any external expansion of our power.

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^ Even philosophers will praise war as ennobling mankind, forgetting the Greek who said: War is bad in that it begets more evil than it kills.'

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

.He concluded that Adolf Hitler taking over all of Europe would be a permanent threat to democracy.^ All it takes is a single act of aggression to permanently wound a nation's reputation.

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

.In 1943, he adopted a stance toward large-scale warfare, "Relative Political Pacifism": War was always a great evil, but in some particularly extreme circumstances, it may be the lesser of two evils.^ The evil that is in the world almost always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^ No matter what political reasons are given for war, the underlying reason is always economic.

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^ When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and there is nothing to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war or other, in order that the people may require a leader.

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^{[citation needed]}

Post-Second World War

Before the Second World War, Russell taught at the University of Chicago, later moving on to Los Angeles to lecture at the University of California, Los Angeles. .He was appointed professor at the City College of New York in 1940, but after a public outcry, the appointment was annulled by a court judgement: his opinions (especially those relating to sexual morality, detailed in Marriage and Morals ten years earlier) made him "morally unfit" to teach at the college.^ But if a person who knew Bismarck made a judgement about him, the case is different.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ The first way, on the contrary, gives us the parts and the relation severally, and demands only the reality of the parts and the relation: the relation may not relate those parts in that way, and yet the judgement may occur.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

The protest was started by the mother of a student who would not have been eligible for his graduate-level course in mathematical logic. Many intellectuals, led by John Dewey, protested against his treatment.^[33] Albert Einstein's often-quoted aphorism that "Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds..." originated in his open letter in support of Russell, during this time.^[34] Dewey and Horace M. Kallen edited a collection of articles on the CCNY affair in The Bertrand Russell Case. He soon joined the Barnes Foundation, lecturing to a varied audience on the history of philosophy; these lectures formed the basis of History of Western Philosophy. His relationship with the eccentric Albert C. Barnes soon soured, and he returned to Britain in 1944 to rejoin the faculty of Trinity College.^[35]

Later life

During the 1940s and 1950s, Russell participated in many broadcasts over the BBC, particularly the Third Programme, on various topical and philosophical subjects. .By this time Russell was world famous outside of academic circles, frequently the subject or author of magazine and newspaper articles, and was called upon to offer up opinions on a wide variety of subjects, even mundane ones.^ It may be true that an earwig is in my room, even if neither I nor the earwig nor any one else is aware of this truth; for this truth concerns only the earwig and the room, and does not depend upon anything else.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ We spoke of the relation called 'judging' or 'believing' as knitting together into one complex whole the subject and the objects.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

En route to one of his lectures in Trondheim, Russell was one of 24 survivors (among a total of 43 passengers) in a aeroplane crash in Hommelvik in October 1948.^[36] History of Western Philosophy (1945) became a best-seller, and provided Russell with a steady income for the remainder of his life.

.In a speech in 1948 ^[37] Russell said that if the USSR's aggression continued, it would be morally worse to go to war after the USSR possessed an atomic bomb than before they possessed one, because if the USSR had no bomb the West's victory would come more swiftly and with fewer casualties than if there were atom bombs on both sides.^ There is no morality in war.

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^ One more such victory and we are undone.

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^ That is to say, if we wish to prove that something of which we have no direct experience exists, we must have among our premisses the existence of one or more things of which we have direct experience.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

.At that time, only the USA possessed an atomic bomb, and the USSR was pursuing an extremely aggressive policy towards the countries in Eastern Europe which it was absorbing into its sphere of influence.^ IN regard to one man's knowledge at a given time, universals, like particulars, may be divided into those known by acquaintance, those known only by description, and those not known either by acquaintance or by description.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

Many understood Russell's comments to mean that Russell approved of a first strike in a war with the USSR, including Lawson, who was present when Russell spoke. Others, including Griffin who obtained a transcript of the speech, have argued that he was merely explaining the usefulness of America's atomic arsenal in deterring the USSR from continuing its domination of Eastern Europe.

In the King's Birthday Honours of 9 June 1949, Russell was awarded the Order of Merit,^[38] and the following year he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.^[7]^[8] When he was given the Order of Merit, King George VI was affable but slightly embarrassed at decorating a former jailbird, saying that "You have sometimes behaved in a manner that would not do if generally adopted."^[39] Russell merely smiled, but afterwards claimed that the reply "That's right, just like your brother" immediately came to mind.

.In 1952, Russell was divorced by Peter, with whom he had been very unhappy.^ In 1952, Russell was divorced by Peter, with whom he had been very unhappy.

The Infidels - Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.theinfidels.org [Source type: Original source]
Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC pustakalaya.olenepal.org [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

^ Russell married his fourth wife, Edith Finch , soon after the divorce, on 15 December 1952.

Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

^ Conrad, Russell's son by Peter, did not see his father between the time of the divorce and 1968 (at which time his decision to meet his father caused a permanent breach with his mother).

The Infidels - Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.theinfidels.org [Source type: Original source]
Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC pustakalaya.olenepal.org [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

.Conrad, Russell's son by Peter, did not see his father between the time of the divorce and 1968 (at which time his decision to meet his father caused a permanent breach with his mother).^ Conrad, Russell's son by Peter, did not see his father between the time of the divorce and 1968 (at which time his decision to meet his father caused a permanent breach with his mother).

The Infidels - Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.theinfidels.org [Source type: Original source]
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

^ Russell's eldest son, John, suffered from serious mental illness, which was the source of ongoing disputes between Russell and John's mother, Russell's former wife, Dora.

The Infidels - Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.theinfidels.org [Source type: Original source]

^ Russell's parents were quite radical for their times—Russell's father, Viscount Amberley, was an atheist and consented to his wife's affair with their children's tutor, the biologist Douglas Spalding.

The Infidels - Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.theinfidels.org [Source type: Original source]

.Russell married his fourth wife, Edith Finch, soon after the divorce, on 15 December 1952. They had known each other since 1925, and Edith had taught English at Bryn Mawr College near Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, sharing a house for twenty years with Russell's old friend Lucy Donnelly.^ When people have friends and customers in other lands, they tend to take a dim view of their government dropping bombs on them.

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^ When a thing of a certain sort A has been found to be associated with a thing of a certain other sort B, and has never been found dissociated from a thing of the sort B, the greater the number of cases in which A and B have been associated, the greater is the probability that they will be associated in a fresh case in which one of them is known to be present; .

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

Edith remained with him until his death, and, by all accounts, their marriage was a happy, close, and loving one. .Russell's eldest son, John, suffered from serious mental illness, which was the source of ongoing disputes between Russell and John's mother, Russell's former wife, Dora.^ Russell's eldest son, John, suffered from serious mental illness, which was the source of ongoing disputes between Russell and John's mother, Russell's former wife, Dora.

The Infidels - Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.theinfidels.org [Source type: Original source]
Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC pustakalaya.olenepal.org [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

^ Russell's eldest son, John, suffered from serious mental illness , which was the source of ongoing disputes between Russell and John's mother, Russell's former wife, Dora.

Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

^ Death of father; Russell's grandfather, Lord John Russell (the former Prime Minister), and grandmother succeed in overturning his father's will to win custody of Russell and his brother.

Bertrand Arthur William Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.personal.kent.edu [Source type: News]
MySpace - Bertrand Russell - 102 - Male - Penrhyndeudraeth, Wales - myspace.com/bertrandrussell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.myspace.com [Source type: General]

John's wife Susan was also mentally ill, and eventually Russell and Edith became the legal guardians of their three daughters (two of whom were later found to have schizophrenia).

.In 1962, Russell played a public role in the Cuban Missile Crisis: in an exchange of telegrams with the Soviet Union leader Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev warned about the imminence of war.^ Since the end of the nineteenth century, if not earlier, presidents have misled the public about their motives and their intentions in going to war.

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^{[citation needed]}

Political causes

.Russell spent the 1950s and 1960s engaged in various political causes, primarily related to nuclear disarmament and opposing the Vietnam war (see also Russell Vietnam War Crimes Tribunal).^ War is not the continuation of politics with different means, it is the greatest mass-crime perpetrated on the community of man.

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

The 1955 Russell-Einstein Manifesto was a document calling for nuclear disarmament and was signed by 11 of the most prominent nuclear physicists and intellectuals of the time.^[40] .He wrote a great many letters to world leaders during this period.^ He wrote a great many letters to world leaders during this period.

Betrand Russell --Great Minds, Great Thinkers 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.edinformatics.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
The Infidels - Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.theinfidels.org [Source type: Original source]
Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC pustakalaya.olenepal.org [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

^ During the Second World War he wrote the History of Western Philosophy (1945).

Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

^ Bertrand Russell, letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell (18th November, 1914) It is clear the Socialists are the hope of the world; they have gained in importance during the war.

Bertrand Russell : Biography 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

He was in contact with Lionel Rogosin while the latter was filming his anti-war film Good Times, Wonderful Times in the 1960s. He also became a hero to many of the youthful members of the New Left. In early 1963, in particular, Russell became increasingly vocal about his disapproval of what he felt to be the US government's near-genocidal policies in South Vietnam. In 1963 he became the inaugural recipient of the Jerusalem Prize, an award for writers concerned with the freedom of the individual in society.^[41] In October 1965 he tore up his Labour Party card because he feared the party was going to send soldiers to support the USA in the Vietnam War.^[7]

Final years and death

.Russell published his three-volume autobiography in 1967, 1968, and 1969. On 23 November 1969 he wrote to The Times newspaper saying that the preparation for show trials in Czechoslovakia was "highly alarming". The same month he appealed to Secretary General U Thant of the United Nations to support an international war crimes commission to investigate alleged torture and genocide by the USA in South Vietnam.^ Freedom is not nurtured by nations preparing for war.

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^ A time will come when a politician who has willfully made war and promoted international dissension will be...surer of the noose than a private homicide.

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^ If a war be undertaken...before the resources of peace have been tried and proved vain to secure it, that war has no defense, it is a national crime.

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

The following month, he protested to Alexei Kosygin over the expulsion of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn from the Writers Union.

On 31 January 1970, Russell issued a statement which condemned Israeli aggression in the Middle East and called for Israeli withdrawal from territory occupied in 1967. The statement said that:

The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was "given" by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new state. The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict their numbers increased. How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty? It is abundantly clear that the refugees have every right to the homeland from which they were driven, and the denial of this right is at the heart of the continuing conflict. .No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their own country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate?^ These people are trying to shake the will of the Iraqi citizens, and they want us to leave...I think the world would be better off if we did leave...
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^ Every politician in the world is all for revolution, reason, and disarmament--but only in enemy countries, not in his own.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^ When the largest industry in the world is no longer War, I will accept Darwin's theory of Evolution.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

A permanent just settlement of the refugees in their homeland is an essential ingredient of any genuine settlement in the Middle East. We are frequently told that we must sympathise with Israel because of the suffering of the Jews in Europe at the hands of the Nazis. [...] What Israel is doing today cannot be condoned, and to invoke the horrors of the past to justify those of the present is gross hypocrisy.^[42]

—Bertrand Russell, 31 January 1970

This was Russell's final political statement or act. It was read out at the International Conference of Parliamentarians in Cairo on 3 February 1970, the day after his death.

Russell died of influenza on 2 February 1970 at his home, Plas Penrhyn, in Penrhyndeudraeth, Merionethshire, Wales. He was cremated in Colwyn Bay on 5 February 1970. In accordance with his will there was no religious ceremony; his ashes were scattered over the Welsh mountains later that year.

Self-assessment and summary of his own life

At the age of 84, Russell added a five-paragraph prologue to a new publication of his autobiography, giving a summary of the work and his life, titled WHAT I HAVE LIVED FOR.^[43]

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. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
.I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy.^ The world of being is unchangeable, rigid, exact, delightful to the mathematician, the logician, the builder of metaphysical systems, and all who love perfection more than life.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

.I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss.^ The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^ It is finer to bring one noble human being into the world and rear it well...than to kill ten thousand.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

.I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined.^ We may hope, in a mystic illumination, to see the ideas as we see objects of sense; and we may imagine that the ideas exist in heaven.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
.Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens.^ The only reason for believing that the laws of motion remain in operation is that they have operated hitherto, so far as our knowledge of the past enables us to judge.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ The mathematicians, however, have not been content with showing that space as it is commonly supposed to be is possible; they have shown also that many other forms of space are equally possible, so far as logic can show.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. .Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be.^ Human failure of communication and failed diplomacy between Nations should not yield the ultimate sacrifice; a life.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^ I hate those men who would send into war youth to fight and die for them; the pride and cowardice of those old men, making their wars that boys must die.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

Titles and honours from birth

Russell held throughout his life the following styles and honours:

from birth until 1908: The Honourable Bertrand Arthur William Russell
from 1908 until 1931: The Honourable Bertrand Arthur William Russell, FRS
from 1931 until 1949: The Right Honourable The Earl Russell, FRS
from 1949 until death: The Right Honourable The Earl Russell, OM, FRS

Views

Bertrand Russell series
Russell in 1907
Bertrand Russell Views on philosophy Views on society Russell's paradox Russell's teapot Theory of Descriptions Logical atomism

Views on philosophy

Main article: Bertrand Russell's views on philosophy

Russell is generally credited with being one of the founders of analytic philosophy. He was deeply impressed by Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) and wrote on every major area of philosophy except aesthetics. .He was particularly prolific in the field of metaphysics, the logic and the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of language, ethics and epistemology.^ We have now seen that there are propositions known a priori , and that among them are the propositions of logic and pure mathematics, as well as the fundamental propositions of ethics.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ Ryckman's Logic Works Philosophy of Language Links A Berkelean Conversation Postmodernist Kuhnian Page .

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ Introduction to Philosophy Symbolic Logic Berkeley, Hume, Kant, & Mill Early Analytic Philosophy Epistemology Metaphysics Philosophy of Science Philosophy of Art Philosophy of Language Philosophy of Mind Topics in Logic Puzzles and Paradoxes .

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

When Brand Blanshard asked Russell why he didn't write on aesthetics, Russell replied that he didn't know anything about it, "but that is not a very good excuse, for my friends tell me it has not deterred me from writing on other subjects."^[44]

Views on society

Main article: Bertrand Russell's views on society

.Political and social activism occupied much of Russell's time for most of his life, which makes his prodigious and seminal writing on a wide range of technical and non-technical subjects all the more remarkable.^ Before the time of Kant it was thought that all judgements of which we could be certain a priori were of this kind: that in all of them there was a predicate which was only part of the subject of which it was asserted.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ By inventing the method of doubt, and by showing that subjective things are the most certain, Descartes performed a great service to philosophy, and one which makes him still useful to all students of the subject.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ The most we can hope is that the oftener things are found together, the more probable becomes that they will be found together another time, and that, if they have been found together often enough, the probability will amount almost to certainty.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

Russell remained politically active almost to the end of his life, writing to and exhorting world leaders and lending his name to various causes.

Notes

^ Sidney Hook, "Lord Russell and the War Crimes Trial", Bertrand Russell: critical assessments, Volume 1, edited by A. D. Irvine, (New York 1999) page 178
^ ^a ^b Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "Bertrand Russell", 1 May 2003
^ Hestler, Anna (2001). Wales. Marshall Cavendish. p. 53. ISBN 076141195X.
^ Ludlow, Peter, "Descriptions", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2008 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = [1].
^ Richard Rempel (1979). "From Imperialism to Free Trade: Couturat, Halevy and Russell's First Crusade". Journal of the History of Ideas 40 (3): 423–443. doi:10.2307/2709246.
^ Bertrand Russell (1988) [1917]. Political Ideals. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-10907-8.
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f ^g The Bertrand Russell Gallery
^ ^a ^b ^c ^d The Nobel Foundation (1950). Bertrand Russell: The Nobel Prize in Literature 1950. Retrieved on 11 June 2007.
^ ^a ^b Bloy, Marjie, Ph.D.. "Lord John Russell (1792-1878)". http://www.victorianweb.org/history/pms/russell.html. Retrieved 28 October 2007.
^ Cokayne, G.E.; Vicary Gibbs, H.A. Doubleday, Geoffrey H. White, Duncan Warrand and Lord Howard de Walden, editors. The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland, Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, Extant, Extinct or Dormant, new ed. 13 volumes in 14. 1910–1959. Reprint in 6 volumes, Gloucester, UK: Alan Sutton Publishing, 2000.
^ ^a ^b ^c Paul, Ashley. "Bertrand Russell: The Man and His Ideas.". http://www.oocities.com/vu3ash/index.html. Retrieved 28 October 2007.
^ Russell, Bertrand and Perkins, Ray (ed.) Yours faithfully, Bertrand Russell. Open Court Publishing, 2001, p. 4.
^ The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, p.38
^ Lenz, John R. (date unknown) (PDF). Bertrand Russell and the Greeks. http://digitalcommons.mcmaster.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1443&context=russelljournal. Retrieved 27 October 2007.
^ The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, p.35
^ "Bertrand Russell on God". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 1959. http://richarddawkins.net/articles/4833. Retrieved 8 March 2010.
^ Russell, the Hon. Bertrand Arthur William in Venn, J. & J. A., Alumni Cantabrigienses, Cambridge University Press, 10 vols, 1922–1958.
^ O'Connor, J. J.; E. F. Robertson (October 2003). "Alfred North Whitehead". School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland. http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Whitehead.html. Retrieved 8 November 2007.
^ Griffin, Nicholas; Albert C. Lewis. "Bertrand Russell's Mathematical Education". Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London, Vol. 44, No. 1.. pp. 51–71. http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0035-9149%28199001%2944%3A1%3C51%3ABRME%3E2.0.CO%3B2-Z. Retrieved 8 November 2007. (subscription required)
^ Wallenchinsky et al. (1981), "Famous Marriages Bertrand...Part 1".
^ Wallenchinsky et al. (1981), "Famous Marriages Bertrand...Part 3".
^ Kimball, Roger. "Love, logic & unbearable pity: The private Bertrand Russell". The New Criterion Vol. 11, No. 1, September 1992. The New Criterion. Archived from the original on 5 December 2006. http://web.archive.org/web/20061205032455/newcriterion.com/archive/11/sept92/brussell.htm. Retrieved 15 November 2007.
^ Simkin, John. "London School of Economics". http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/EDlse.htm. Retrieved 16 November 2007.
^ Russell, Bertrand (2001). Ray Perkins. ed. Yours Faithfully, Bertrand Russell: Letters to the Editor 1904-1969. Chicago: Open Court Publishing. p. 16. ISBN 0-8126-9449-X. http://books.google.com/books?id=EayyTTpXL-QC&pg=PA16&lpg=PA16. Retrieved 16 November 2007.
^ Russell on Wittgenstein
^ Vellacott, Jo (1980). Bertrand Russell and the Pacifists in the First World War. Brighton: Harvester Press. ISBN 0855274549.
^ "Bertrand Russell (1872-1970)". Farlex, Inc.. http://russell.thefreelibrary.com/. Retrieved 11 December 2007.
^ ""Bertrand Russell Reported Dead"" (PDF). The New York Times. 21 April 1921. http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9B01E7DB1739E133A25752C2A9629C946095D6CF&oref=slogin. Retrieved 11 December 2007.
^ Russell, Bertrand (2000). Richard A . Rempel. ed. "Uncertain Paths to Freedom: Russia and China, 1919-22". 15. Routledge. lxviii. ISBN 0415094119. http://books.google.com/books?id=qnaqY4gUyrAC&dq=mr+bertrand+russell+having+died+according+to+the+japanese+press.
^ Monk, Ray (2004; online edition, January 2008). "‘Russell, Bertrand Arthur William, third Earl Russell (1872–1970)’". Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford University Pressmonth=September. doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35875. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/35875. Retrieved 14 March 2008. (subscription required)
^ Inside Beacon Hill: Bertrand Russell as Schoolmaster. Jespersen, Shirley ERIC# EJ360344, published 1987
^ ^a ^b ""Dora Russell"". 12 May 2007. http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUrussellD.htm. Retrieved 17 February 2008.
^ Leberstein, Stephen (November/December 2001). ""Appointment Denied: The Inquisition of Bertrand Russell"". Academe. http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3860/is_200111/ai_n9008065/. Retrieved 17 February 2008.
^ [2] Einstein quotations and sources. Retrieved 9 July 2009.
^ ""Bertrand Russell"". 2006. http://www.philosophyprofessor.com/philosophers/bertrand-russell.php. Retrieved 17 February 2008.
^ Griffin, Nicholas (ed.) (2002). "The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell". Routledge. p. 660. ISBN 0415260124.
^ A philosopher’s letters | Love, Bertie | Economist.com
^ London Gazette: (Supplement) no. 38628, p. 2796, 3 June 1949. Retrieved on 11 March 2008.
^ Ronald W. Clark, Bertrand Russell and His World, p94. (1981) ISBN 0-500-13070-1
^ Russell, Bertrand; Albert Einstein (9 July 1955). ""Russell Einstein Manifesto"". http://www.ppu.org.uk/learn/texts/doc_russelleinstein_manif.html. Retrieved 17 February 2008.
^ Jerusalem International Book Fair
^ Russell, Bertrand; Perkins, Ray (2002). Yours faithfully, Bertrand Russell: a lifelong fight for peace, justice, and truth in letters to the editor. Chicago: Open Court. ISBN 0-8126-9450-3.
^ [3] Accessed 23 July 2009. The prologue for the autobiography was written in July, 1956.
^ Blanshard, in Paul Arthur Schilpp, ed., The Philosophy of Brand Blanshard, Open Court, 1980, p. 88, quoting a private letter from Russell.

References

Bertrand Russell. .1967–1969, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, 3 volumes, London: George Allen & Unwin.
Wallechinsky, David & Irving Wallace.
^ The Problems of Philosophy BERTRAND RUSSELL OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON OXFORD NEW YORK .
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
1975-1981, "Famous Marriages Bertrand Russell & Alla Pearsall Smith, Part 1" & "Part 3", on "Alys" Pearsall Smith, webpage content from The People's Almanac, webpages: Part 1 & Part 3 (accessed 8 November 2008).
Russell B, (1944) "My Mental Development", in Schilpp, Paul Arturn "The Philosophy of Betrand Russell", New York, Tudorm 1951, pp 3–20

External links

Writings available online

Works by Bertrand Russell at Project Gutenberg
"Mysticism" (1961)
"A Free Man's Worship" (1903)
"Am I an Atheist or an Agnostic?" (1947)
"Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization?" 1930
"Ideas that Have Harmed Mankind" (1950)
"In Praise of Idleness" (1932)
"What Desires Are Politically Important?" (1950)
Political Ideals (1917)
The Problems of Philosophy
Proposed Roads to Freedom (1918)
"16 Questions on the Assassination" (of President Kennedy)
The Analysis Of Mind
Russell, Bertrand (1953).
^ The Problems of Philosophy BERTRAND RUSSELL OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON OXFORD NEW YORK .
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell .
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ About the quote : President Kennedy lived 1917-1963.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
"What is an Agnostic?". Archived from the original on 2 February 2008. http://web.archive.org/web/20080203104023/http://www.control-z.com/pages/agnosticism.html.
Why I am not a Christian
The War and Non-Resistance—A Rejoinder to Professor Perry
War and Non-Resistance (1915)
The Ethics of War (1915)
Principia Mathematica (1910)
"The Elements of Ethics" (1910)
The Principles of Mathematics (1903)
An essay on the foundations of geometry
From: www.archive.org
- History of Western Philosophy (1946)
- My Philosophical Development (1959)
- Portraits from Memory and Other Essays (1956)
- Unpopular Essays (1950)
- Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1920)
- The Scientific Outlook (1954)
- An Outline of Philosophy (1951)
- Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare (1959)
- Our Knowledge of the External World (1914)
- Legitimacy Versus Industrialism 1814-1848 (1935)
- Authority and the Individual (1949)
- Education and the Social Order (1932)
- Nightmares of Eminent Persons and Other Stories (1954)
- Why Men Fight: A Method of Abolishing the International Duel (1917)
- Justice in Wartime (1917)
- Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (1917)
- The Autobiography Of Bertrand Russell 1872-1914 (1951)
- The Autobiography Of Bertrand Russell 1914-1944 (1956)
- Is There a God? (1952)

Audio

Works by Bertrand Russell in audio format from LibriVox
Bertrand Russell Audio Archive
In Praise of Idleness free mp3 recitation of Russell's essay of the same name, from the Audio Anarchy project
Sound clips of Bertrand Russell speaking

Other

Pembroke Lodge — childhood home and museum
The Bertrand Russell Society — a member organisation of the International Humanist and Ethical Union
The Bertrand Russell Society Quarterly
The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation
Bertrand Russell in Japan
O'Connor, John J.; Robertson, Edmund F., "Bertrand Russell", MacTutor History of Mathematics archive, University of St Andrews, http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Russell.html .
Biography and quotes of Bertrand Russell
Russell Photo Gallery
Photographs at the National Portrait Gallery
"Bertrand Russell" article by A.D. Irvine in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 1 May 2003
The Bertrand Russell Archives
Resource list
The First Reith Lecture given by Russell (Real Audio)
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Nobel Prize
Russell immediate family
Lecture about 1905, the philosophical landscale of Einstein in which Russell was central
Bertrand Russell at 100 Welsh Heroes
Key Participants: Bertrand Russell - Linus Pauling and the International Peace Movement: A Documentary History

Peerage of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Frank Russell	Earl Russell 1931–1970	Succeeded by John Russell

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Persondata
NAME	Russel, Bertrand Arthur William, 3rd Earl Russell
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
SHORT DESCRIPTION	philosopher, logician, and mathematician
DATE OF BIRTH	18 May 1872(1872-05-18)
PLACE OF BIRTH	Trellech, Monmouthshire, United Kingdom
DATE OF DEATH	2 February 1970
PLACE OF DEATH	Penrhyndeudraeth, Wales, United Kingdom

Quotes

Up to date as of January 14, 2010

From Wikiquote

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

To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true.

Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.^ Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.

Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]

^ Thus mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.

Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]

^ I do not mean that they doubt whether they exist, but that they have never become conscious of the fact that they have sensations and feelings, nor therefore of the fact that they, the subjects of their sensations and feelings, exist.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

People who have been puzzled by the beginnings of mathematics will, I hope, find comfort in this definition, and will probably agree that it is accurate.

.Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell (1872-05-18 – 1970-02-02) was a British mathematician, philosopher and logician.^ Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Columbia Encyclopedia - People Russell, Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3d Earl, 1872-1970, British philosopher, mathematician, and social reformer, b.

Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

^ What is philosophical logic for Bertrand Russell ?

Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

^ For more information on Bertrand (Arthur William) Russell, 3rd Earl Russell , visit Britannica.com .

Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

1 See also
2 Sourced
3 Disputed
4 Misattributed
5 Quotes about Russell
6 External links
- 6.1 Online writings

Sourced

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty.

I am looking forward very much to getting back to Cambridge, and being able to say what I think and not to mean what I say: two things which at home are impossible.^ I am looking forward very much to getting back to Cambridge, and being able to say what I think and not to mean what I say: two things which at home are impossible.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]

^ Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]

^ Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty — a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]

.Cambridge is one of the few places where one can talk unlimited nonsense and generalities without anyone pulling one up or confronting one with them when one says just the opposite the next day.
- Letter to Alys Pearsall Smith; published in The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell, Volume 1: The Private Years (1884–1914), edited by Nicholas Griffin.

Thee will find out in time that I have a great love of professing vile sentiments, I don’t know why, unless it springs from long efforts to avoid priggery.
^ Thee will find out in time that I have a great love of professing vile sentiments, I don’t know why, unless it springs from long efforts to avoid priggery.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ Letter to Alys Pearsall Smith (1894); published in The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell, Volume 1: The Private Years (1884–1914) , edited by Nicholas Griffin.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ Letter to Alys Pearsall Smith (1894).
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
.
- Letter to Alys Pearsall Smith (1894).
  ^ Letter to Alys Pearsall Smith (1894).
  Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
  ^ In 1894, after overcoming the opposition of his family, Russell married an American girl, Alys Pearsall Smith.
  Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
  ^ Letter to Alys Pearsall Smith (1894); published in The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell, Volume 1: The Private Years (1884–1914) , edited by Nicholas Griffin.
  Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
  Smith was a Quaker, thus the archaic use of "Thee" in this and other letters to her.

Mathematics takes us still further from what is human, into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the world, but every possible world, must conform.

Thee might observe incidentally that if the state paid for child-bearing it might and ought to require a medical certificate that the parents were such as to give a reasonable result of a healthy child — this would afford a very good inducement to some sort of care for the race, and gradually as public opinion became educated by the law, it might react on the law and make that more stringent, until one got to some state of things in which there would be a little genuine care for the race, instead of the present haphazard higgledy-piggledy ways.
^ Thee might observe incidentally that if the state paid for child-bearing it might and ought to require a medical certificate that the parents were such as to give a reasonable result of a healthy child — this would afford a very good inducement to some sort of care for the race, and gradually as public opinion became educated by the law, it might react on the law and make that more stringent, until one got to some state of things in which there would be a little genuine care for the race, instead of the present haphazard higgledy-piggledy ways.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ Let us take some illustrations.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ One more such victory and we are undone.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
.
- Letter to Alys Pearsall Smith (1894); published in The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell, Volume 1: The Private Years (1884–1914), edited by Nicholas Griffin.
  ^ Letter to Alys Pearsall Smith (1894); published in The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell, Volume 1: The Private Years (1884–1914) , edited by Nicholas Griffin.
  Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
  ^ Letter to Alys Pearsall Smith (1894).
  Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
  ^ Wikipedia has an article about: Bertrand Russell Wikisource has original works written by or about: Bertrand Russell Works by Bertrand Russell at Project Gutenberg Biography and quotes of Bertrand Russell The Bertrand Russell Archives Quotes from Russell selected by Alan Nicoll Bertrand Russell's Views on Religion [ edit ] Online writings .
  Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
  .It should be noted that in his talk of "the race", he is referring to "the human race". Smith married Russell in December 1894; they divorced in 1921.

Pure mathematics consists entirely of assertions to the effect that, if such and such a proposition is true of anything, then such and such another proposition is true of that thing. It is essential not to discuss whether the first proposition is really true, and not to mention what the anything is, of which it is supposed to be true ...
^ Pure mathematics consists entirely of assertions to the effect that, if such and such a proposition is true of anything , then such and such another proposition is true of that thing.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ It is essential not to discuss whether the first proposition is really true, and not to mention what the anything is, of which it is supposed to be true ...
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ Smith married Russell in December 1894; they divorced in 1921.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
.If our hypothesis is about anything, and not about some one or more particular things, then our deductions constitute mathematics.
^ The one thing we know about it is that it is not what it seems.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ If our hypothesis is about anything , and not about some one or more particular things, then our deductions constitute mathematics.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ Thus it would seem that, in some way or other, a description known to be applicable to a particular must involve some reference to a particular with which we are acquainted, if our knowledge about the thing described is not to be merely what follows logically from the description.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Thus mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true. People who have been puzzled by the beginnings of mathematics will, I hope, find comfort in this definition, and will probably agree that it is accurate.
^ Mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ Thus mathematics may be defined as the subject in which we never know what we are talking about, nor whether what we are saying is true.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ People who have been puzzled by the beginnings of mathematics will, I hope, find comfort in this definition, and will probably agree that it is accurate.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
.
- Recent Work on the Principles of Mathematics, published in International Monthly, vol.
  ^ Recent Work on the Principles of Mathematics, published in International Monthly, vol.
  Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
  ^ The whole study of the heavens, which now belongs to astronomy, was once included in philosophy; Newton's great work was called 'the mathematical principles of natural philosophy'.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  4 (1901)

People are said to believe in God, or to disbelieve in Adam and Eve. .But in such cases what is believed or disbelieved is that there is an entity answering a certain description.

It is true that numerous instances are not always necessary to establish a law, provided the essential and relevant circumstances can easily be disentangled.^ But in such cases what is believed or disbelieved is that there is an entity answering a certain description.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]

^ It is true that numerous instances are not always necessary to establish a law, provided the essential and relevant circumstances can easily be disentangled.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]

^ This, which can be believed or disbelieved is quite different from the actual entity (if any) which does answer the description.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]

.But, in history, so many circumstances of a small and accidental nature are relevant, that no broad and simple uniformities are possible. Where our main endeavour is to discover general laws, we regard these as intrinsically more valuable than any of the facts which they inter-connect.
^ But, in history, so many circumstances of a small and accidental nature are relevant, that no broad and simple uniformities are possible.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ Where our main endeavour is to discover general laws, we regard these as intrinsically more valuable than any of the facts which they inter-connect.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ But further, if we are not to fail in our endeavour to determine the value of philosophy, we must first free our minds from the prejudices of what are wrongly called 'practical' men.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.In astronomy, the law of gravitation is plainly better worth knowing than the position of a particular planet on a particular night, or even on every night throughout a year.
^ In astronomy, the law of gravitation is plainly better worth knowing than the position of a particular planet on a particular night, or even on every night throughout a year.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ It is true that we have a greater body of evidence from the past in favour of the laws of motion than we have in favour of the sunrise, because the sunrise is merely a particular case of fulfilment of the laws of motion, and there are countless other particular cases.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ I had supposed that most people liked money better than almost anything else, but I discovered that they liked destruction even better.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
There are in the law a splendour and simplicity and sense of mastery which illuminate a mass of otherwise uninteresting details... But in history the matter is far otherwise... Historical facts, many of them, have an intrinsic value, a profound interest on their own account, which makes them worthy of study, quite apart from any possibility of linking them together by means of causal laws.
- On History (1904)

A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.

The number of syllables in the English names of finite integers tends to increase as the integers grow larger, and must gradually increase indefinitely, since only a finite number of names can be made with a given finite number of syllables.
^ Political ideals must be based upon ideals for the individual life.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ On our answer to this question must depend the validity of the whole of our expectations as to the future, the whole of the results obtained by induction, and in fact practically all the beliefs upon which our daily life is based.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But we also know that the number of integers is infinite, and that only a finite number of pairs of integers ever have been or ever will be thought of by human beings.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Hence the names of some integers must consist of at least nineteen syllables, and among these there must be a least.
^ Hence the names of some integers must consist of at least nineteen syllables, and among these there must be a least.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ Hence "the least integer not nameable in fewer than nineteen syllables" must denote a definite integer; in fact, it denotes 111, 777.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ But "the least integer not nameable in fewer than nineteen syllables" is itself a name consisting of eighteen syllables; hence the least integer not nameable in fewer than nineteen syllables can be named in eighteen syllables, which is a contradiction.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
.Hence "the least integer not nameable in fewer than nineteen syllables" must denote a definite integer; in fact, it denotes 111, 777. But "the least integer not nameable in fewer than nineteen syllables" is itself a name consisting of eighteen syllables; hence the least integer not nameable in fewer than nineteen syllables can be named in eighteen syllables, which is a contradiction.
^ Hence, once more, the value of philosophy must not depend upon any supposed body of definitely ascertainable knowledge to be acquired by those who study it.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Kant's 'thing in itself' is identical in definition with the physical object, namely, it is the cause of sensations.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The number of syllables in the English names of finite integers tends to increase as the integers grow larger, and must gradually increase indefinitely, since only a finite number of names can be made with a given finite number of syllables.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
This contradiction was suggested to us by Mr. G. G. Berry of the Bodleian Library. .
- Principia Mathematica, written with Alfred North Whitehead, (1910), vol.
  ^ Principia Mathematica, written with Alfred North Whitehead , (1910), vol.
  Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
  ^ From that moment until [Alfred North] Whitehead and I finished Principia Mathematica, when I was 38, mathematics was my chief interest and my chief source of happiness."
  Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
  ^ Born: 18 May 1872 Birthplace: Trelleck, Wales Died: 2 February 1970 Best Known As: The deep-thinking co-author of Principia Mathematica While teaching mathematics at Cambridge University, Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead published Principia Mathematica (1910-13), an ambitious attempt to prove that mathematics was grounded in logic.
  Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
  I, Introduction, ch. .II: The Theory of Logical Types.
  ^ II: The Theory of Logical Types.
  Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
  This is a statement of the Berry paradox.

No nation was ever so virtuous as each believes itself, and none was ever so wicked as each believes the other.

People are said to believe in God, or to disbelieve in Adam and Eve.^ If some peoples pretend that history or geography gives them the right to subjugate other races, nations, or peoples, there can be no peace.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^ It may be said, of course, that I judge this because of other people's acquaintance with him.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ What is called belief or judgement is nothing but this relation of believing or judging, which relates a mind to several things other than itself.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

.But in such cases what is believed or disbelieved is that there is an entity answering a certain description. This, which can be believed or disbelieved is quite different from the actual entity (if any) which does answer the description.
^ But in such cases what is believed or disbelieved is that there is an entity answering a certain description.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ This, which can be believed or disbelieved is quite different from the actual entity (if any) which does answer the description.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ Such cases actually occur at present.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
.Thus the matter of belief is, in all cases, different in kind from the matter of sensation or presentation, and error is in no way analogous to hallucination.
^ In fact, truth and falsehood are properties of beliefs and statements: hence a world of mere matter, since it would contain no beliefs or statements, would also contain no truth or falsehood.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But if this sort of interest is included, it is not the case that matter has no importance for us, provided it exists even if we cannot know that it exists.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ On the side of material production, the world is living too fast; in a kind of delirium, almost all the energy of the world has rushed into the immediate production of something, no matter what, and no matter at what cost.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
.A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.
^ On History (1904) A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based upon it.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ In this way what seemed mysterious in our a priori knowledge is seen to have been based upon an error.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.
- On the Nature of Acquaintance: Neutral Monism (1914)

In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word “experience” have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word.
^ On the Nature of Acquaintance: Neutral Monism (1914) In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word “experience” have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ On the Nature of Acquaintance: Neutral Monism (1914) Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and justification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ Russell led the British "revolt against idealism " in the early 1900s.
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
.It is to be feared, however, that if the word is avoided the confusions of thought with which it has been associated may persist.
^ It is to be feared, however, that if the word is avoided the confusions of thought with which it has been associated may persist.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ I should urge, however, that all the reasons which led our authors to avoid introducing images in explaining meaning should have also led them to avoid introducing "thoughts."
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
.
- On the Nature of Acquaintance: Neutral Monism (1914)

Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and justification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical.
^ THE word 'idealism' is used by different philosophers in somewhat different senses.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ On the Nature of Acquaintance: Neutral Monism (1914) Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and justification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ On the Nature of Acquaintance: Neutral Monism (1914) In the revolt against idealism, the ambiguities of the word “experience” have been perceived, with the result that realists have more and more avoided the word.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
.
- Our Knowledge of the External World as a Field for Scientific Method in Philosophy (1914)

No nation was ever so virtuous as each believes itself, and none was ever so wicked as each believes the other.
- Justice in War-Time (1916)

It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly.
^ In this war as in others I am less interested in honoring the dead than in preventing the dead.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ What is more immoral than war?
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
.
- Principles of Social Reconstruction (1917)

...it [is] possible to suppose that, if Russia is allowed to have peace, an amazing industrial development may take place, making Russia a rival of the United States.
^ In fixing prices, the state should, as far as possible, allow each industry to profit by any improvements which it might introduce into its own processes, but should endeavor to prevent undeserved loss or gain through changes in external economic conditions.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ But in regard to any fact, besides the knowledge constituted by belief, we may also have the kind of knowledge constituted by perception (taking this word in its widest possible sense).
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ This principle, however, does not decide how the relations between states are to be regulated, or how a conflict of interests between rival states is to be decided.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
.
- The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920)

One who believes as I do, that free intellect is the chief engine of human progress, cannot but be fundamentally opposed to Bolshevism as much as to the Church of Rome.
^ Among his many works on social and political topics are Roads to Freedom (1918); The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920), a scathing critique of Soviet communism; On Education (1926); and Marriage and Morals (1929).
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ Of his generation at Cambridge, Russell later wrote, "We believed in ordered progress by means of politics and free discussion."
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ The whole realm of thought and opinion is utterly unsuited to public control; it ought to be as free, and as spontaneous as is possible to those who know what others have believed.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
.
The hopes which inspire communism are, in the main, as admirable as those instilled by the Sermon on the Mount, but they are held as fanatically and are as likely to do as much harm.
- The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920)

There is no logical impossibility in the hypothesis that the world sprang into being five minutes ago, exactly as it then was, with a population that "remembered" a wholly unreal past.
^ Those who have advocated the social revolution have been mistaken in their political methods, chiefly because they have not realized how many people there are in the community whose sympathies and interests lie half on the side of capital, half on the side of labor.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Our nature is as much a fact of the existing world as anything, and there can be no certainty that it will remain constant.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Every man has it in his being to develop into something good or bad: there is a best possible for him, and a worst possible.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
.
There is no logically necessary connection between events at different times; therefore nothing that is happening now or will happen in the future can disprove the hypothesis that the world began five minutes ago.
- The Analysis of Mind (1921), p.
  ^ There is no security at the top of the world.
  Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
  ^ In time, similarly, however little time may elapse between two moments, it seems evident that there will be other moments between them.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ There is no logical impossibility in the supposition that the whole of life is a dream, in which we ourselves create all the objects that come before us.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  159 Full text online

The white population of the world will soon cease to increase. .The Asiatic races will be longer, and the negroes still longer, before their birth rate falls sufficiently to make their numbers stable without help of war and pestilence....
^ Under the same circumstances, a sufficient number of cases of association will make the probability of a fresh association nearly a certainty, and will make it approach certainty without limit.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Under the same circumstances, a sufficient number of cases of the association of A with B will make it nearly certain that A is always associated with B, and will make this general law approach certainty without limit.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Until that happens, the benefits aimed at by socialism can only be partially realized, and the less prolific races will have to defend themselves against the more prolific by methods which are disgusting even if they are necessary.
^ Those who have advocated the social revolution have been mistaken in their political methods, chiefly because they have not realized how many people there are in the community whose sympathies and interests lie half on the side of capital, half on the side of labor.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ When they come to explaining matter, they either say, like Berkeley, that matter is really nothing but a collection of ideas, or they say, like Leibniz (1646-1716), that what appears as matter is really a collection of more or less rudimentary minds.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The Absolute Idea, therefore, is adequate to describe Absolute Reality; but all lower ideas only describe ality as it appears to a partial view, not as it is to one who simultaneously surveys the Whole.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.
- The Prospects of Industrial Civilization (1923)

To save the world requires faith and courage: faith in reason, and courage to proclaim what reason shows to be true.
- The Prospects of Industrial Civilization (1923)

It seems to me that science has a much greater likelihood of being true in the main than any philosophy hitherto advanced (I do not, of course, except my own).
^ No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their own country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate?
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ It is true that we have a greater body of evidence from the past in favour of the laws of motion than we have in favour of the sunrise, because the sunrise is merely a particular case of fulfilment of the laws of motion, and there are countless other particular cases.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ My own work in this science was based chiefly upon the work of a German and an Italian.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
.In science there are many matters about which people are agreed; in philosophy there are none.
^ Thus, if there are to be public neutral objects, which can be m some sense known to many different people, there must be something over and above the private and particular sense-data which appear to various people.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ There can be no doubt that the hope of finding reason to believe such theses as these has been the chief inspiration of many life-long students of philosophy.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ There are in this argument a good many fallacies which have been important in the history of philosophy, and which it will be as well to bring to light.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Therefore, although each proposition in a science may be false, and it is practically certain that there are some that are false, yet we shall be wise to build our philosophy upon science, because the risk of error in philosophy is pretty sure to be greater than in science. If we could hope for certainty in philosophy, the matter would be otherwise, but so far as I can see such a hope would be chimerical.
^ In more scientific matters, it is certain that there are often two or more hypotheses which account for all the known facts on some subject, and although, in such cases, men of science endeavour to find facts which will rule out all the hypotheses except one, there is no reason why they should always succeed.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ We may hope, in a mystic illumination, to see the ideas as we see objects of sense; and we may imagine that the ideas exist in heaven.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ If we imagine a world of mere matter, there would be no room for falsehood in such a world, and although it would contain what may be called 'facts', it would not contain any truths, in the sense in which truths are thins of the same kind as falsehoods.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.
- Logical Atomism (1924)

There is a further advantage [to hydrogen bombs]: the supply of uranium in the planet is very limited, and it might be feared that it would be used up before the human race was exterminated, but now that the practically unlimited supply of hydrogen can be utilized, there is considerable reason to hope that homo sapiens may put an end to himself, to the great advantage of such less ferocious animals as may survive.
^ In his Inquiry into Meaning and Truth and Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits, Russell offered provocative opinions about the ways truth claims can be assessed, and he outlined a set of principles for use in defending the validity of inductive reasoning.
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ The reason is that this proposition cannot be understood at all unless we know that there are such people as Brown and Jones and Robinson and Smith, and this we can only know by experience.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ For this reason, the true ends of democracy are not achieved by state socialism or by any system which places great power in the hands of men subject to no popular control except that which is more or less indirectly exercised through parliament.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
But it is time to return to less cheerful topics.
- The ABC of Relativity (1925)

Neither acquiescence in skepticism nor acquiescence in dogma is what education should produce.

Most people would die sooner than think — in fact they do so.
- The ABC of Relativity (1925), p.
  ^ Sense-data, as we have already seen, are among the things with which we are acquainted; in fact, they supply the most obvious and striking example of knowledge by acquaintance.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ But it is fairly obvious that they cannot be proved by experience; for the fact that a thing exists or does not exist cannot prove either that it is good that it should exist or that it is bad.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ And it is even harder to think of a new idea than to get it accepted; most people might spend a lifetime in reflection without ever making a genuinely original discovery.
  Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
  .
  166
  - Variant: "Most people would rather die than think; many do."

The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
- What I Believe (1925)

Neither acquiescence in skepticism nor acquiescence in dogma is what education should produce. What it should produce is a belief that knowledge is attainable in a measure, though with difficulty; that much of what passes for knowledge at any given time is likely to be more or less mistaken, but that the mistakes can be rectified by care and industry.
^ Most people would rather die than think: many do.
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ I think, therefore I am' says rather more than is strictly certain.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Most philosophers, rightly or wrongly, believe that philosophy can do much more than this -- that it can give us knowledge, not otherwise attainable, concerning the universe as a whole, and concerning the nature of ultimate reality.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.In acting upon our beliefs, we should be very cautious where a small error would mean disaster; nevertheless it is upon our beliefs that we must act. This state of mind is rather difficult: it requires a high degree of intellectual culture without emotional atrophy.
^ When Othello believes that Desdemona loves Cassio, he must not have before his mind a single object, 'Desdemona's love for Cassio', or 'that Desdemona loves Cassio', for that would require that there should be objective falsehoods, which subsist independently of any minds; and this, though not logically refutable, is a theory to be avoided if possible.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ This immediate knowledge by memory is the source of all our knowledge concerning the past: without it, there could be no knowledge of the past by inference we should never know that there was anything past to be inferred.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ If belief were so regarded, we should find that, like acquaintance, it would not admit of the opposition of truth and falsehood, but would have to be always true.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
But though difficult, it is not impossible; it is in fact the scientific temper. .Knowledge, like other good things, is difficult, but not impossible; the dogmatist forgets the difficulty, the skeptic denies the possibility.^ If one man is a great artist or poet, that does not prevent others from painting pictures or writing poems, but helps to create the atmosphere in which such things are possible.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]

^ We have therefore to consider acquaintance with other things besides sense-data if we are to obtain any tolerably adequate analysis of our knowledge.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ But even here the word 'like' denotes a universal, for I may like other things, and other people may like things.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

.Both are mistaken, and their errors, when widespread, produce social disaster.
- On Education, Especially in Early Childhood (1926)

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.
^ "In early society," says Westermarck, "customs are not only moral rules, but the only moral rules ever thought of.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Hate is able to provoke disorders, to ruin a social organization, to cast a country into a period of bloody revolutions; but it produces nothing.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
- Why I Am Not a Christian (1927-03-06); this has often been misquoted as "The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world."

The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.

I do not think that the real reason why people accept religion has anything to do with argumentation.
^ 'I think, therefore I am, ' he said ( Cogito, ergo sum ); and on the basis of this certainty he set to work to build up again the world of knowledge which his doubt had laid in ruins.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Here we have already the beginning of one of the distinctions that cause most trouble in philosophy -- the distinction between 'appearance' and 'reality', between what things seem to be and what they are.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ And it is even harder to think of a new idea than to get it accepted; most people might spend a lifetime in reflection without ever making a genuinely original discovery.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
They accept religion on emotional grounds. .One is often told that it is a very wrong thing to attack religion, because religion makes men virtuous.
^ This may be made plain by the attempt to imagine two different worlds, in one of which there are men who are not mortal, while in the other two and two make five.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The argument is not disproved by the fact that some swans are black, because a thing may very well happen in spite of the fact that some data render it improbable.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But any statement as to what it is that our immediate experiences make us know is very likely to be wrong.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
So I am told; I have not noticed it. .
- Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)

Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear.
^ Why I Am Not A Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects (edited by Paul Edwards), London: George Allen & Unwin.
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
.It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes...
^ We all have to be concerned about terrorism, but you will never end terrorism by terrorizing others.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Light and heat and sound are all due to wave-motions, which travel from the body emitting them to the person who sees light or feels heat or hears sound.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.
A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men.
- Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)

I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue.
^ They may make a man's happiness depend upon what he adds to the general possessions of the world, or upon what he can secure for himself of the private goods in which others cannot share.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ In the East, men are subject to different laws according to the religion they profess.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Men are fighting...because they are convinced that the extermination of adversaries is the only means of promoting their own well-being.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
.
- Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)

The most essential characteristic of scientific technique is that it proceeds from experiment, not from tradition. The experimental habit of mind is a difficult one for most people to maintain ; indeed, the science of one generation has already become the tradition of the next...
^ What Kant maintained was that in all our experience there are two elements to be distinguished, the one due to the object (i.e.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Here we have already the beginning of one of the distinctions that cause most trouble in philosophy -- the distinction between 'appearance' and 'reality', between what things seem to be and what they are.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Things which we see become associated, by habit, with certain tactile sensations which we expect if we touch them; one of the horrors of a ghost (in many ghost-stories) is that it fails to give us any sensations of touch.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.
- The Scientific Outlook (1931)

I found one day in school a boy of medium size ill-treating a smaller boy.^ And no one would maintain that parents should have unlimited freedom to ill-treat their children.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]

I expostulated, but he replied: "The bigs hit me, so I hit the babies; that's fair." In these words he epitomized the history of the human race.
- Education and the Social Order (1932)

Science is always tentative, expecting that modification in its present theories will sooner or later be found necessary, and aware that its method is one which is logically incapable of arriving at a complete and final demonstration.

Force plays a much larger part in the government of the world than it did before 1914, and what is especially alarming, force tends increasingly to fall into the hands of those who are enemies of civilization. The danger is profound and terrible; it cannot be waved aside with easy optimism.
^ Nevertheless, there are matters which such a body could settle much better than any existing instrument of government.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Thus we are left to the piecemeal investigation of the world, and are unable to know the characters of those parts of the universe that are remote from our experience.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ This knowledge scarcely rises into consciousness, except in a person who cannot read easily.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modern world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
^ The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
.Even those of the intelligent who believe that they have a nostrum are too individualistic to combine with other intelligent men from whom they differ on minor points.
^ It would be utterly absurd to maintain that the men who inherit great wealth deserve better of the community than those who have to work for their living.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ History teaches us that men and nations behave wisely once they have exhausted all other alternatives.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ It is evident from what we have found, that there is no colour which preeminently appears to be the colour of the table, or even of any one particular part of the table -- it appears to be of different colours from different points of view, and there is no reason for regarding some of these as more really its colour than others.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
This was not always the case. .
- "The Triumph of Stupidity" (1933-05-10) in Mortals and Others: Bertrand Russell's American Essays, 1931-1935 (Routledge, 1998, ISBN 0-415-17866-5), p.
  ^ See American Civil Liberties Union, The Story of the Bertrand Russell Case (1941); J. Dewey and H. M. Kallen, ed., The Bertrand Russell Case (1941, repr.
  Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
  ^ Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy , London: George Allen & Unwin, ( ISBN 0-415-09604-9 for Routledge paperback) ( Copy at Archive.org ).
  Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
  ^ ISBN 0-500-13070-1 ^ Russell, Bertrand; Albert Einstein (1955-07-09).
  Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
  .28

A religious creed differs from a scientific theory in claiming to embody eternal and absolutely certain truth, whereas science is always tentative, expecting that modification in its present theories will sooner or later be found necessary, and aware that its method is one which is logically incapable of arriving at a complete and final demonstration.
^ In this respect our theory of belief must differ from our theory of acquaintance, since in the case of acquaintance it was not necessary to take account of any opposite.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ In more scientific matters, it is certain that there are often two or more hypotheses which account for all the known facts on some subject, and although, in such cases, men of science endeavour to find facts which will rule out all the hypotheses except one, there is no reason why they should always succeed.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Our theory of truth, to begin with, supplies the possibility of distinguishing certain truths as self-evident in a sense which ensures infallibility.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Religion and Science (1935), Ch. .I: Ground of Conflict

While it is true that science cannot decide questions of value, that is because they cannot be intellectually decided at all, and lie outside the realm of truth and falsehood.
^ But in spite of the truth of their belief, they cannot be said to have knowledge.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ If belief were so regarded, we should find that, like acquaintance, it would not admit of the opposition of truth and falsehood, but would have to be always true.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Since erroneous beliefs are often held just as strongly as true beliefs, it becomes a difficult question how they are to be distinguished from true beliefs.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.
^ Whatever we are acquainted with must be something; we may draw wrong inferences from our acquaintance, but the acquaintance itself cannot be deceptive.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ His 'methodical doubt' consisted in doubting whatever seemed doubtful; in pausing, with each apparent piece of knowledge, to ask himself whether, on reflection, he could feel certain that he really knew it.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ It must be taken as a fact, discovered by reflecting upon our knowledge, that we have the power of sometimes perceiving such relations between universals, and therefore of sometimes knowing general a priori propositions such as those of arithmetic and logic.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Religion and Science (1935), ch. IX: Science of Ethics

Naive realism leads to physics, and physics, if true, shows naive realism to be false.

Religions, which condemn the pleasures of sense, drive men to seek the pleasures of power. Throughout history power has been the vice of the ascetic.
^ For these reasons it is likely that, even after a syndicalist revolution, actual power would fall into the hands of men who were not really syndicalists.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ It is probable that, in these cases, what is really remembered, in the sense of being immediately before the mind, is something other than what is falsely believed in, though something generally associated with it.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ In Our Knowledge of the External World Russell tried to show that physical objects are logical constructions out of actual and possible sense-data.
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
- The New York Herald-Tribune Magazine (1938-03-06)

Science seems to be at war with itself.... .Naive realism leads to physics, and physics, if true, shows naive realism to be false.^ As soon as we see what the proposition means, even if we do not yet know whether it is true or false, it is evident that we must have acquaintance with whatever is really dealt with by the proposition.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ If this, which we believe when we believe the law of contradiction, were not true of the things in the world, the fact that we were compelled to think it true would not save the law of contradiction from being false; and this shows that the law is not a law of thought .
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

.Therefore naive realism, if true, is false; therefore it is false.
- An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (1940)

I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy.
^ 'Knowledge by acquaintance and knowledge by description', Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society , ns 11 (1910–11); The Problems of Philosophy (1912); Our Knowledge of the External World (1914); The Analysis of Mind (1921); The Analysis of Matter (1927); An Outline of Philosophy (1927); An Inquiry into Meaning and Truth (1940); The History of Western Philosophy (1946); Human Knowledge (1948); My Philosophical Development (1959).
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ But among our instinctive beliefs some are much stronger than others, while many have, by habit and association, become entangled with other beliefs, not really instinctive, but falsely supposed to be part of what is believed instinctively.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Such generalizations always remain mere facts: we feel that there might be a world in which they were false, though in the actual world they happen to be true.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Quoted in Library of Living Philosophers: The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell (1944)

Whatever we know without inference is mental.

Aristotle, as a philosopher, is in many ways very different from all his predecessors.
^ This immediate knowledge by memory is the source of all our knowledge concerning the past: without it, there could be no knowledge of the past by inference we should never know that there was anything past to be inferred.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The principles of inference are apt to be overlooked because of their very obviousness -- the assumption involved is assented to without our realizing that it is an assumption.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ We know that on very many subjects different people hold different and incompatible opinions: hence some beliefs must be erroneous.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.He is the first to write like a professor: his treatises are systematic, his discussions are divided into heads, he is a professional teacher, not an inspired prophet.
^ IN regard to one man's knowledge at a given time, universals, like particulars, may be divided into those known by acquaintance, those known only by description, and those not known either by acquaintance or by description.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
His work is critical, careful, pedestrian, without any trace of Bacchic enthusiasm. .The Orphic elements in Plato are watered down in Aristotle, and mixed with a strong dose of common sense; where he is Platonic, one feels that his natural temperament has been overpowered by the teaching to which he has been subjected.
^ And although acquaintance with a thing is involved in our knowing any one proposition about a thing, knowledge of its 'nature', in the above sense, is not involved.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The view which led to their being so named is a natural one, but there are strong reasons for thinking that it is erroneous.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ In his Analysis of Mind (1921) Russell went still further to argue that from sense-data, regarded as neutral elements, one can construct both mind and matter.
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
He is not passionate, or in any profound sense religious. .The errors of his predecessors were the glorious errors of youth attempting the impossible; his errors are those of age which cannot free itself of habitual prejudices.
^ But those who have ever attempted any real innovation cannot help feeling that the people they know are not so very unlike the Tinnevelly Shanars.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
He is best in detail and in criticism; he fails in large construction, for lack of fundamental clarity and Titanic fire.
- "Aristotle’s Metaphysics," History of Western Philosophy (1945)

I do not believe that I am now dreaming, but I cannot prove that I am not.^ It follows that we cannot prove that the universe as a whole forms a single harmonious system such as Hegel believes that it forms.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

.I am, however, quite certain that I am having certain experiences, whether they be those of a dream or those of waking life.

It is entirely clear that there is only one way in which great wars can be permanently prevented, and that is the establishment of an international government with a monopoly of serious armed force.
^ We do not naturally dwell upon those words in a sentence which do not stand for particulars; and if we are forced to dwell upon a word which stands for a universal, we naturally think of it as standing for some one of the particulars that come under the universal.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The first is that there is no reason to suppose that only one coherent body of beliefs is possible.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The reason is that this proposition cannot be understood at all unless we know that there are such people as Brown and Jones and Robinson and Smith, and this we can only know by experience.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.
- "The Atomic Bomb and the Prevention of War" in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (1945-10-01)

Whatever we know without inference is mental.
- Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948)

I do not believe that I am now dreaming, but I cannot prove that I am not.^ Without effort and change, human life cannot remain good.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]

^ Whatever we are acquainted with must be something; we may draw wrong inferences from our acquaintance, but the acquaintance itself cannot be deceptive.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ This immediate knowledge by memory is the source of all our knowledge concerning the past: without it, there could be no knowledge of the past by inference we should never know that there was anything past to be inferred.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

.I am, however, quite certain that I am having certain experiences, whether they be those of a dream or those of waking life.
- Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948)

Can a society in which thought and technique are scientific persist for a long period, as, for example, ancient Egypt persisted, or does it necessarily contain within itself forces which must bring either decay or explosion?
^ In his Inquiry into Meaning and Truth and Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits, Russell offered provocative opinions about the ways truth claims can be assessed, and he outlined a set of principles for use in defending the validity of inductive reasoning.
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ A man does right, as a rule, to have his thoughts more occupied with the interests of his own nation than with those of others, because his actions are more likely to affect his own nation.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ IN regard to one man's knowledge at a given time, universals, like particulars, may be divided into those known by acquaintance, those known only by description, and those not known either by acquaintance or by description.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- "Can a Scientific Community Be Stable?," Lecture, Royal Society of Medicine, London (1949-11-29)

Humankind has become so much one family that we cannot insure our own prosperity except by insuring that of everyone else.^ But among our instinctive beliefs some are much stronger than others, while many have, by habit and association, become entangled with other beliefs, not really instinctive, but falsely supposed to be part of what is believed instinctively.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ Violence is an admission that one's ideas and goals cannot prevail on their own merits.

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^ We can know, for example, that the earth and moon and sun are in one straight line during an eclipse, though we cannot know what a physical straight line is in itself, as we know the look of a straight line in our visual space.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

.If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy.

All who are not lunatics are agreed about certain things. That it is better to be alive than dead, better to be adequately fed than starved, better to be free than a slave.
^ Thus it would seem that, in some way or other, a description known to be applicable to a particular must involve some reference to a particular with which we are acquainted, if our knowledge about the thing described is not to be merely what follows logically from the description.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ It would be utterly absurd to maintain that the men who inherit great wealth deserve better of the community than those who have to work for their living.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ We are all in the habit of judging as to the 'real' shapes of things, and we do this so unreflectingly that we come to think we actually see the real shapes.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Many people desire those things only for themselves and their friends; they are quite content that their enemies should suffer.
^ Those who have advocated the social revolution have been mistaken in their political methods, chiefly because they have not realized how many people there are in the community whose sympathies and interests lie half on the side of capital, half on the side of labor.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ The things which he will desire for his own country will no longer be things which can only be acquired at the expense of others, but rather those things in which the excellence of any one country is to the advantage of all the world.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ The mathematicians, however, have not been content with showing that space as it is commonly supposed to be is possible; they have shown also that many other forms of space are equally possible, so far as logic can show.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.These people can only be refuted by science: Humankind has become so much one family that we cannot ensure our own prosperity except by ensuring that of everyone else.^ But among our instinctive beliefs some are much stronger than others, while many have, by habit and association, become entangled with other beliefs, not really instinctive, but falsely supposed to be part of what is believed instinctively.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ And if the cat consists only of sense-data, it cannot be hungry , since no hunger but my own can be a sense-datum to me.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ The reason is that this proposition cannot be understood at all unless we know that there are such people as Brown and Jones and Robinson and Smith, and this we can only know by experience.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

.If you wish to be happy yourself, you must resign yourself to seeing others also happy.
- "The Science to Save Us from Science," The New York Times Magazine (1950-03-19)

Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
- Commandment 7 of "A Liberal Decalogue", from "The Best Answer to Fanaticism: Liberalism," The New York Times (1951-12-16); later printed in The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1969), vol.
  ^ Bertrand Russell on philosphy of science?
  Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
  ^ See the Bertrand Russell biography from Who2.
  Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
  ^ If you ask a mathematician, a mineralogist, a historian, or any other man of learning, what definite body of truths has been ascertained by his science, his answer will last as long as you are willing to listen.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  3: 1944-1967, pp. 71-2

It is sometimes maintained that racial mixture is biologically undesirable. .There is no evidence whatever for this view.
^ There is no evidence whatever for this view.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
^ Scientifically, there is no evidence that it is concerned with us either one way or the other.
Philosophy Professor | Bertrand Arthur William Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.philosophyprofessor.com [Source type: Original source]
^ It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.
Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]
.Nor is there, apparently, any reason to think that Negroes are congenitally less intelligent than white people, but as to that it will be difficult to judge until they have equal scope and equally good social conditions.
^ Political and social institutions are to be judged by the good or harm that they do to individuals.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Since this belief does not lead to any difficulties, but on the contrary tends to simplify and systematize our account of our experiences, there seems no good reason for rejecting it.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ And it is even harder to think of a new idea than to get it accepted; most people might spend a lifetime in reflection without ever making a genuinely original discovery.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
.
- New Hopes for a Changing World (1951)

Written words differ from spoken words in being material structures.
^ Peace is a daily, a weekly, a monthly process, gradually changing opinions, slowly eroding old barriers, quietly building new structures.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
.A spoken word is a process in the physical world, having an essential time-order; a written word is a series of pieces of matter, having an essential space-order.
^ Hence we regard the order as true also in physical space, whereas the shape is only supposed to correspond to the physical space so far as is required for the preservation of the order.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ It is not only colours and sounds and so on that are absent from the scientific world of matter, but also space as we get it through sight or touch.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ It is essential to science that its matter should be in a space, but the space in which it is cannot be exactly the space we see or feel.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- An Outline of Philosophy, ch. 4 (1951)

I have been accused of a habit of changing my opinions ... I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions. .What physicist who was already active in 1900 would dream of boasting that his opinions had not changed during the last half century?
^ For generations the opinion would be cherished in secret by a handful of cranks, who would not be able to act upon it.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
.In science men change their opinions when new knowledge becomes available; but philosophy in the minds of many is assimilated rather to theology than to science.
^ But further, if we are not to fail in our endeavour to determine the value of philosophy, we must first free our minds from the prejudices of what are wrongly called 'practical' men.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ There should be an attempt, therefore, to encourage, rather than discourage, the expression of new beliefs and the dissemination of knowledge tending to support them.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Thus, while our knowledge of what is has become less than it was formerly supposed to be, our knowledge of what may be is enormously increased.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
... .The kind of philosophy that I value and have endeavoured to pursue is scientific, in the sense that there is some definite knowledge to be obtained and that new discoveries can make the admission of former error inevitable to any candid mind.
^ But further, if we are not to fail in our endeavour to determine the value of philosophy, we must first free our minds from the prejudices of what are wrongly called 'practical' men.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The other kind arises when the object of sense is complex, and we subject it to some degree of analysis.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ There is no state of mind in which we are directly aware of the table; all our knowledge of the table is really knowledge of truths , and the actual thing which is the table is not, strictly speaking, known to us at all.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
For what I have said, whether early or late, I do not claim the kind of truth which theologians claim for their creeds. .I claim only, at best, that the opinion expressed was a sensible one to hold at the time when it was expressed.
^ IN regard to one man's knowledge at a given time, universals, like particulars, may be divided into those known by acquaintance, those known only by description, and those not known either by acquaintance or by description.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
I should be much surprised if subsequent research did not show that it needed to be modified. .I hope, therefore, that whoever uses this dictionary will not suppose the remarks which it quotes to be intended as pontifical pronouncements, but only as the best I could do at the time towards the promotion of clear and accurate thinking.
^ Before the time of Kant it was thought that all judgements of which we could be certain a priori were of this kind: that in all of them there was a predicate which was only part of the subject of which it was asserted.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ About the quote : American Journalist (1909-1995), best known for his work with the NY Times.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Before Hume, rationalists at least had supposed that the effect could be logically deduced from the cause, if only we had sufficient knowledge.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
Clarity, above all, has been my aim.
- Preface to The Bertrand Russell Dictionary of Mind, Matter and Morals (1952) edited by Lester E. Denonn

Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them.^ Most people would rather die than think: many do.

Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

^ In fact, a certain number of instances are needed to make us think of two abstractly, rather than of two coins or two books or two people, or two of any other specified kind.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ In this case it might seem as though we were dealing with the particulars that have the property rather than with the property.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

.This is, of course, a mistake.

Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them.^ Most people would rather die than think: many do.
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

^ In fact, a certain number of instances are needed to make us think of two abstractly, rather than of two coins or two books or two people, or two of any other specified kind.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ In this case it might seem as though we were dealing with the particulars that have the property rather than with the property.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

.This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes.
^ Again, if we take any two points on a line, it seems evident that there must be other points between them, however small the distance between them may be: every distance can be halved, and the halves can be halved again, and so on ad infinitum .
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ For these reasons it is likely that, even after a syndicalist revolution, actual power would fall into the hands of men who were not really syndicalists.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ This question of the distinction between act and object in our apprehending of things is vitally important, since our whole power of acquiring knowledge is bound up with it.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense.
^ And if the cat consists only of sense-data, it cannot be hungry , since no hunger but my own can be a sense-datum to me.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Other people are represented to me by certain sense-data, such as the sight of them or the sound of their voices, and if I had no reason to believe that there were physical objects independent of my sense-data, I should have no reason to believe that other people exist except as part of my dream.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ In this case, what we really know beyond reasonable doubt is that certain men, A, B, C, were mortal, since, in fact, they have died.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.
^ We should none of us like to have the internal affairs of Great Britain settled by a parliament of the world, if ever such a body came into existence.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Even where there is a real conflict of interest, it must in time become obvious that neither of the states concerned would suffer as much by giving way as by fighting.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ It must be known to us that the existence of some one sort of thing, A, is a sign of the existence of some other sort of thing, B, either at the same time as A or at some earlier or later time, as, for example, thunder is a sign of the earlier existence of lightning.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.
- "Is There a God?" (1952), commissioned by Illustrated Magazine but not published until its appearance in The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell, Volume 11: Last Philosophical Testament, 1943-68, ed.
  ^ What is philosophical logic for Bertrand Russell ?
  Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
  ^ Russell, Bertrand and Perkins, Ray (ed.
  Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
  ^ Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Bertrand Russell .
  Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
  John G. Slater and Peter Köllner (London: Routledge, 1997), pp. .543-48

An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God.
^ We can be quite sure they are different shades of colour; but if the green colour is gradually altered to be more and more like the blue, becoming first a blue-green, then a greeny-blue, then blue, there will come a moment when we are doubtful whether we can see any difference, and then a moment when we know that we cannot see any difference.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Having now decided what we mean by truth and falsehood, we have next to consider what ways there are of knowing whether this or that belief is true or false.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But if the reality is not what appears, have we any means of knowing whether there is any reality at all?
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
The Christian holds that we can know there is a God; the atheist, that we can know there is not. .The Agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial. At the same time, an Agnostic may hold that the existence of God, though not impossible, is very improbable; he may even hold it so improbable that it is not worth considering in practice.
^ In time, similarly, however little time may elapse between two moments, it seems evident that there will be other moments between them.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The argument is not disproved by the fact that some swans are black, because a thing may very well happen in spite of the fact that some data render it improbable.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Now both Berkeley and Leibniz admit that there is a real table, but Berkeley says it is certain ideas in the mind of God, and Leibniz says it is a colony of souls.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
In that case, he is not far removed from atheism. His attitude may be that which a careful philosopher would have towards the gods of ancient Greece. .If I were asked to prove that Zeus and Poseidon and Hera and the rest of the Olympians do not exist, I should be at a loss to find conclusive arguments.
^ But it is fairly obvious that they cannot be proved by experience; for the fact that a thing exists or does not exist cannot prove either that it is good that it should exist or that it is bad.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ As a matter of fact, if any one were anxious to deny altogether that there are such things as universals, we should find that we cannot strictly prove that there are such entities as qualities , i.e.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.An Agnostic may think the Christian God as improbable as the Olympians; in that case, he is, for practical purposes, at one with the atheists.
^ The first is that, even if some law which has no exceptions applies to our case, we can never, in practice, be sure that we have discovered that law and not one to which there are exceptions.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Philosophy may claim justly that it diminishes the risk of error, and that in some cases it renders the risk so small as to be practically negligible.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- What is an Agnostic? (1953)

The only thing that will redeem mankind is co-operation.

Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.
^ We shall find it convenient only to speak of things existing when they are in time, that is to say, when we can point to some time at which they exist (not excluding the possibility of their existing at all times).
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ What happens, in cases where I have true judgement without acquaintance, is that the thing is known to me by description , and that, in virtue of some general principle, the existence of a thing answering to this description can be inferred from the existence of something with which I am acquainted.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The argument is not disproved by the fact that some swans are black, because a thing may very well happen in spite of the fact that some data render it improbable.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.
- Look (1954-02-23)

If throughout your life you abstain from murder, theft, fornication, perjury, blasphemy, and disrespect toward your parents, your church, and your king, you are conventionally held to deserve moral admiration even if you have never done a single kind or generous or useful action.
^ What is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ In cases of this kind the individual conviction deserves the greatest respect, even if there seems no obvious justification for it.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Not only teachers, but all commonplace persons in authority, desire in their subordinates that kind of uniformity which makes their actions easily predictable and never inconvenient.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
.
This very inadequate notion of virtue is an outcome of tabu morality, and has done untold harm.
- Human Society in Ethics and Politics (1954)

Suppose atomic bombs had reduced the population of the world to one brother and one sister, should they let the human race die out?
^ They will wish each human being to be as much a living thing and as little a mechanical product as it is possible to be; they will cherish in each one just those things which the harsh usage of a ruthless world would destroy.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ So long as it was necessary to the bare subsistence of the human race that most men should work very long hours for a pittance, so long no civilization was possible except an aristocratic one; if there were to be men with sufficient leisure for any mental life, there had to be others who were sacrificed for the good of the few.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ For this reason, although individuals and societies should have the utmost freedom as regards their own affairs, they ought not to have complete freedom as regards their dealings with others.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
I do not know the answer, but I do not think it can be in the affirmative merely on the ground that incest is wicked.
- Human Society in Ethics and Politics (1954)

The only thing that will redeem mankind is co-operation.
- Human Society in Ethics and Politics (1954)

The secret of happiness is to face the fact that the world is horrible, horrible, horrible.
- Said in conversation with Mrs. Alan Wood; quoted in Alan Wood's Bertrand Russell, the Passionate Sceptic (Allen and Unwin, 1957), pp. .236-7

What is new in our time is the increased power of the authorities to enforce their prejudices.
- Quoted on Who Said That?, BBC TV (1958-08-08)

There is no need to worry about mere size.
^ Since this belief does not lead to any difficulties, but on the contrary tends to simplify and systematize our account of our experiences, there seems no good reason for rejecting it.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The demands of internal growth are incomparably more important to us...than the need for any external expansion of our power.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Our enemies...never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
.We do not necessarily respect a fat man more than a thin man.
^ A man does right, as a rule, to have his thoughts more occupied with the interests of his own nation than with those of others, because his actions are more likely to affect his own nation.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ But for the fact of memory in this sense, we should not know that there ever was a past at all, nor should we be able to understand the word 'past', any more than a man born blind can understand the word 'light'.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The painter wants to know what things seem to be, the practical man and the philosopher want to know what they are; but the philosopher's wish to know this is stronger than the practical man's, and is more troubled by knowledge as to the difficulties of answering the question.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Sir Isaac Newton was very much smaller than a hippopotamus, but we do not on that account value him less.
^ It may be said that the power of officials is much less dangerous than the power of capitalists, because officials have no economic interests that are opposed to those of wage-earners.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
^ It is, of course, very much a matter of chance which characteristics of a man's appearance will come into a friend's mind when he thinks of him; thus the description actually in the friend's mind is accidental.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ This could only be effected if the present owners were expropriated, or paid less than the market value, or given a mere life-interest as compensation.
Political Ideals by Bertrand Russell - Full Text Free Book 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.fullbooks.com [Source type: Original source]
- "The Expanding Mental Universe," Saturday Evening Post (July 1959)

When I was a boy, I had a clock with a pendulum that could be lifted off. I found that the clock went very much faster without the pendulum. If the main purpose of a clock is to go, the clock was the better for losing its pendulum. .True, it could no longer tell the time, but that did not matter if one could teach oneself to be indifferent to the passage of time.
^ It is of course the case that a truth which connects one thing with another thing could not subsist if the other thing did not subsist.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Now such an argument is not hard to follow; and if it is granted that its premisses are true in fact, no one deny that the conclusion must also be true.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But doubt concerning his own existence was not possible, for if he did not exist, no demon could deceive him.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.The linguistic philosophy which cares only about language and not about the world, is like the boy who preferred the clock without the pendulum because, although it no longer told the time, it went more easily than before and at a more exhilarating pace.
^ Thus, to a great extent, the uncertainty of philosophy is more apparent than real: those questions which are already capable of definite answers are placed in the sciences, while those only to which, at present, no definite answer can be given, remain to form the residue which is called philosophy.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Knowledge of things, when it is of the kind we call knowledge by acquaintance , is essentially simpler than any knowledge of truths, and logically independent of knowledge of truths, though it would be rash to assume that human beings ever, in fact, have acquaintance with things without at the same time knowing some truth about them.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Thus the law of contradiction is about things, and not merely about thoughts; and although belief in the law of contradiction is a thought, the law of contradiction itself is not a thought, but a fact concerning the things in the world.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.
- Words and Things, introduction (1960)

The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holder’s lack of rational conviction.^ But it is fairly obvious that they cannot be proved by experience; for the fact that a thing exists or does not exist cannot prove either that it is good that it should exist or that it is bad.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ That is to say, if we wish to prove that something of which we have no direct experience exists, we must have among our premisses the existence of one or more things of which we have direct experience.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ The greater the number of cases in which a thing the sort A has been found associated with a thing the sort B, the more probable it is (if no cases of failure of association are known) that A is always associated with B; .
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

.Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.
- Introduction to 1961 edition of Sceptical Essays (1961)

This idea of weapons of mass extermination is utterly horrible and is something which no one with one spark of humanity can tolerate.^ That is to say, if we wish to prove that something of which we have no direct experience exists, we must have among our premisses the existence of one or more things of which we have direct experience.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ Plato's 'theory of ideas' is an attempt to solve this very problem, and in my opinion it is one of the most successful attempts hitherto made.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ In 1961 his activity in mass demonstrations to ban nuclear weapons led once more to his imprisonment.
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

I will not pretend to obey a government which is organising a mass massacre of mankind.
- Speech in Birmingham, England encouraging civil disobedience in support of nuclear disarmament (1961-04-15)

Patriots always talk of dying for their country, and never of killing for their country. .
- Has Man a Future? (1962)

The fundamental defect of fathers is that they want their children to be a credit to them.
- The New York Times (1963-06-09)

In the name of national security, the Commission’s hearings were held in secret, thereby continuing the policy which has marked the entire course of the case.
^ The painter wants to know what things seem to be, the practical man and the philosopher want to know what they are; but the philosopher's wish to know this is stronger than the practical man's, and is more troubled by knowledge as to the difficulties of answering the question.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ I'm afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
.
This prompts my second question: If, as we are told, Oswald was the lone assassin, where is the issue of national security? Indeed, precisely the same question must be put here as was posed in France during the Dreyfus case: If the Government is so certain of its case, why has it conducted all its inquiries in the strictest secrecy?
- "16 Questions on the Assassination" in The Minority of One, ed.
  ^ In all cases where we know by acquaintance a complex fact consisting of certain terms in a certain relation, we say that the truth that these terms are so related has the first or absolute kind of self-evidence, and in these cases the judgement that the terms are so related must be true.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ And more particularly, how can there be knowledge of general propositions in cases where we have not examined all the instances, and indeed never can examine them all, because their number is infinite?
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ In more scientific matters, it is certain that there are often two or more hypotheses which account for all the known facts on some subject, and although, in such cases, men of science endeavour to find facts which will rule out all the hypotheses except one, there is no reason why they should always succeed.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  M.S. Arnoni (1964-09-06, pp. .6-8.

The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was "given" by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new state.
^ The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was "given" by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new state.
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ I do not believe any policy which has behind it the threat of military force is justified as part of the basic foreign policy of the United States except to defend the liberty of our own people.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Our enemies...never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
The result was that many hundreds of thousands of innocent people were made permanently homeless. With every new conflict their numbers increased. .How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty?
^ How much longer is the world willing to endure this spectacle of wanton cruelty?
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
.It is abundantly clear that the refugees have every right to the homeland from which they were driven, and the denial of this right is at the heart of the continuing conflict.
^ It is abundantly clear that the refugees have every right to the homeland from which they were driven, and the denial of this right is at the heart of the continuing conflict.
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
.No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate?
^ No people anywhere in the world would accept being expelled en masse from their own country; how can anyone require the people of Palestine to accept a punishment which nobody else would tolerate?
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
^ In fact, truth and falsehood are properties of beliefs and statements: hence a world of mere matter, since it would contain no beliefs or statements, would also contain no truth or falsehood.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The tragedy of the people of Palestine is that their country was "given" by a foreign power to another people for the creation of a new state.
Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
A permanent just settlement of the refugees in their homeland is an essential ingredient of any genuine settlement in the Middle East.
- "Message from Bertrand Russell to the International Conference of Parlimentarians in Cairo, February 1970," reprinted in The New York Times (1970-02-23)

Wherever one finds oneself inclined to bitterness, it is a sign of emotional failure: a larger heart, and a greater self-restraint, would put a calm autumnal sadness in the place of the instinctive outcry of pain. .
- The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell: Contemplation and Action, 1902-1914, ed.
  ^ Russell, Bertrand and Perkins, Ray (ed.
  Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
  ^ Dewey and Horace M. Kallen edited a collection of articles on the CCNY affair in The Bertrand Russell Case .
  Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
  ^ His works also can be found in any number of anthologies and collections, perhaps most notably The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell , which McMaster University began publishing in 1983.
  Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
  .Richard A. Rempel, Andrew Brink and Margaret Moran (Routledge, 1993, ISBN 0-415-10462-9): Textual Notes, p.
  ^ Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy , London: George Allen & Unwin, ( ISBN 0-415-09604-9 for Routledge paperback) ( Copy at Archive.org ).
  Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
  .555

I cannot believe — and I say this with all the emphasis of which I am capable — that there can ever be any good excuse for refusing to face the evidence in favour of something unwelcome.
^ We believe that all men are mortal because we know that there are innumerable instances of men dying, and no instances of their living beyond a certain age.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Such a proposition as 'A wishes B to promote C's marriage with D' involves a relation of four terms; that is to say, A and B and C and D all come in, and the relation involved cannot be expressed otherwise than in a form involving all four.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ THERE is a common impression that everything that we believe ought to be capable of proof, or at least of being shown to be highly probable.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
It is not by delusion, however exalted, that mankind can prosper, but only by unswerving courage in the pursuit of truth. .
- "The Pursuit of Truth" in The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell (1993)

I resolved from the beginning of my quest that I would not be misled by sentiment and desire into beliefs for which there was no good evidence.
^ The first is that there is no reason to suppose that only one coherent body of beliefs is possible.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Since this belief does not lead to any difficulties, but on the contrary tends to simplify and systematize our account of our experiences, there seems no good reason for rejecting it.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ In fact, truth and falsehood are properties of beliefs and statements: hence a world of mere matter, since it would contain no beliefs or statements, would also contain no truth or falsehood.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.
- "The Pursuit of Truth" in Fact and Fiction (1994)

Not enough evidence, God, not enough evidence.
^ This would be a fact with which no one could have acquaintance except Desdemona; hence in the sense of self-evidence that we are considering, the truth that Desdemona loves Cassio (if it were a truth) could only be self-evident to Desdemona.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.
- Russell's reply when asked what he would say if he died and found himself confronted by God, demanding to know why Russell had not believed in him; as quoted in The God Delusion (2006) by Richard Dawkins, p.
  ^ She asked him if he loved her and he replied that he didn't.
  Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
  ^ We believe that all men are mortal because we know that there are innumerable instances of men dying, and no instances of their living beyond a certain age.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ When Brand Blanshard asked Russell why he didn't write on aesthetics, Russell replied that he didn't know anything about it, "but that is not a very good excuse, for my friends tell me it has not deterred me from writing on other subjects."
  Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
  104 ISBN 0-618-68000-4

The Study of Mathematics (1902)

The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.

The rules of logic are to mathematics what those of structure are to architecture.

Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty — a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.

Mathematics takes us still further from what is human, into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the world, but every possible world, must conform.

A Free Man's Worship (1903)

That Man is the product of causes that had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins — all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand.
^ The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Since this belief does not lead to any difficulties, but on the contrary tends to simplify and systematize our account of our experiences, there seems no good reason for rejecting it.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ That is to say, if we wish to prove that something of which we have no direct experience exists, we must have among our premisses the existence of one or more things of which we have direct experience.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built.

Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires.

Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.

The slave is doomed to worship time and fate and death, because they are greater than anything he finds in himself, and because all his thoughts are of things which they devour.

The life of man is a long march through the night, surrounded by invisible foes, tortured by weariness and pain, towards a goal that few can hope to reach, and where none may tarry long.

Our Knowledge of the External World (1914)

Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one.^ The only security for the American people today, or for any people, is to be found through the control of force rather than the use of force.

Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

Even in the most purely logical realms, it is insight that first arrives at what is new.

The true function of logic ... as applied to matters of experience ... is analytic rather than constructive; taken a priori, it shows the possibility of hitherto unsuspected alternatives more often than the impossibility of alternatives which seemed prima facie possible. .Thus, while it liberates imagination as to what the world may be, it refuses to legislate as to what the world is.

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.

In fact the opposition of instinct and reason is mainly illusory.
^ Thus the law of contradiction is about things, and not merely about thoughts; and although belief in the law of contradiction is a thought, the law of contradiction itself is not a thought, but a fact concerning the things in the world.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The world of universals, therefore, may also be described as the world of being.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ There is no logical impossibility in the supposition that the whole of life is a dream, in which we ourselves create all the objects that come before us.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Instinct, intuition, or insight is what first leads to the beliefs which subsequent reason confirms or confutes; but the confirmation, where it is possible, consists, in the last analysis, of agreement with other beliefs no less instinctive.
^ Since this belief does not lead to any difficulties, but on the contrary tends to simplify and systematize our account of our experiences, there seems no good reason for rejecting it.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But among our instinctive beliefs some are much stronger than others, while many have, by habit and association, become entangled with other beliefs, not really instinctive, but falsely supposed to be part of what is believed instinctively.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears he is a protector.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
.Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one.^ The only security for the American people today, or for any people, is to be found through the control of force rather than the use of force.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

Even in the most purely logical realms, it is insight that first arrives at what is new.

The Philosophy of Logical Atomism (1918)

The process of philosophizing, to my mind, consists mainly in passing from those obvious, vague, ambiguous things, that we feel quite sure of, to something precise, clear, definite, which by reflection and analysis we find is involved in the vague thing that we start from, and is, so to speak, the real truth of which that vague thing is a sort of shadow.

I do not pretend to start with precise questions.
^ By this partly -- and partly by the feeling that, if truth consists in a correspondence of thought with something outside thought, thought can never know when truth has been attained -- many philosophers have been led to try to find some definition of truth which shall not consist in relation to something wholly outside belief.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ There is a widespread philosophical tendency towards the view which tells us that Man is the measure of all things, that truth is man-made, that space and time and the world of universals are properties of the mind, and that, if there be anything not created by the mind, it is unknowable and of no account for us.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Knowledge of things by description , on the contrary, always involves, as we shall find in the course of the present chapter, some knowledge of truths as its source and ground.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
I do not think you can start with anything precise. .You have to achieve such precision as you can, as you go along.

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.
^ Why should you ask blood be spilled for a cause that is not in the interest of the American people?
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ It is obtained when the desire for knowledge is alone operative, by a study which does not wish in advance that its objects should have this or that character, but adapts the Self to the characters which it finds in its objects.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But it is fairly obvious that they cannot be proved by experience; for the fact that a thing exists or does not exist cannot prove either that it is good that it should exist or that it is bad.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.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.

The reason that I call my doctrine logical atomism is because the atoms that I wish to arrive at as the sort of last residue in analysis are logical atoms and not physical atoms.
^ Since this belief does not lead to any difficulties, but on the contrary tends to simplify and systematize our account of our experiences, there seems no good reason for rejecting it.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ All this seems to be so evident as to be hardly worth stating, except in answer to a man who doubts whether I know anything.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ If I believe that Charles I died in his bed, I believe falsely: no degree of vividness in my belief, or of care in arriving at it, prevents it from being false, again because of what happened long ago, and not because of any intrinsic property of my belief.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
Some of them will be what I call "particulars" — such things as little patches of color or sounds, momentary things — and some of them will be predicates or relations and so on.

To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.

In a logically perfect language, there will be one word and no more for every simple object, and everything that is not simple will be expressed by a combination of words, by a combination derived, of course, from the words for the simple things that enter in, one word for each simple component.

Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (1918)

Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one.
- Ch. .1: Mysticism and Logic

The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to savages, or even to most civilized men.
^ This world is of great importance to philosophy, and in particular to the problems of a priori knowledge.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ This omission has had a very great effect upon philosophy; it is hardly too much to say that most metaphysics, since Spinoza, has been largely determined by it.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Apart from its utility in showing unsuspected possibilities, philosophy has a value -- perhaps its chief value -- through the greatness of the objects which it contemplates, and the freedom from narrow and personal aims resulting from this contemplation.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. .1: Mysticism and Logic

When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief which he finds in himself.
^ The man who has no tincture of philosophy goes through life imprisoned in the prejudices derived from common sense, from the habitual beliefs of his age or his nation, and from convictions which have grown up in his mind without the co-operation or consent of his deliberate reason.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But we cannot have reason to reject a belief except on the ground of some other belief.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The man who finds pleasure in such a theory of knowledge is like the man who never leaves the domestic circle for fear his word might not be law.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. .1: Mysticism and Logic

A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.
^ There is a widespread philosophical tendency towards the view which tells us that Man is the measure of all things, that truth is man-made, that space and time and the world of universals are properties of the mind, and that, if there be anything not created by the mind, it is unknowable and of no account for us.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ IN regard to one man's knowledge at a given time, universals, like particulars, may be divided into those known by acquaintance, those known only by description, and those not known either by acquaintance or by description.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ We are all in the habit of judging as to the 'real' shapes of things, and we do this so unreflectingly that we come to think we actually see the real shapes.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. .1: Mysticism and Logic

A process which led from the amœba to man appeared to the philosophers to be obviously a progress — though whether the amœba would agree with this opinion is not known.
^ Some of Euclid's axioms, which appear to common sense to be necessary, and were formerly supposed to be necessary by philosophers, are now known to derive their appearance of necessity from our mere familiarity with actual space, and not from any a priori logical foundation.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. .1: Mysticism and Logic

Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.
^ Thus we are left to the piecemeal investigation of the world, and are unable to know the characters of those parts of the universe that are remote from our experience.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Physical science, through the medium of inventions, is useful to innumerable people who are wholly ignorant of it; thus the study of physical science is to be recommended, not only, or primarily, because of the effect on the student, but rather because of the effect on mankind in general.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country...more good than it will do the enemy.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. .1: Mysticism and Logic

In science men have discovered an activity of the very highest value in which they are no longer, as in art, dependent for progress upon the appearance of continually greater genius, for in science the successors stand upon the shoulders of their predecessors; where one man of supreme genius has invented a method, a thousand lesser men can apply it.
^ In more scientific matters, it is certain that there are often two or more hypotheses which account for all the known facts on some subject, and although, in such cases, men of science endeavour to find facts which will rule out all the hypotheses except one, there is no reason why they should always succeed.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ And having been forced to admit this universal, we find that it is no longer worth while to invent difficult and unplausible theories to avoid the admission of such universals as whiteness and triangularity.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ We know that the candidate who gets the most votes will be elected, and in this case we are very likely also acquainted (in the only sense in which one can be acquainted with some one else) with the man who is, in fact, the candidate who will get most votes; but we do not know which of the candidates he is, i.e.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. .2: The Place of Science in a Liberal Education

If any philosopher had been asked for a definition of infinity, he might have produced some unintelligible rigmarole, but he would certainly not have been able to give a definition that had any meaning at all.
^ If you ask a mathematician, a mineralogist, a historian, or any other man of learning, what definite body of truths has been ascertained by his science, his answer will last as long as you are willing to listen.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ This view, if our previous discussions were correct, is untrue; but in addition to being untrue, it has the effect of robbing philosophic contemplation of all that gives it value, since it fetters contemplation to Self.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. .5: Mathematics and the Metaphysicians

An extra-terrestrial philosopher, who had watched a single youth up to the age of twenty-one and had never come across any other human being, might conclude that it is the nature of human beings to grow continually taller and wiser in an indefinite progress towards perfection; and this generalisation would be just as well founded as the generalisation which evolutionists base upon the previous history of this planet.
^ It might happen, if Kant is right, that to-morrow our nature would so change as to make two and two become five.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The view which led to their being so named is a natural one, but there are strong reasons for thinking that it is erroneous.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The only case in which it might seem, at first sight, as if our proposition were untrue, is the case in which an a priori proposition states that all of one class of particulars belong to some other class, or (what comes the same thing) that all particulars having some one property also have some other.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. 6: On the Scientific Method in Philosophy

Organic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the philosopher, and this development, we are assured, is indubitably an advance. .Unfortunately it is the philosopher, not the protozoon, who gives us this assurance.
^ But let us imagine some insistent Socrates, who, whatever reason we give him, continues to demand a reason for the reason.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. 6: On the Scientific Method in Philosophy

Ethics is in origin the art of recommending to others the sacrifices required for co-operation with oneself.
- Ch. 6: On the Scientific Method in Philosophy

Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1919)

The method of "postulating" what we want has many advantages; they are the same as the advantages of theft over honest toil.
- Ch. .7: Rational, Real and Complex Numbers

The question of "unreality," which confronts us at this point, is a very important one.
^ But it is very important to realize the use of principles of inference, if a correct theory of knowledge is to be obtained; for our knowledge of them raises interesting and difficult questions.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Hence, two very difficult questions at once arise; namely, (1) Is there a real table at all?
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But the real question is: Do any number of cases of a law being fulfilled in the past afford evidence that it will be fulfilled in the future?
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Misled by grammar, the great majority of those logicians who have dealt with this question have dealt with it on mistaken lines.
^ No great dependence is to be placed on the eagerness of young soldiers for action...fighting is agreeable to those who are strangers to it.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
They have regarded grammatical form as a surer guide in analysis than, in fact, it is. And they have not known what differences in grammatical form are important.
- Ch. .16: Descriptions

For want of the apparatus of propositional functions, many logicians have been driven to the conclusion that there are unreal objects.
^ We know a description and we know that there is just one object to which this description applies, though the object itself is not directly known to us.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Thus, if there are to be public neutral objects, which can be m some sense known to many different people, there must be something over and above the private and particular sense-data which appear to various people.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ We shall say that we have 'merely descriptive knowledge' of the so-and-so when, although we know that the so-and-so exists, and although we may possibly be acquainted with the object which is, in fact, the so-and-so, yet we do not know any proposition ' a is the so-and-so', where a is something with which we are acquainted.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.It is argued, e.g., by Meinong, that we can speak about "the golden mountain," "the round square," and so on; we can make true propositions of which these are the subjects; hence they must have some kind of logical being, since otherwise the propositions in which they occur would be meaningless.
^ Thus it would seem that, in some way or other, a description known to be applicable to a particular must involve some reference to a particular with which we are acquainted, if our knowledge about the thing described is not to be merely what follows logically from the description.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Hence he inferred the far more doubtful proposition that nothing could be known a priori about the connexion of cause and effect.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Since erroneous beliefs are often held just as strongly as true beliefs, it becomes a difficult question how they are to be distinguished from true beliefs.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.In such theories, it seems to me, there is a failure of that feeling for reality which ought to be preserved even in the most abstract studies.
^ Such generalizations always remain mere facts: we feel that there might be a world in which they were false, though in the actual world they happen to be true.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Thus a problem arises as to the relation of the sense-data to the real table, supposing there is such a thing.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Seeing that nearly all the words to be found in the dictionary stand for universals, it is strange that hardly anybody except students of philosophy ever realizes that there are such entities as universals.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Logic, I should maintain, must no more admit a unicorn than zoology can; for logic is concerned with the real world just as truly as zoology, though with its more abstract and general features.
^ When Othello believes that Desdemona loves Cassio, he must not have before his mind a single object, 'Desdemona's love for Cassio', or 'that Desdemona loves Cassio', for that would require that there should be objective falsehoods, which subsist independently of any minds; and this, though not logically refutable, is a theory to be avoided if possible.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ This immediate knowledge by memory is the source of all our knowledge concerning the past: without it, there could be no knowledge of the past by inference we should never know that there was anything past to be inferred.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Most philosophers, rightly or wrongly, believe that philosophy can do much more than this -- that it can give us knowledge, not otherwise attainable, concerning the universe as a whole, and concerning the nature of ultimate reality.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. .16: Descriptions

In obedience to the feeling of reality, we shall insist that, in the analysis of propositions, nothing "unreal" is to be admitted.
^ This they hold, as Berkeley does, chiefly because they think there can be nothing real -- or at any rate nothing known to be real except minds and their thoughts and feelings.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ 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 Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ We shall say that we have 'merely descriptive knowledge' of the so-and-so when, although we know that the so-and-so exists, and although we may possibly be acquainted with the object which is, in fact, the so-and-so, yet we do not know any proposition ' a is the so-and-so', where a is something with which we are acquainted.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.But, after all, if there is nothing unreal, how, it may be asked, could we admit anything unreal?
^ This immediate knowledge by memory is the source of all our knowledge concerning the past: without it, there could be no knowledge of the past by inference we should never know that there was anything past to be inferred.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Thus apart from minds and their ideas there is nothing in the world, nor is it possible that anything else should ever be known, since whatever is known is necessarily an idea.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Before the time of Kant it was thought that all judgements of which we could be certain a priori were of this kind: that in all of them there was a predicate which was only part of the subject of which it was asserted.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.The reply is that, in dealing with propositions, we are dealing in the first instance with symbols, and if we attribute significance to groups of symbols which have no significance, we shall fall into the error of admitting unrealities, in the only sense in which this is possible, namely, as objects described.
^ Only those who are practised in dealing with abstractions can readily grasp a general principle without the help of instances.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The first is that there is no reason to suppose that only one coherent body of beliefs is possible.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Then, forgetting that this was only true when ideas were taken as acts of apprehension, we transfer the proposition that 'ideas are in the mind' to ideas in the other sense, i.e.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. 16: Descriptions

Review of The Meaning of Meaning (1926)

Dial (August 1926) Vol. 81, pp. 114-121.

cf. C. K. Ogden and I. A. Richards (1923) The Meaning of Meaning.

When, in youth, I learned what was called "philosophy" [...] no one ever mentioned to me the question of "meaning."
^ 'The Unionist candidate for this constituency exists' means 'some one is a Unionist candidate for this constituency, and no one else is'.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Thus, to a great extent, the uncertainty of philosophy is more apparent than real: those questions which are already capable of definite answers are placed in the sciences, while those only to which, at present, no definite answer can be given, remain to form the residue which is called philosophy.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ One of the great historic controversies in philosophy is the controversy between the two schools called respectively 'empiricists' and 'rationalists'.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
Later, I became acquainted with Lady Welby's work on the subject, but failed to take it seriously. .I imagined that logic could be pursued by taking it for granted that symbols were always, so to speak, transparent, and in no way distorted the objects they were supposed to "mean."
^ There is no logical impossibility in the supposition that the whole of life is a dream, in which we ourselves create all the objects that come before us.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The way in which simplicity comes in from supposing that there really are physical objects is easily seen.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Thus although a valid inference from the letters to their meaning is possible, and could be performed by the reader, it s not in fact performed, since he does not in fact perform any operation which can be called logical inference.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Purely logical problems have gradually led me further and further from this point of view.
^ Thus he was led to the conclusion that all pure mathematics, though a priori , is synthetic; and this conclusion raised a new problem of which he endeavoured to find the solution.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Beginning with the question whether the class of all those classes which are not members of themselves is, or is not, a member of itself; continuing with the problem whether the man who says "I am lying" is lying or speaking the truth; passing through the riddle "is the present King of France bald or not bald, or is the law of excluded middle false?"
^ All truth passes through three stages.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ All this seems to be so evident as to be hardly worth stating, except in answer to a man who doubts whether I know anything.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The man who finds pleasure in such a theory of knowledge is like the man who never leaves the domestic circle for fear his word might not be law.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.I have now come to believe that the order of words in time or space is an ineradicable part of much of their significance - in fact, that the reason they can express space-time occurrences is that they are space-time occurrences, so that a logic independent of the accidental nature of spacetime becomes an idle dream.
^ It therefore becomes important to consider the nature and scope of intuitive knowledge, in much the same way as, at an earlier stage, we considered the nature and scope of knowledge by acquaintance.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But among our instinctive beliefs some are much stronger than others, while many have, by habit and association, become entangled with other beliefs, not really instinctive, but falsely supposed to be part of what is believed instinctively.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ There are many questions -- and among them those that are of the profoundest interest to our spiritual life -- which, so far as we can see, must remain insoluble to the human intellect unless its powers become of quite a different order from what they are now.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.These conclusions are unpleasant to my vanity, but pleasant to my love of philosophical activity: until vitality fails, there is no reason to be wedded to one's past theories.
^ Since this belief does not lead to any difficulties, but on the contrary tends to simplify and systematize our account of our experiences, there seems no good reason for rejecting it.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ This immediate knowledge by memory is the source of all our knowledge concerning the past: without it, there could be no knowledge of the past by inference we should never know that there was anything past to be inferred.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Plato's 'theory of ideas' is an attempt to solve this very problem, and in my opinion it is one of the most successful attempts hitherto made.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
(p. 114)

[Messrs Ogden and Richards] will reply that they are considering the meaning of a "thought," not of a word. .A "thought" is not a social phenomenon, like speech, and therefore does not have the two sides, active and passive, which can be distinguished in speech.
^ Hence we must admit that the relation, like the terms it relates, is not dependent upon thought, but belongs to the independent world which thought apprehends but does not create.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.I should urge, however, that all the reasons which led our authors to avoid introducing images in explaining meaning should have also led them to avoid introducing "thoughts."
^ This immediate knowledge by memory is the source of all our knowledge concerning the past: without it, there could be no knowledge of the past by inference we should never know that there was anything past to be inferred.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ And so when Berkeley says that the tree must be in our minds if we can know it, all that he really has a right to say is that a thought of the tree must be in our minds.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
If a theory of meaning is to be fitted into natural science as they desire, it is necessary to define the meaning of words without introducing anything "mental" in the sense in which what is "mental" is not subject to the laws of physics. .Therefore, for the same reasons for which I now hold that the meaning of words should be explained without introducing images -- which I argued to be possible in the above-quoted passage -- I also hold that meaning in general should be treated without introducing "thoughts," and should be regarded as a property of words considered as physical phenomena.
^ It therefore becomes important to consider the nature and scope of intuitive knowledge, in much the same way as, at an earlier stage, we considered the nature and scope of knowledge by acquaintance.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Now in dealing with this question we must, to begin with, make an important distinction, without which we should soon become involved in hopeless confusions.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Yet obviously the word 'in' has a meaning; it denotes a relation which holds between me and my room.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
Let us therefore amend their theory. They say: "'I am thinking of A' is the same thing as 'My thought is being caused by A.'" Let us substitute: "'I am speaking of A' is the same thing as 'My speech is being caused by A.'" Can this theory be true?

Sceptical Essays (1928)

It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.
^ There is no difficulty in supposing this to be the case.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Thus it is quite gratuitous to suppose that physical objects have colours, and therefore there is no justification for making such a supposition.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Hence it was supposed that, ultimately, there can be no such entities as relations between things.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. 1: The Value of Scepticism

Machines are worshipped because they are beautiful and valued because they confer power; they are hated because they are hideous and loathed because they impose slavery.
- Ch. 6: Machines and the Emotions

William James used to preach the "will to believe." For my part, I should wish to preach the "will to doubt." .None of our beliefs are quite true; all at least have a penumbra of vagueness and error.
^ Some of our beliefs turn out to be erroneous, and therefore it becomes necessary to consider how, if at all, we can distinguish knowledge from error.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ In its first use it is applicable to the sort of knowledge which is opposed to error, the sense in which what we know is true, the sense which applies to our beliefs and convictions, i.e.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ It is of course possible that all or any of our beliefs may be mistaken, and therefore all ought to be held with at least some slight element of doubt.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. 12: Free Thought and Official Propaganda

What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the wish to find out, which is the exact opposite.
- Ch. .12: Free Thought and Official Propaganda

Americans need rest, but do not know it.
^ When we have seen that a tree is a beech, we do not need to look again in order to ascertain whether it is also not a beech; thought alone makes us know that this is impossible.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
I believe this to be a large part of the explanation of the crime wave in the United States.
- Ch. .13: Freedom in Society

Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim: The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.
- Ch.
  ^ The principles of inference are apt to be overlooked because of their very obviousness -- the assumption involved is assented to without our realizing that it is an assumption.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  .13: Freedom in Society

Children must be under authority, and are themselves aware that they must be, although they like to play a game of rebellion at times.
^ It is to be observed that all such expectations are only probable ; thus we have not to seek for a proof that they must be fulfilled, but only for some reason in favour of the view that they are likely to be fulfilled.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.The case of children is unique in the fact that those who have authority over them are sometimes fond of them.
^ We know that the candidate who gets the most votes will be elected, and in this case we are very likely also acquainted (in the only sense in which one can be acquainted with some one else) with the man who is, in fact, the candidate who will get most votes; but we do not know which of the candidates he is, i.e.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ What makes a belief true is a fact , and this fact does not (except in exceptional cases) in any way involve the mind of the person who has the belief.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Where this is the case, the children do not resent the authority in general, even when they resist it on particular occasions.
^ It is on occasion of particular experiences that we become aware of the general laws which their connexions exemplify.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Education authorities, as opposed to teachers, have not this merit, and do in fact sacrifice the children to what they consider the good of the State by teaching them "patriotism," i.e., a willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
^ But it is fairly obvious that they cannot be proved by experience; for the fact that a thing exists or does not exist cannot prove either that it is good that it should exist or that it is bad.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But we have already considered these reasons, and decided that they are inadequate.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ In this case, what we really know beyond reasonable doubt is that certain men, A, B, C, were mortal, since, in fact, they have died.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. 13: Freedom in Society

Marriage and Morals (1929)

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.
^ It is evident from what we have found, that there is no colour which preeminently appears to be the colour of the table, or even of any one particular part of the table -- it appears to be of different colours from different points of view, and there is no reason for regarding some of these as more really its colour than others.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ A body of individually probable opinions, if they are mutually coherent, become more probable than any one of them would be individually.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But for the fact of memory in this sense, we should not know that there ever was a past at all, nor should we be able to understand the word 'past', any more than a man born blind can understand the word 'light'.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. .5: Christian Ethics
- Sometimes confused with similar W. Somerset Maugham quote; see Maugham quote below

Nine-tenths of the appeal of pornography is due to the indecent feelings concerning sex which moralists inculcate in the young; the other tenth is physiological, and will occur in one way or another whatever the state of the law may be.
^ It is of course the case that a truth which connects one thing with another thing could not subsist if the other thing did not subsist.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Below is a listing of the quotes you see displayed on all Antiwar.com pages.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Its one thing to fight for what you believe in, another thing to fight for what others believe in.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. .8: The Taboo on Sex Knowledge

It is illegal in England to state in print that a wife can and should derive sexual pleasure from intercourse.
^ But here the intuitive knowledge upon which our belief is based is knowledge of the existence of sense-data derived from looking at the print which gives the news.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But anybody accustomed to reading passes at once to what the letters mean, and is not aware, except on reflection, that he has derived this knowledge from the sense-data called seeing the printed letters.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
(I have myself heard a pamphlet condemned as obscene in a court of law on this among other grounds.) It is on the above outlook in regard to sex that the attitude of the law, the church, and the old-fashioned educators of the young is based.
- Ch. 8: The Taboo on Sex Knowledge

Even in civilized mankind faint traces of a monogamous instinct can sometimes be perceived.
- Ch. .9: Marriage

Marriage is for women the commonest mode of livelihood, and the total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution.
^ For the probability that Socrates is mortal is greater, on our data, than the probability that all men are mortal.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. .11: Prostitution

The psychology of adultery has been falsified by conventional morals, which assume, in monogamous countries, that attraction to one person cannot coexist with a serious affection for another.
^ What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ If the cat appears at one moment in one part of the room, and at another in another part, it is natural to suppose that it has moved from the one to the other, passing over a series of intermediate positions.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
Everybody knows that this is untrue.
- Ch. .16: Divorce

To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.
- Ch.
  ^ Is it not a strange blindness on our part to teach publicly the techniques of warfare and to reward with medals those who prove to be the most adroit killers?
  Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
  ^ Power is usurped from the people, first by implementing fear, then it is maintained by slandering as 'unpatriotic' those who refuse submission.
  Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
  ^ The world of being is unchangeable, rigid, exact, delightful to the mathematician, the logician, the builder of metaphysical systems, and all who love perfection more than life.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  .19: Sex and Individual Well-Being

I am not suggesting that there should be no morality and no self-restraint in regard to sex, any more than in regard to food.
^ There is no morality in war.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ This immediate knowledge by memory is the source of all our knowledge concerning the past: without it, there could be no knowledge of the past by inference we should never know that there was anything past to be inferred.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Man is the only animal of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid...There is no harm in a well-fed lion.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
In regard to food we have restraints of three kinds, those of law, those of manners, and those of health. .We regard it as wrong to steal food, to take more than our share at a common meal, and to eat in ways that are likely to make us ill.
^ But any statement as to what it is that our immediate experiences make us know is very likely to be wrong.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The demands of internal growth are incomparably more important to us...than the need for any external expansion of our power.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Hence we shall reach the conclusion that Socrates is mortal with a greater approach to certainty if we make our argument purely inductive than if we go by way of 'all men are mortal' and then use deduction.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Restraints of a similar kind are essential where sex is concerned, but in this case they are much more complex and involve much more self-control.
^ Memories have a diminishing self-evidence as they become remoter and fainter; the truths of logic and mathematics have (broadly speaking) less self-evidence as they become more complicated.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ These three laws are samples of self-evident logical principles, but are not really more fundamental or more self-evident than various other similar principles: for instance.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Nevertheless, when the arguments in support of it are carefully examined, they appear to involve much confusion and many unwarrantable assumptions.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Moreover, since one human being ought not to have property in another, the analogue of stealing is not adultery, but rape, which obviously must be forbidden by law.
^ It is finer to bring one noble human being into the world and rear it well...than to kill ten thousand.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ That some risk of error remains must be admitted, since human beings are fallible.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Humanity is quite a unique species, since it is the only one with the means to wipe itself out.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
.The questions that arise in regard to health are concerned almost entirely with venereal disease.
^ Before taking up the general question of the nature of ideas, we must disentangle two entirely separate questions which arise concerning sense-data and physical objects.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. 20: The Place of Sex Among Human Values

Joy of life... depends upon a certain spontaneity in regard to sex. Where sex is repressed, only work remains, and a gospel of work for work's sake never produced any work worth doing.
- Ch. .20: The Place of Sex Among Human Values

So long as there is death there will be sorrow, and so long as there is sorrow it can be no part of the duty of human beings to increase its amount, in spite of the fact that a few rare spirits know how to transmute it.
^ Where is the indignation about the fact that the US and USSR have thirty thousand pounds of destructive force for every human being in the world?
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ This immediate knowledge by memory is the source of all our knowledge concerning the past: without it, there could be no knowledge of the past by inference we should never know that there was anything past to be inferred.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But for the fact of memory in this sense, we should not know that there ever was a past at all, nor should we be able to understand the word 'past', any more than a man born blind can understand the word 'light'.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. 20: The Place of Sex Among Human Values

Conquest of Happiness (1930)

Conventional people are roused to fury by departures from convention, largely because they regard such departures as a criticism of themselves.

In adolescence, I hated life and was continually on the verge of suicide, from which, however, I was restrained by the desire to know more mathematics.^ If [America] becomes militant, it will be because its people choose to become such; it will be because they think that war and warlikeness are desirable.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^ Memories have a diminishing self-evidence as they become remoter and fainter; the truths of logic and mathematics have (broadly speaking) less self-evidence as they become more complicated.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ I hate it when they say, He gave his life for his country.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

.Now, on the contrary, I enjoy life; I might almost say that with every year that passes I enjoy it more. This is due partly to having discovered what were the things that I most desired, and having gradually acquired many of these things.
^ These things are known to us by what I call 'knowledge by description', which we must now consider.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ For most practical purposes these differences are unimportant, but to the painter they are all-important: the painter has to unlearn the habit of thinking that things seem to have the colour which common sense says they 'really' have, and to learn the habit of seeing things as they appear.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ We can be sure, he says, that anything we shall ever experience must show the characteristics affirmed of it in our a priori knowledge, because these characteristics are due to our own nature, and therefore nothing can ever come into our experience without acquiring these characteristics.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Partly it is due to having successfully dismissed certain objects of desire - such as the acquisition of indubitable knowledge about something or other — as essentially unattainable.
^ The problem we have to consider is this: Granted that we are certain of our own sense-data, have we any reason for regarding them as signs of the existence of something else, which we can call the physical object?
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Thus in spite of the existence of a priori knowledge, we cannot know anything about the thing in itself or about what is not an actual or possible object of experience.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ It is obtained when the desire for knowledge is alone operative, by a study which does not wish in advance that its objects should have this or that character, but adapts the Self to the characters which it finds in its objects.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
But very largely it is due to a diminishing preoccupation with myself. Like others who had a Puritan education, I had the habit of meditating on my sins, follies, and shortcomings. .I seemed to myself — no doubt justly — a miserable specimen.
^ It might seem as though we were quite sure of being the same person to-day as we were yesterday, and this is no doubt true in some sense.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Gradually I learned to be indifferent to myself and my deficiencies; I came to centre my attention increasingly upon external objects: the state of the world, various branches of knowledge, individuals for whom I felt affection.
^ Hence our knowledge as to physical objects depends throughout upon this possibility of general knowledge where no instance can be given.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ It must not be supposed that the various states of different physical objects have the same time-order as the sense-data which constitute the perceptions of those objects.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ No logical absurdity results from the hypothsis that the world consists of myself and my thoughts and feelings and sensations, and that everything else is mere fancy.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. .1: What Makes People Unhappy?

The megalomaniac differs from the narcissist by the fact that he wishes to be powerful rather than charming, and seeks to be feared rather than loved.
^ The only security for the American people today, or for any people, is to be found through the control of force rather than the use of force.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ In fact, a certain number of instances are needed to make us think of two abstractly, rather than of two coins or two books or two people, or two of any other specified kind.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Thus it is the fact that different people have similar sense-data, and that one person in a given place at different times has similar sense-data, which makes us suppose that over and above the sense-data there is a permanent public object which underlies or causes the sense-data of various people at various times.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.To this type belong many lunatics and most of the great men of history.
^ IN all that we have said hitherto concerning philosophy, we have scarcely touched on many matters that occupy a great space in the writings of most philosophers.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. .1: What Makes People Unhappy?

Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.
- Ch.
  ^ This may be made plain by the attempt to imagine two different worlds, in one of which there are men who are not mortal, while in the other two and two make five.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ We know that the candidate who gets the most votes will be elected, and in this case we are very likely also acquainted (in the only sense in which one can be acquainted with some one else) with the man who is, in fact, the candidate who will get most votes; but we do not know which of the candidates he is, i.e.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ In fact, a certain number of instances are needed to make us think of two abstractly, rather than of two coins or two books or two people, or two of any other specified kind.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  .1: What Makes People Unhappy?

A man may feel so completely thwarted that he seeks no form of satisfaction, but only distraction and oblivion.
^ The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Man is the only animal of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid...There is no harm in a well-fed lion.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ It takes twenty years or more of peace to make a man; it only takes twenty seconds of war to destroy him.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
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.
- Ch. .2: Byronic Unhappiness

To be without some of the things you want is an indispensable part of happiness.
^ What happens, in cases where I have true judgement without acquaintance, is that the thing is known to me by description , and that, in virtue of some general principle, the existence of a thing answering to this description can be inferred from the existence of something with which I am acquainted.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. 2: Byronic Unhappiness

The habit of looking to the future and thinking that the whole meaning of the present lies in what it will bring forth is a pernicious one. .There can be no value in the whole unless there is value in the parts.
^ There is no logical impossibility in the supposition that the whole of life is a dream, in which we ourselves create all the objects that come before us.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ There can be no public or private virtue unless the foundation of action is the practice of truth.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ One keeps healthy in wartime...by a vigorous assertion of values in which war has no part.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
Life is not to be conceived on the analogy of a melodrama in which the hero and heroine go through incredible misfortunes for which they are compensated by a happy ending. I live and have my day, my son succeeds me and has his day, his son in turn succeeds him. .What is there in all this to make a tragedy about?
^ When we judge that two and two are four, we are not making a judgement about our thoughts, but about all actual or possible couples.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. 2: Byronic Unhappiness

Boredom is therefore a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
- Ch. .4: Boredom and Excitement

Young men and young women meet each other with much less difficulty than was formerly the case, and every housemaid expects at least once a week as much excitement as would have lasted a Jane Austen heroine throughout a whole novel.
^ It is true that we have a greater body of evidence from the past in favour of the laws of motion than we have in favour of the sunrise, because the sunrise is merely a particular case of fulfilment of the laws of motion, and there are countless other particular cases.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Thus, while our knowledge of what is has become less than it was formerly supposed to be, our knowledge of what may be is enormously increased.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But among our instinctive beliefs some are much stronger than others, while many have, by habit and association, become entangled with other beliefs, not really instinctive, but falsely supposed to be part of what is believed instinctively.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. .4: Boredom and Excitement

Why is propaganda so much more successful when it stirs up hatred than when it tries to stir up friendly feeling?
- Ch.
  ^ We judge, for example, that happiness is more desirable than misery, knowledge than ignorance, goodwill than hatred, and so on.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ But if they were the sole example, our knowledge would be very much more restricted than it is.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.
  Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
  .6: Envy

Conventional people are roused to fury by departures from convention, largely because they regard such departures as a criticism of themselves.
- Ch.
  ^ If we believe that there is such a universal, we shall say that things are white because they have the quality of whiteness.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ In regard to such knowledge, philosophical criticism does not require that we should abstain from belief.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ It is largely the very peculiar kind of being that belongs to universals which has led many people to suppose that they are really mental.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  .9: Fear of Public Opinion

One should respect public opinion in so far as is necessary to avoid starvation and to keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
^ To this question physical science gives an answer, somewhat incomplete it is true, and in part still very hypothetical, but yet deserving of respect so far as it goes.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. .9: Fear of Public Opinion

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.
^ Men are fighting...because they are convinced that the extermination of adversaries is the only means of promoting their own well-being.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ The only reason for believing that the laws of motion remain in operation is that they have operated hitherto, so far as our knowledge of the past enables us to judge.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Now in so far as the above considerations depend upon supposing that there are other people besides ourselves, they beg the very question at issue.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. .10: Is Happiness Still Possible?

A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations.
^ All acquaintance, such as my acquaintance with the sense-datum which represents the sun, seems obviously a relation between the person acquainted and the object with which the person is acquainted.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.
- Ch. .10: Is Happiness Still Possible?

If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.
- Ch.
  ^ We judge, for example, that happiness is more desirable than misery, knowledge than ignorance, goodwill than hatred, and so on.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ But for the fact of memory in this sense, we should not know that there ever was a past at all, nor should we be able to understand the word 'past', any more than a man born blind can understand the word 'light'.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ When we judge that two and two are four, we are not making a judgement about our thoughts, but about all actual or possible couples.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  .10: Is Happiness Still Possible?

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.
^ These people are trying to shake the will of the Iraqi citizens, and they want us to leave...I think the world would be better off if we did leave...
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders...tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ How is it possible for people to consider themselves supporters of the troops when they approve of an event that throws those troops into...peril?
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. .12: Affection

To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.
^ Peace will be realized only by forging bonds of trust between people at the deepest level, in the depths of their very lives.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. 14: Work
- This quote has been misattributed to Arnold Toynbee

In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935)

Good nature is, of all moral qualities, the one that the world needs most, and good nature is the result of ease and security, not of a life of arduous struggle. Modern methods of production have given us the possibility of ease and security for all; we have chosen, instead, to have overwork for some and starvation for the others.
^ In addition to the logical principles which enable us to prove from a given premiss that something is certainly true, there are other logical principles which enable us to prove, from a given premiss, that there is a greater or less probability that something is true.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The real table, if there is one, is not immediately known to us at all, but must be an inference from what is immediately known.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ His most distinctive contribution was the invention of what he called the 'critical' philosophy, which, assuming as a datum that there is knowledge of various kinds, inquired how such knowledge comes to be possible, and deduced, from the answer to this inquiry, many metaphysical results as to the nature of the world.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Hitherto we have continued to be as energetic as we were before there were machines; in this we have been foolish, but there is no reason to go on being foolish for ever.
^ Since this belief does not lead to any difficulties, but on the contrary tends to simplify and systematize our account of our experiences, there seems no good reason for rejecting it.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ There is no logical impossibility in the supposition that the whole of life is a dream, in which we ourselves create all the objects that come before us.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ He admits that there must be something which continues to exist when we go out of the room or shut our eyes, and that what we call seeing the table does really give us reason for believing in something which persists even when we are not seeing it.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. 1: In Praise of Idleness

First of all: what is work? .Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relatively to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so.
^ Thus our two questions may be re-stated as follows: (1) Is there any such thing as matter?
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But if you put the same question to a philosopher, he will, if he is candid, have to confess that his study has not achieved positive results such as have been achieved by other sciences.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ In fact, a certain number of instances are needed to make us think of two abstractly, rather than of two coins or two books or two people, or two of any other specified kind.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
The first one is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly paid.
- Ch. 1: In Praise of Idleness

For my part, while I am as convinced a Socialist as the most ardent Marxian, I do not regard Socialism as a gospel of proletarian revenge, nor even, primarily, as a means of securing economic justice. .I regard it primarily as an adjustment to machine production demanded by considerations of common sense, and calculated to increase the happiness, not only of proletarians, but of all except a tiny minority of the human race.
^ They must all, in some sense, partake of a common nature, which will be found in whatever is just and in nothing else.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Thus although truth and falsehood are properties of beliefs, yet they are in a sense extrinsic properties, for the condition of the truth of a belief is something not involving beliefs, or (in general) any mind at all, but only the objects of the belief.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ This would be a fact with which no one could have acquaintance except Desdemona; hence in the sense of self-evidence that we are considering, the truth that Desdemona loves Cassio (if it were a truth) could only be self-evident to Desdemona.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. 7: The Case for Socialism

Power: A New Social Analysis (1938)

Every man would like to be God, if it were possible; some few find it difficult to admit the impossibility.
- Ch.
  ^ If belief were so regarded, we should find that, like acquaintance, it would not admit of the opposition of truth and falsehood, but would have to be always true.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ We shall find it convenient only to speak of things existing when they are in time, that is to say, when we can point to some time at which they exist (not excluding the possibility of their existing at all times).
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ And having been forced to admit this universal, we find that it is no longer worth while to invent difficult and unplausible theories to avoid the admission of such universals as whiteness and triangularity.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  .1: The Impulse to Power

The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which Energy is the fundamental concept in physics.
^ What we have found as regards space is much the same as what we find in relation to the correspondence of the sense-data with their physical counterparts.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ One great reason why it is felt that we must secure a physical object in addition to the sense-data, is that we want the same object for different people.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ It must not be supposed that the various states of different physical objects have the same time-order as the sense-data which constitute the perceptions of those objects.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. .1: The Impulse to Power

Most men do not feel in themselves the competence required for leading their group to victory, and therefore seek out a captain who appears to possess the courage and sagacity necessary for the achievement of supremacy.
^ Some of our beliefs turn out to be erroneous, and therefore it becomes necessary to consider how, if at all, we can distinguish knowledge from error.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Wars are the hobbies of half-informed children who have somehow come into possession of the levers of power.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ The space of science, therefore, though connected with the spaces we see and feel, is not identical with them, and the manner of its connexion requires investigation.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
Even in religion this impulse appears. Nietzsche accused Christianity of inculcating a slave-morality, but ultimate triumph was always the goal. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."
- Ch. .2: Leaders and Followers

I greatly doubt whether the men who become pirate chiefs are those who are filled with retrospective terror of their fathers, or whether Napoleon, at Austerlitz, really felt that he was getting even with Madame Mère.
^ All this seems to be so evident as to be hardly worth stating, except in answer to a man who doubts whether I know anything.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ I do not mean that they doubt whether they exist, but that they have never become conscious of the fact that they have sensations and feelings, nor therefore of the fact that they, the subjects of their sensations and feelings, exist.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ His 'methodical doubt' consisted in doubting whatever seemed doubtful; in pausing, with each apparent piece of knowledge, to ask himself whether, on reflection, he could feel certain that he really knew it.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.I know nothing of the mother of Attila, but I rather suspect that she spoilt the little darling, who subsequently found the world irritating because it sometimes resisted his whims.
^ It can never quite reach certainty, because we know that in spite of frequent repetitions there sometimes is a failure at the last, as in the case of the chicken whose neck is wrung.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Now this something, which all of us who are not blind know, is not, according to science, really to be found in the outer world: it is something caused by the action of certain waves upon the eyes and nerves and brain of the person who sees the light.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ It has been argued that we have reason to know that the future will resemble the past, because what was the future has constantly become the past, and has always been found to resemble the past, so that we really have experience of the future, namely of times which were formerly future, which we may call past futures.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. 2: Leaders and Followers

In former days, men sold themselves to the Devil to acquire magical powers. .Nowadays they acquire those powers from science, and find themselves compelled to become devils.^ There are many questions -- and among them those that are of the profoundest interest to our spiritual life -- which, so far as we can see, must remain insoluble to the human intellect unless its powers become of quite a different order from what they are now.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ How is it possible for people to consider themselves supporters of the troops when they approve of an event that throws those troops into...peril?
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

.There is no hope for the world unless power can be tamed, and brought into the service, not of this or that group of fanatical tyrants, but of the whole human race, white and yellow and black, fascist and communist and democrat; for science has made it inevitable that all must live or all must die.
- Ch.
  ^ There is no security at the top of the world.
  Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
  ^ This immediate knowledge by memory is the source of all our knowledge concerning the past: without it, there could be no knowledge of the past by inference we should never know that there was anything past to be inferred.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ There is no logical impossibility in the supposition that the whole of life is a dream, in which we ourselves create all the objects that come before us.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  .2: Leaders and Followers

We thus have a kind of see-saw: first, pure persuasion leading to the conversion of a minority; then force exerted to secure that the rest of the community shall be exposed to the right propaganda; and finally a genuine belief on the part of the great majority, which makes the use of force again unnecessary.
^ Hence we shall reach the conclusion that Socrates is mortal with a greater approach to certainty if we make our argument purely inductive than if we go by way of 'all men are mortal' and then use deduction.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Thus relations, as we shall see more fully in the next chapter, must be placed in a world which is neither mental nor physical.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. 9: Power over opinion

In democratic countries, the most important private organizations are economic. .Unlike secret societies, they are able to exercize their terrorism without illegality, since they do not threaten to kill their enemies, but only to starve them.
- Ch.
  ^ Hence either there can be only one thing in the universe, or, if there are many things, they cannot possibly interact in any way, since any interaction would be a relation, and relations are impossible.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  .12: Powers and forms of governments

The "social contract," in the only sense in which it is not completely mythical, is a contract among conquerors, which loses its raison d'être if they are deprived of the benefits of conquest.
^ For example, we saw, in our early chapters, that knowledge of physical objects, as opposed to sense-data, is only obtained by an inference, and that they are not things with which we are acquainted.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Thus although truth and falsehood are properties of beliefs, yet they are in a sense extrinsic properties, for the condition of the truth of a belief is something not involving beliefs, or (in general) any mind at all, but only the objects of the belief.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. .12: Powers and forms of governments

Among human beings, the subjection of women is much more complete at a certain level of civilization than it is among savages.
^ I think, therefore I am' says rather more than is strictly certain.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ We saw that, for various reasons of detail, Berkeley was right in treating the sense-data which constitute our perception of the tree as more or less subjective, in the sense that they depend upon us as much as upon the tree, and would not exist if the tree were not being perceived.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
And the subjection is always reinforced by morality.
- Ch. .15: Power and moral codes

An individual may perceive a way of life, or a method of social organisation, by which more of the desires of mankind could be satisfied than under the existing method.
^ We judge, for example, that happiness is more desirable than misery, knowledge than ignorance, goodwill than hatred, and so on.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ It does not exist in Edinburgh any more than in London, for it relates the two and is neutral as between them.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ As long as mankind shall bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst for military glory will remain the vice of the most exalted characters.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
If he perceives truly, and can persuade men to adopt his reform, he is justified. Without rebellion, mankind would stagnate, and injustice would be irremediable.
- Ch. .15: Power and moral codes

The love of power is a part of human nature, but power-philosophies are, in a certain precise sense, insane.
^ Similarly, the study of the human mind, which was a part of philosophy, has now been separated from philosophy and has become the science of psychology.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But here a certain amount of care is required in getting at the precise nature of the truths that are self-evident.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.The existence of the external world, both that of matter and of other human beings, is a datum, which may be humiliating to a certain kind of pride, but can only be denied by a madman.
^ Where is the indignation about the fact that the US and USSR have thirty thousand pounds of destructive force for every human being in the world?
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ The world of universals, therefore, may also be described as the world of being.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Before the time of Kant it was thought that all judgements of which we could be certain a priori were of this kind: that in all of them there was a predicate which was only part of the subject of which it was asserted.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
Men who allow their love of power to give them a distorted view of the world are to be found in every asylum: one man will think he is Governor of the Bank of England, another will think he is the King, and yet another will think he is God. Highly similar delusions, if expressed by educated men in obscure language, lead to professorships in philosophy; and if expressed by emotional men in eloquent language, lead to dictatorships. .Certified lunatics are shut up because of the proneness to violence when their pretensions are questioned; the uncertified variety are given control of powerful armies, and can inflict death and disaster upon all sane men within their reach.
^ We believe that all men are mortal because we know that there are innumerable instances of men dying, and no instances of their living beyond a certain age.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ (This is obvious, because if all men are mortal, so is Socrates; but if Socrates is mortal, it does not follow that all men are mortal.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ This possibility, of knowledge of general propositions of which no instance can be given, is often denied, because it is not perceived that the knowledge of such propositions only requires a knowledge of the relations of universals, and does not require any knowledge of instances of the universals in question.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. .16: Power philosophies

It is not altogether true that persuasion is one thing and force is another.
^ It is of course the case that a truth which connects one thing with another thing could not subsist if the other thing did not subsist.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Here we have already the beginning of one of the distinctions that cause most trouble in philosophy -- the distinction between 'appearance' and 'reality', between what things seem to be and what they are.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But it is not true that, conversely, whenever I can know that a thing of a certain sort exists, I or some one else must be acquainted with the thing.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Many forms of persuasion — even many of which everybody approves — are really a kind of force.
^ It is largely the very peculiar kind of being that belongs to universals which has led many people to suppose that they are really mental.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
Consider what we do to our children. .We do not say to them: "Some people think the earth is round, and others think it is flat; when you grow up, you can, if you like, examine the evidence and form your own conclusion."
^ Nevertheless there are some reasons for thinking that we are acquainted with the 'I', though the acquaintance is hard to disentangle from other things.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The real fabric of American society is not all those flags you see on people's cars...it's in the Bill of Rights and in our constitutional form of government.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ We can think of a universal, and our thinking then exists in a perfectly ordinary sense, like any other mental act.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
Instead of this we say: "The earth is round." By the time our children are old enough to examine the evidence, our propaganda has closed their minds.
- Ch. 17: The Ethics of Power

To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.
- Ch. .18: The Taming of Power

Just as we teach children to avoid being destroyed by motor cars if they can, so we should teach them to avoid being destroyed by cruel fanatics, and to this end we should seek to produce independence of mind, somewhat sceptical and wholly scientific, and to preserve, as far as possible, the instinctive joy of life that is natural to healthy children.
^ When Othello believes that Desdemona loves Cassio, he must not have before his mind a single object, 'Desdemona's love for Cassio', or 'that Desdemona loves Cassio', for that would require that there should be objective falsehoods, which subsist independently of any minds; and this, though not logically refutable, is a theory to be avoided if possible.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ They constitute the means of drawing inferences from what is given in sensation; and if what we infer is to be true, it is just as necessary that our principles of inference should be true as it is that our data should be true.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The bombs in Vietnam explode at home; they destroy the hopes and possibilities for a decent America.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
.This is the task of a liberal education: to give a sense of the value of things other than domination, to help create wise citizens of a free community, and through the combination of citizenship with liberty in individual creativeness to enable men to give to human life that splendour which some few have shown that it can achieve.
^ The 'idea' justice is not identical with anything that is just: it is something other than particular things, which particular things partake of.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ What goes on in the minds of others is known to us through our perception of their bodies, that is, the sense-data in us which are associated with their bodies.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The other kind arises when the object of sense is complex, and we subject it to some degree of analysis.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. 18: The Taming of Power

A History of Western Philosophy (1945)

Uncertainty, in the presence of vivid hopes and fears, is painful, but must be endured if we wish to live without the support of comforting fairy tales. .It is not good either to forget the questions that philosophy asks, or to persuade ourselves that we have found indubitable answers to them.
^ Such questions are asked by philosophy, and variously answered by various philosophers.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Many philosophers, it is true, have held that philosophy could establish the truth of certain answers to such fundamental questions.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ We cannot, therefore, include as part of the value of philosophy any definite set of answers to such questions.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Introduction

He founded a religion, of which the main tenets were transmigration of souls and the sinfulness of eating beans.
- Book One, Part I, ch. .3: Pythagoras

A stupid man's report of what a clever man says is never accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something that he can understand.
^ But this, which a blind man can understand, is not what we mean by light : we mean by light just that which a blind man can never understand, and which we can never describe to him.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Book One, Part II, ch. .11: Socrates

There is a story of a man who got the experience from laughing gas; whenever he was under its influence, he knew the secret of the universe, but when he came to, he had forgotten it.
^ It will be seen that there are various stages in the removal from acquaintance with particulars: there is Bismarck to people who knew him; Bismarck to those who only know of him through history; the man with the iron mask; the longest-lived of men.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
At last, with immense effort, he wrote down the secret before the vision had faded. When completely recovered, he rushed to see what he had written. It was "A smell of petroleum prevails throughout."
- Book One, Part II, ch. .15: The Theory of Ideas

I do not agree with Plato, but if anything could make me do so, it would be Aristotle's arguments against him.
^ Plato's 'theory of ideas' is an attempt to solve this very problem, and in my opinion it is one of the most successful attempts hitherto made.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ That is to say, when we say anything about Bismarck, we should like, if we could, to make the judgement which Bismarck alone can make, namely, the judgement of which he himself is a constituent.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ This, however, would be an irrelevant retort, since, if the principle were true, I could not know that any one else is acquainted with him.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Book One, Part II, ch. .21: Aristotle's Politics

Spinoza (1634–77) is the noblest and most lovable of the great philosophers.
^ This omission has had a very great effect upon philosophy; it is hardly too much to say that most metaphysics, since Spinoza, has been largely determined by it.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ IN all that we have said hitherto concerning philosophy, we have scarcely touched on many matters that occupy a great space in the writings of most philosophers.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
Intellectually, some have surpassed him, but ethically he is supreme. As a natural consequence, he was considered, during his lifetime and for a century after his death, a man of appalling wickedness.
- Book Three, Part I, ch. .10: Spinoza

Since the world is what it is, it is clear that valid reasoning from sound principles cannot lead to error; but a principle may be so nearly true as to deserve theoretical respect, and yet may lead to practical consequences which we feel to be absurd.
^ In like manner, a true belief cannot be called knowledge when it is deduced by a fallacious process of reasoning, even if the premisses from which it is deduced are true.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ It is our true policy to steer clear of entangling alliances with any portion of the foreign world.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ It may be that, with sufficient imagination, a novelist might invent a past for the world that would perfectly fit on to what we know, and yet be quite different from the real past.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.There is therefore a justification for common sense in philosophy, but only as showing that our theoretical principles cannot be quite correct so long as their consequences are condemned by an appeal to common sense which we feel to be irresistible.
^ Common sense unhesitatingly answers that there is.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Thus we must either accept the inductive principle on the ground of its intrinsic evidence, or forgo all justification of our expectations about the future.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ For example, we saw, in our early chapters, that knowledge of physical objects, as opposed to sense-data, is only obtained by an inference, and that they are not things with which we are acquainted.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.The theorist may retort that common sense is no more infallible than logic.
^ But for the fact of memory in this sense, we should not know that there ever was a past at all, nor should we be able to understand the word 'past', any more than a man born blind can understand the word 'light'.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But although this is not logically impossible, there is no reason whatever to suppose that it is true; and it is, in fact, a less simple hypothesis, viewed as a means of accounting for the facts of our own life, than the common-sense hypothesis that there really are objects independent of us, whose action on us causes our sensations.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ By imagining worlds in which these axioms are false, the mathematicians have used logic to loosen the prejudices of common sense, and to show the possibility of spaces differing -- some more, some less -- from that in which we live.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
But this retort, though made by Berkeley and Hume, would have been wholly foreign to Locke's intellectual temper.
- Book Three, Part I, ch. .13: Locke's Theory of Knowledge

The quarrel between Hume and Rousseau is symbolic: Rousseau was mad but influential, Hume was sane but had no followers.
^ It follows that all our knowledge concerning physical objects is such that no actual instance can be given.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Book Three, Part I, ch. .17: Hume

Hume, by his criticism of the concept of causality, awakened him from his dogmatic slumbers-so at least he says, but the awakening was only temporary, and he soon invented a soporific which enabled him to sleep again.
^ Before Hume, rationalists at least had supposed that the effect could be logically deduced from the cause, if only we had sufficient knowledge.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Book Three, Part II, ch. 20: Kant

Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.
- Book Three, Part II, ch. 21: Currents of Thought in the Nineteenth Century. Russell wrote this to outline Helvetius's thought. This line is not what Russell thinks about Education. It is what Russell thinks what Helvetius thinks about education.

The worse your logic, the more interesting the consequences to which it gives rise.
- Book Three, Part II, ch. 22: Hegel

Contacts with the Mohammedans in Spain, and to a lesser extent in Sicily, made the West aware of Aristotle; also of Arabic numerals, algebra, and chemistry. It was this contact that began the revival of learning in the eleventh century, leading to the Scholastic philosophy. It was later, from the thirteenth century onward, that the study of the Greek enabled men to go direct to the works of Plato and Aristotle and other Greeks writers of antiquity. But if the Arabs had not preserved the tradition, the men of the Renaissance might not have suspected how much was to be gained by the revival of classical learning.
- History of Western Philosophy , Routledge, 2004, p.268

Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic? (1947)

Not to be absolutely certain is, I think, one of the essential things in rationality.

When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others.
^ I think, therefore I am' says rather more than is strictly certain.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ We do not naturally dwell upon those words in a sentence which do not stand for particulars; and if we are forced to dwell upon a word which stands for a universal, we naturally think of it as standing for some one of the particulars that come under the universal.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The 'idea' justice is not identical with anything that is just: it is something other than particular things, which particular things partake of.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.It is much more nearly certain that we are assembled here tonight than it is that this or that political party is in the right.
^ The maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country...more good than it will do the enemy.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ I love America more than any other country in the world and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
.Certainly there are degrees of certainty, and one should be very careful to emphasize that fact, because otherwise one is landed in an utter skepticism, and complete skepticism would, of course, be totally barren and completely useless.

As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God.
^ That is to say, if we wish to prove that something of which we have no direct experience exists, we must have among our premisses the existence of one or more things of which we have direct experience.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Now such an argument is not hard to follow; and if it is granted that its premisses are true in fact, no one deny that the conclusion must also be true.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Hence we shall reach the conclusion that Socrates is mortal with a greater approach to certainty if we make our argument purely inductive than if we go by way of 'all men are mortal' and then use deduction.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think that I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because, when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

Unpopular Essays (1950)

Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing.^ On the one hand there is the sense-datum which represents the sun to me, on the other hand there is that which sees this sense-datum.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ In one sense it must be admitted that we can never prove the existence of things other than ourselves and our experiences.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ But it is not true that, conversely, whenever I can know that a thing of a certain sort exists, I or some one else must be acquainted with the thing.

The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.

Ch. 1: Philosophy and Politics

Change is one thing, progress is another.
^ It is of course the case that a truth which connects one thing with another thing could not subsist if the other thing did not subsist.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Its one thing to fight for what you believe in, another thing to fight for what others believe in.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ One man's act of thought is necessarily a different thing from another man's; one man's act of thought at one time is necessarily a different thing from the same man's act of thought at another time.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
."Change" is scientific, "progress" is ethical; change is indubitable, whereas progress is a matter of controversy.
After ages during which the earth produced harmless trilobites and butterflies, evolution progressed to the point at which it generated Neros, Genghis Khans, and Hitlers.
^ The progress of science is constantly producing such subsumptions, and therefore giving a constantly wider inductive basis for scientific generalizations.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
This, however, is a passing nightmare; in time the earth will become again incapable of supporting life, and peace will return.
The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.

Ch. 2: Philosophy for Laymen

Dogmatism and skepticism are both, in a sense, absolute philosophies; one is certain of knowing, the other of not knowing.
^ On the one hand there is the sense-datum which represents the sun to me, on the other hand there is that which sees this sense-datum.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ In one sense it must be admitted that we can never prove the existence of things other than ourselves and our experiences.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But it is not true that, conversely, whenever I can know that a thing of a certain sort exists, I or some one else must be acquainted with the thing.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.What philosophy should dissipate is certainty, whether of knowledge or ignorance.
The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an intellectual vice.
^ A man's nature, for example, is constituted by his memories and the rest of his knowledge, by his loves and hatreds, and so on; thus, but for the objects which he knows or loves or hates, he could not be what he is.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ In the search for certainty, it is natural to begin with our present experiences, and in some sense, no doubt, knowledge is to be derived from them.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ If our dreams, night after night, were as coherent one with another as our days, we should hardly know whether to believe the dreams or the waking life.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
So long as men are not trained to withhold judgment in the absence of evidence, they will be led astray by cocksure prophets, and it is likely that their leaders will be either ignorant fanatics or dishonest charlatans. To endure uncertainty is difficult, but so are most of the other virtues

Ch. 4: Philosophy's Ulterior Motives

In a man whose reasoning powers are good, fallacious arguments are evidence of bias.

The apparent world goes through developments which are the same as those the logician goes through if he starts from Pure Being and travels on to the Absolute Idea...
^ In this way Hegel advances until he reaches the 'Absolute Idea', which, according to him, has no incompleteness, no opposite, and no need of further development.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ IS there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ There are in this argument a good many fallacies which have been important in the history of philosophy, and which it will be as well to bring to light.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Why the world should go through this logical evolution is not clear; one is tempted to suppose that the Absolute Idea did not quite understand itself at first, and made mistakes when it tried to embody itself in events.
^ Thus apart from minds and their ideas there is nothing in the world, nor is it possible that anything else should ever be known, since whatever is known is necessarily an idea.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ And when we go to war, we should have a purpose that our people understand and support.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ If, then, we cannot trust what we see with the naked eye, why should we trust what we see through a microscope?
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
But this, of course, was not what Hegel would have said.

Ch. 5: The Superior Virtue of the Oppressed

As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles.

Admiration of the proletariat, like that of dams, power stations, and aeroplanes, is part of the ideology of the machine age.

Ch.^ I do not believe any policy which has behind it the threat of military force is justified as part of the basic foreign policy of the United States except to defend the liberty of our own people.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^ Do they think if we destroy our freedoms for the terrorists they will no longer have a reason to attack us?
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^ If there is no sufficient reason for war, the war party will make war on one pretext, then invent another...after the war is on.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

6: On Being Modern-Minded

Pragmatists explained that Truth is what it pays to believe. Historians of morals reduced the Good to a matter of tribal custom. Beauty was abolished by artists in a revolt against the sugary insipidities of a philistine epoch and in a mood of fury in which satisfaction is to be derived only from what hurts. And so the world was swept clear not only of God as a person but of God's essence as an ideal to which man owed an ideal allegiance.

Ch. 7: An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish

Man is a rational animal — so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favor of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three continents.
As soon as we abandon our own reason, and are content to rely upon authority, there is no end to our troubles.
Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones.
For my part I distrust all generalizations about women, favourable and unfavourable, masculine and feminine, ancient and modern; all alike, I should say, result from paucity of experience.
Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted.
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. .Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion.
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty.
^ This immediate knowledge by memory is the source of all our knowledge concerning the past: without it, there could be no knowledge of the past by inference we should never know that there was anything past to be inferred.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Apart from minor grounds on which Kant's philosophy may be criticized, there is one main objection which seems fatal to any attempt to deal with the problem of a priori knowledge by his method.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ And more particularly, how can there be knowledge of general propositions in cases where we have not examined all the instances, and indeed never can examine them all, because their number is infinite?
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom, in the pursuit of truth as in the endeavour after a worthy manner of life.
Every advance in civilization has been denounced as unnatural while it was recent.
Education, which was at first made universal in order that all might be able to read and write, has been found capable of serving quite other purposes.
^ The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Every complete sentence must contain at least one word which stands for a universal, since all verbs have a meaning which is universal.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The only case in which it might seem, at first sight, as if our proposition were untrue, is the case in which an a priori proposition states that all of one class of particulars belong to some other class, or (what comes the same thing) that all particulars having some one property also have some other.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
By instilling nonsense, it unifies populations and generates collective enthusiasm. If all governments taught the same nonsense, the harm would not be so great.

Ch. 9: Ideas That Have Helped Mankind

Christ said "Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself," and when asked "who is my neighbour?" went on to the parable of the Good Samaritan. If you wish to understand this parable as it was understood by his hearers, you should substitute "German" or "Japanese" for Samaritan. .I fear many present-day Christians would resent such a substitution, because it would compel them to realize how far they have departed from the teachings of the Founder of their religion.

Ch.^ If [America] becomes militant, it will be because its people choose to become such; it will be because they think that war and warlikeness are desirable.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

10: Ideas That Have Harmed Mankind

In America everybody is of opinion that he has no social superiors, since all men are equal, but he does not admit that he has no social inferiors.

The Impact of Science on Society (1951)

If a Black Death could spread throughout the world once in every generation, survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full.
^ Rationalists believed that, from general consideration as to what must be, they could deduce the existence of this or that in the actual world.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Under the same circumstances, a sufficient number of cases of the association of A with B will make it nearly certain that A is always associated with B, and will make this general law approach certainty without limit.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Instead of being shut in within narrow walls, of which every nook and cranny could be explored, we find ourselves in an open world of free possibilities, where much remains unknown because there is so much to know.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
... The state of affairs might be somewhat unpleasant, but what of it? .Really high-minded people are indifferent to happiness, especially other people's.

Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths.

Diet, injections, and injunctions will combine, from a very early age, to produce the sort of character and the sort of beliefs that the authorities consider desirable, and any serious criticism of the powers that be will become psychologically impossible.

I think the subject which will be of most importance politically is mass psychology....
^ The voice of protest...is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum...is bidding all men...obey in silence the tyrannous word of command.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ It may be said, of course, that I judge this because of other people's acquaintance with him.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Kant, who first emphasized this contradiction, deduced the impossibility of space and time, which he declared to be merely subjective; and since his time very many philosophers have believed that space and time are mere appearance, not characteristic of the world as it really is.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda. Of these the most influential is what is called `education.' Religion plays a part, though a diminishing one; the press, the cinema, and the radio play an increasing part.... It may be hoped that in time anybody will be able to persuade anybody of anything if he can catch the patient young and is provided by the State with money and equipment.

The subject will make great strides when it is taken up by scientists under a scientific dictatorship.... The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will soon be arrived at. First, that the influence of home is obstructive. Second, that not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten. Third, that verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective. Fourth, that the opinion that snow is white must be held to show a morbid taste for eccentricity. But I anticipate. It is for future scientists to make these maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black, and how much less it would cost to make them believe it is dark gray.

Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen.

The Russell-Einstein Manifesto (1955)

The Russell-Einstein Manifesto was issued in London on 9 July 1955 by Bertrand Russell and signed by 11 prominent intellectuals and scientists, most notably Albert Einstein.

We are speaking on this occasion, not as members of this or that nation, continent, or creed, but as human beings, members of the species Man, whose continued existence is in doubt.

We are speaking on this occasion, not as members of this or that nation, continent, or creed, but as human beings, members of the species Man, whose continued existence is in doubt.

The world is full of conflicts; and, overshadowing all minor conflicts, the titanic struggle between Communism and anti-Communism.
^ IS there any knowledge in the world which is so certain that no reasonable man could doubt it?
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ What things are there in the universe whose existence is known to us owing to our being acquainted with them?
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ We may therefore admit -- though with a slight doubt derived from dreams -- that the external world does really exist, and is not wholly dependent for its existence upon our continuing to perceive it.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.Almost everybody who is politically conscious has strong feelings about one or more of these issues; but we want you, if you can, to set aside such feelings and consider yourselves only as members of a biological species which has had a remarkable history, and whose disappearance none of us can desire.
^ One more such victory and we are undone.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ To begin with, space as we see it is not the same as space as we get it by the sense of touch; it is only by experience in infancy that we learn how to touch things we see, or how to get a sight of things which we feel touching us.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ We have war when at least one of the parties to a conflict wants something more than it wants peace.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
.We shall try to say no single word which should appeal to one group rather than to another.^ I think, therefore I am' says rather more than is strictly certain.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ That is to say, if we wish to prove that something of which we have no direct experience exists, we must have among our premisses the existence of one or more things of which we have direct experience.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ But for the fact of memory in this sense, we should not know that there ever was a past at all, nor should we be able to understand the word 'past', any more than a man born blind can understand the word 'light'.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

All, equally, are in peril, and, if the peril is understood, there is hope that they may collectively avert it.

We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all parties?

People scarcely realize in imagination that the danger is to themselves and their children and their grandchildren, and not only to a dimly apprehended humanity. .They can scarcely bring themselves to grasp that they, individually, and those whom they love are in imminent danger of perishing agonizingly.

The best authorities are unanimous in saying that a war with H-bombs might possibly put an end to the human race.
^ Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ The worst barbarity of war is that it forces men collectively to commit acts against which individually they would revolt with their whole being.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ It is obviously unnecessary to have an individual acquaintance with the whole human race in order to understand what our proposition means.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.It is feared that if many H-bombs are used there will be universal death, sudden only for a minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration.
^ Many universals like many particulars, are only known to us by description.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The first is that, if many particular instances are known, our general proposition may be arrived at in the first instance by induction, and the connexion of universals may be only subsequently perceived.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Hence either there can be only one thing in the universe, or, if there are many things, they cannot possibly interact in any way, since any interaction would be a relation, and relations are impossible.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
Many warnings have been uttered by eminent men of science and by authorities in military strategy. None of them will say that the worst results are certain. .What they do say is that these results are possible, and no one can be sure that they will not be realized. We have not yet found that the views of experts on this question depend in any degree upon their politics or prejudices.
^ War can really cause no economic boom, at least not directly, since an increase in wealth never does result from destruction of goods.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ That is to say, if we wish to prove that something of which we have no direct experience exists, we must have among our premisses the existence of one or more things of which we have direct experience.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ It is evident from what we have found, that there is no colour which preeminently appears to be the colour of the table, or even of any one particular part of the table -- it appears to be of different colours from different points of view, and there is no reason for regarding some of these as more really its colour than others.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.They depend only, so far as our researches have revealed, upon the extent of the particular expert's knowledge.
^ All our conduct is based upon associations which have worked in the past, and which we therefore regard as likely to work in the future; and this likelihood is dependent for its validity upon the inductive principle.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ In all our knowledge of general principles, what actually happens is that first of all we realize some particular application of the principle, and then we realize the particularity is irrelevant, and that there is a generality which may equally truly be affirmed.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ We saw that, for various reasons of detail, Berkeley was right in treating the sense-data which constitute our perception of the tree as more or less subjective, in the sense that they depend upon us as much as upon the tree, and would not exist if the tree were not being perceived.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.We have found that the men who know most are the most gloomy.

Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war? People will not face this alternative because it is so difficult to abolish war.
^ If men do not now succeed in abolishing war, civilization and mankind are doomed.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Mankind must put an end to war, or war will put an end to mankind.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Physical science, through the medium of inventions, is useful to innumerable people who are wholly ignorant of it; thus the study of physical science is to be recommended, not only, or primarily, because of the effect on the student, but rather because of the effect on mankind in general.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
The abolition of war will demand distasteful limitations of national sovereignty. .But what perhaps impedes understanding of the situation more than anything else is that the term "mankind" feels vague and abstract.
^ But for the fact of memory in this sense, we should not know that there ever was a past at all, nor should we be able to understand the word 'past', any more than a man born blind can understand the word 'light'.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Instances might be multiplied indefinitely, but enough has been said to show that there are relations which require more than two terms before they can occur.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.People scarcely realize in imagination that the danger is to themselves and their children and their grandchildren, and not only to a dimly apprehended humanity.^ The loss of liberty at home is to be charged to the provisions against danger, real or imagined, from abroad.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

^ Peace will be realized only by forging bonds of trust between people at the deepest level, in the depths of their very lives.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

They can scarcely bring themselves to grasp that they, individually, and those whom they love are in imminent danger of perishing agonizingly. And so they hope that perhaps war may be allowed to continue provided modern weapons are prohibited.
This hope is illusory. Whatever agreements not to use H-bombs had been reached in time of peace, they would no longer be considered binding in time of war, and both sides would set to work to manufacture H-bombs as soon as war broke out, for, if one side manufactured the bombs and the other did not, the side that manufactured them would inevitably be victorious.

We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. .If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.

Most of us are not neutral in feeling, but, as human beings, we have to remember that, if the issues between East and West are to be decided in any manner that can give any possible satisfaction to anybody, whether Communist or anti-Communist, whether Asian or European or American, whether White or Black, then these issues must not be decided by war.^ When Othello believes that Desdemona loves Cassio, he must not have before his mind a single object, 'Desdemona's love for Cassio', or 'that Desdemona loves Cassio', for that would require that there should be objective falsehoods, which subsist independently of any minds; and this, though not logically refutable, is a theory to be avoided if possible.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ There is no logical impossibility in the supposition that the whole of life is a dream, in which we ourselves create all the objects that come before us.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ Most philosophers, rightly or wrongly, believe that philosophy can do much more than this -- that it can give us knowledge, not otherwise attainable, concerning the universe as a whole, and concerning the nature of ultimate reality.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

.We should wish this to be understood, both in the East and in the West.

There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge, and wisdom.^ It is obtained when the desire for knowledge is alone operative, by a study which does not wish in advance that its objects should have this or that character, but adapts the Self to the characters which it finds in its objects.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ There is no logical impossibility in the supposition that the whole of life is a dream, in which we ourselves create all the objects that come before us.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ There is no state of mind in which we are directly aware of the table; all our knowledge of the table is really knowledge of truths , and the actual thing which is the table is not, strictly speaking, known to us at all.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

.Shall we, instead, choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels?^ If we wish to avoid the universals whiteness and triangularity, we shall choose some particular patch of white or some particular triangle, and say that anything is white or a triangle if it has the right sort of resemblance to our chosen particular.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.

We invite this Congress, and through it the scientists of the world and the general public, to subscribe to the following resolution:
"In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them."

My Philosophical Development (1959)

This is one of those views which are so absurd that only very learned men could possibly adopt them.
^ What is absurd and monstrous about war is that men who have no personal quarrel should be trained to murder one another in cold blood.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Wars of aggression are popular nowadays with those nations convinced that only victory and conquest could improve their material well-being.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ The Absolute Idea, therefore, is adequate to describe Absolute Reality; but all lower ideas only describe ality as it appears to a partial view, not as it is to one who simultaneously surveys the Whole.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- p. .110.

I must before I die, find some way to say the essential thing that is in me, that I have never said yet -- a thing that is not love or hate or pity or scorn, but the very breath of life, fierce and coming from far away, bringing into human life the vastness and fearful passionless force of non-human things .^ Thus it would seem that, in some way or other, a description known to be applicable to a particular must involve some reference to a particular with which we are acquainted, if our knowledge about the thing described is not to be merely what follows logically from the description.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ There is no logical impossibility in the supposition that the whole of life is a dream, in which we ourselves create all the objects that come before us.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

^ Before we embark upon doubtful matters, let us try to find some more or less fixed point from which to start.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]

. ..
- p. 261.

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1967)

Routledge, 2000, ISBN 0-415-22862-X

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. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair..Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people..the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be.
^ These people are trying to shake the will of the Iraqi citizens, and they want us to leave...I think the world would be better off if we did leave...
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ The greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is my own government.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ My theory is, strong people don't need strong leaders.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer. This has been my life. .I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
- Prologue: What I Have Lived For

I remember the precise moment, one day in 1894, as I was walking along Trinity Lane, when I saw in a flash (or thought I saw) that the ontological argument is valid.
^ WE saw in the preceding chapter that the principle of Induction, while necessary to the validity of all arguments based on experience, is itself not capable of being proved by experience, and yet is unhesitatingly believed by every one, at least in all its concrete applications.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ If any one asks: 'Why should I accept the results of valid arguments based on true premisses?'
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.I had gone out to buy a tin of tobacco; on my way back, I suddenly threw it up in the air, and exclaimed as I caught it: "Great Scott, the ontological argument is sound!"
^ For example, a man who had seen a great many white swans might argue by our principle, that on the data it was probable that all swans were white, and this might be a perfectly sound argument.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. 3: Cambridge, p. .60

I once devised a test question which I put to many people to discover whether they were pessimists.
^ Now in so far as the above considerations depend upon supposing that there are other people besides ourselves, they beg the very question at issue.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The question remains whether there is any other method of discovering the intrinsic nature of physical objects.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ It is largely the very peculiar kind of being that belongs to universals which has led many people to suppose that they are really mental.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
The question was: "If you had the power to destroy the world, would you do so?"
- Ch. 3: Cambridge, p. 62

I had supposed until that time that it was quite common for parents to love their children, but the war persuaded me that it is a rare exception. .I had supposed that most people liked money better than almost anything else, but I discovered that they liked destruction even better.
^ These people are trying to shake the will of the Iraqi citizens, and they want us to leave...I think the world would be better off if we did leave...
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ The most we can hope is that the oftener things are found together, the more probable becomes that they will be found together another time, and that, if they have been found together often enough, the probability will amount almost to certainty.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ It's very common for the victims to understand a system better than the people who are holding the stick.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
I had supposed that intellectuals frequently loved truth, but I found here again that not ten per cent of them prefer truth to popularity.
- Ch. 8: The First War, p. 240

As a lover of truth, the national propaganda of all the belligerent nations sickened me. As a lover of civilization, the return to barbarism appalled me.
- Ch. 8: The First War, p. 241

He asked my religion and I replied "agnostic." .He asked how to spell it, and remarked with a sigh: "Well, there are many religions, but I suppose they all worship the same God."
- Ch.
  ^ Now in so far as the above considerations depend upon supposing that there are other people besides ourselves, they beg the very question at issue.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ When we see a white patch, we are acquainted, in the first instance, with the particular patch; but by seeing many white patches, we easily learn to abstract the whiteness which they all have in common, and in learning to do this we are learning to be acquainted with whiteness.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ There are in this argument a good many fallacies which have been important in the history of philosophy, and which it will be as well to bring to light.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  8: The First War, p. .257

And all this madness, all this rage, all this flaming death of our civilization and our hopes, has been brought about because a set of official gentlemen, living luxurious lives, mostly stupid, and all without imagination or heart, have chosen that it should occur rather than that any one of them should suffer some infinitesimal rebuff to his country’s pride.
^ What Kant maintained was that in all our experience there are two elements to be distinguished, the one due to the object (i.e.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ This immediate knowledge by memory is the source of all our knowledge concerning the past: without it, there could be no knowledge of the past by inference we should never know that there was anything past to be inferred.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But for our acquaintance with the contents of our own minds, we should be unable to imagine the minds of others, and therefore we could never arrive at the knowledge that they have minds.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. 8: The First War, p. 265

I was told that The Chinese said they would bury me by the Western Lake and build a shrine to my memory. .I have some slight regret that this did not happen, as I might have become a god, which would have been very chic for an atheist.
^ It might happen, if Kant is right, that to-morrow our nature would so change as to make two and two become five.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. 10: China, p. 365

I used to go to [Einstein's] house, once a week to discuss with him and Gödel and Pauli. .These discussions were in some ways disappointing, for, although all three of them were Jews and exiles and, in intention, cosmopolitans, I found that they all had German bias toward metaphysics...
^ For this reason, theory of knowledge occupies a larger space than metaphysics in the present volume, and some topics much discussed by philosophers are treated very briefly, if at all.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ We shall find it convenient only to speak of things existing when they are in time, that is to say, when we can point to some time at which they exist (not excluding the possibility of their existing at all times).
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ When some of them have been granted, others can be proved, though these others, so long as they are simple, are just as obvious as the principles taken for granted.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
Gödel turned out to be an unadulterated Platonist, and apparently believed that an eternal 'not' was laid up in heaven, where virtuous logicians might hope to meet it hereafter.
- Ch. 13: In America, 1938-1944, p. .466
- As a response to this, Gödel wrote: "As far as the passage about me [in Russell's autobiography] is concerned, I have to say first (for the sake of truth) that I am not a Jew (even though I don't think this question is of any importance), 2.) that the passage gives the wrong impression that I had many discussions with Russell, which was by no means the case (I remember only one).
  ^ It is of course the case that a truth which connects one thing with another thing could not subsist if the other thing did not subsist.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ In all cases where we know by acquaintance a complex fact consisting of certain terms in a certain relation, we say that the truth that these terms are so related has the first or absolute kind of self-evidence, and in these cases the judgement that the terms are so related must be true.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ Things which we see become associated, by habit, with certain tactile sensations which we expect if we touch them; one of the horrors of a ghost (in many ghost-stories) is that it fails to give us any sensations of touch.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  .3.) Concerning my 'unadulterated' Platonism, it is no more 'unadulterated' than Russell's own in 1921 when in the Introduction [to Mathematical Philosophy] he said '[Logic is concerned with the real world just as truly as zoology, though with its more abstract and general features].'
  ^ Most philosophers, rightly or wrongly, believe that philosophy can do much more than this -- that it can give us knowledge, not otherwise attainable, concerning the universe as a whole, and concerning the nature of ultimate reality.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ It is evident from what we have found, that there is no colour which preeminently appears to be the colour of the table, or even of any one particular part of the table -- it appears to be of different colours from different points of view, and there is no reason for regarding some of these as more really its colour than others.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ Such generalizations always remain mere facts: we feel that there might be a world in which they were false, though in the actual world they happen to be true.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  .At that time evidently Russell had met the 'not' even in this world, but later on under the influence of Wittgenstein he chose to overlook it."

I was taking with me the manuscript of my History of Western Philosophy, and the unfortunate censors had to read every word of it lest it should contain information useful to the enemy.
^ Every complete sentence must contain at least one word which stands for a universal, since all verbs have a meaning which is universal.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.They were, however, at last satisfied that a knowledge of philosophy could be of no use to the Germans, and very politely assured me that they had enjoyed reading my book, which I confess I found hard to believe.
^ This immediate knowledge by memory is the source of all our knowledge concerning the past: without it, there could be no knowledge of the past by inference we should never know that there was anything past to be inferred.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But if he believes that Mr. Balfour was the late Prime Minister, he will still believe that the late Prime Minister's last name began with a B, yet this belief, though true, would not be thought to constitute knowledge.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But for our acquaintance with the contents of our own minds, we should be unable to imagine the minds of others, and therefore we could never arrive at the knowledge that they have minds.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ch. 14: Return to England, p. 506

I have lived in the pursuit of a vision, both personal and social. Personal: to care for what is noble, for what is beautiful, for what is gentle; to allow moments of insight to give wisdom at more mundane times. .Social: to see in imagination the society that is to be created, where individuals grow freely, and where hate and greed and envy die because there is nothing to nourish them.
^ This they hold, as Berkeley does, chiefly because they think there can be nothing real -- or at any rate nothing known to be real except minds and their thoughts and feelings.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.These things I believe, and the world, for all its horrors, has left me unshaken.
^ But I do not believe that when all these things cease the table ceases.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ All these things are not commonly noticed in looking at a table, because experience has taught us to construct the 'real' shape from the apparent shape, and the 'real' shape is what interests us as practical men.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ If this, which we believe when we believe the law of contradiction, were not true of the things in the world, the fact that we were compelled to think it true would not save the law of contradiction from being false; and this shows that the law is not a law of thought .
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Postscript

Disputed

War does not determine who is right — only who is left.
- This has often been published as a quotation of Russell (when an author is given), but without any sourced citations, and seems to have circulated as an anonymous proverb as early as 1932.

Misattributed

If forty million people say a foolish thing it does not become a wise one, but the wise man is foolish to give them the lie.
^ That is to say, if we wish to prove that something of which we have no direct experience exists, we must have among our premisses the existence of one or more things of which we have direct experience.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ Things which we see become associated, by habit, with certain tactile sensations which we expect if we touch them; one of the horrors of a ghost (in many ghost-stories) is that it fails to give us any sensations of touch.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ The question we really have to ask is: 'When two things have been found to be often associated, and no instance is known of the one occurring without the other, does the occurrence of one of the two, in a fresh instance, give any good ground for expecting the other?'
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.
- W. Somerset Maugham, A Writer's Notebook (1949), entry for 1901
- Sometimes misquoted as "If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."
- Sometimes misattributed to Anatole France
- Note that Russell does say something similar; see Marriage and Morals quote above

If a "religion" is defined to be a system of ideas that contains unprovable statements, then Gödel taught us that mathematics is not only a religion, it is the only religion that can prove itself to be one.
^ The 'idea' justice is not identical with anything that is just: it is something other than particular things, which particular things partake of.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ To say that logic and arithmetic are contributed by us does not account for this.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ But it is fairly obvious that they cannot be proved by experience; for the fact that a thing exists or does not exist cannot prove either that it is good that it should exist or that it is bad.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
.
- John D. Barrow, Between Inner and Outer Space: Essays on Science, Art and Philosophy (Oxford University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-192-88041-1), Part 4, ch.
  ^ First published in the Home University Library, 1912 First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1959 This reprint, 1971-2 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA .
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ Similarly, the study of the human mind, which was a part of philosophy, has now been separated from philosophy and has become the science of psychology.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ But the space of science is neutral as between touch and sight; thus it cannot be either the space of touch or the space of sight.
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  13: Why is the Universe Mathematical? (p. 88). .Also found in Barrow's "The Mathematical Universe" (1989) and The Artful Universe Expanded (Oxford University Press, 2005, ISBN 0-192-80569-X), ch.
  ^ First published in the Home University Library, 1912 First issued as an Oxford University Press paperback, 1959 This reprint, 1971-2 PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA .
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  ^ The Problems of Philosophy BERTRAND RUSSELL OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS LONDON OXFORD NEW YORK .
  The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
  5, Player Piano: Hearing by Numbers, p. 250

Quotes about Russell

It is impossible to describe Bertrand Russell except by saying that he looks like the Mad Hatter. ~ .Norbert Wiener

Bertrand Russell would not have wished to be called a saint of any description; but he was a great and good man.
- A.J. Ayer, Bertrand Russell (1972)

It is difficult to overstate the extent to which Russell's thought dominated twentieth century analytic philosophy: virtually every strand in its development either originated with him or was transformed by being transmitted through him. Analytic philosophy itself owes its existence more to Russell than to any other philosopher.
^ A coward is much more exposed to quarrels than a man of spirit.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ Of all the enemies to public liberty, war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
^ The maintenance of the right of criticism in the long run will do the country...more good than it will do the enemy.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]
- Nicholas Griffin, The Cambridge Companion to Bertrand Russell (2003)

I can remember Bertrand Russell telling me of a horrible dream. He was in the top floor of the University Library, about A.D. 2100. A library assistant was going round the shelves carrying an enormous bucket, taking down books, glancing at them, restoring them to the shelves or dumping them into the bucket. At last he came to three large volumes which Russell could recognize as the last surviving copy of Principia Mathematica. He took down one of the volumes, turned over a few pages, seemed puzzled for a moment by the curious symbolism, closed the volume, balanced it in his hand and hesitated....
- G. H. Hardy in A Mathematician's Apology (1940)

Russell's prose has been compared by T.S. Eliot to that of David Hume's. I would rank it higher, for it had more color, juice, and humor. But to be lucid, exciting and profound in the main body of one's work is a combination of virtues given to few philosophers. Bertrand Russell has achieved immortality by his philosophical writings.
- Sydney Hook, Out of Step, An Unquiet Life in the 20th Century (1988)

Its enduring value was simply a deeper understanding of the central concepts of mathematics and their basic laws and interrelationships. .Their total translatability into just elementary logic and a simple familiar two-place predicate, membership, is of itself a philosophical sensation.
^ All arithmetic, moreover, can be deduced from the general principles of logic, yet the simple propositions of arithmetic, such as 'two and two are four', are just as self-evident as the principles of logic.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- W.V. Quine (on the Principia Mathematica) in From Stimulus to Science (1995)

Oh, Bertrand Russell! Oh, Hewlett Johnson! Where, oh where, was your flaming conscience at that time? .
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn in The Gulag Archipelago (1974)

He was the most fascinating man I have ever known, the only man I ever loved, the greatest man I shall ever meet, the wittiest, the gayest, the most charming.
^ We know that the candidate who gets the most votes will be elected, and in this case we are very likely also acquainted (in the only sense in which one can be acquainted with some one else) with the man who is, in fact, the candidate who will get most votes; but we do not know which of the candidates he is, i.e.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ IN regard to one man's knowledge at a given time, universals, like particulars, may be divided into those known by acquaintance, those known only by description, and those not known either by acquaintance or by description.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
It was a privilege to know him, and I thank God he was my father. .
- Lady Katherine Tait in My Father Bertrand Russell (1975)

It is impossible to describe Bertrand Russell except by saying that he looks like the Mad Hatter.
- Norbert Wiener, Ex-Prodigy (1953)

Russell's books should be bound in two colours, those dealing with mathematical logic in red — and all students of philosophy should read them; those dealing with ethics and politics in blue — and no one should be allowed to read them.
^ Or again: Suppose we are comparing two shades of colour, one blue and one green.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ All pure mathematics is a priori , like logic.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
^ This immediate knowledge by memory is the source of all our knowledge concerning the past: without it, there could be no knowledge of the past by inference we should never know that there was anything past to be inferred.
The Problems of Philosophy, Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.lawrence.edu [Source type: Original source]
- Ludwig Wittgenstein, as quoted in Recollections of Wittgenstein (1984) by Rush Rhees.

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(Redirected to Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell (1872-1970) article)

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Bertrand Arthur William Russell ^‡
Birth	May 18, 1872 in Wales
Death:	February 2, 1970 in Wales
Father:	John Russell, Viscount Amberley (1842-1876)
Mother:	Katharine Louisa Stanley (1844-1874)
Wife:	Alys Whitall Pearsall Smith (1867-1951)
Wedding:	December 13, 1894
Wife (2):	Dora Winifred Black (1894-1986)
Wedding2:	September 27, 1921
Wife (3):	Patricia Helen Spence (?-?)
Wedding3:	January 18, 1936
Wife (4):	Edith Finch (1900-1978)
Wedding4:	December 15, 1952
Sex:
Edit facts

.Bertrand Arthur William Russell was born 18 May 1872 in Wales to John Russell, Viscount Amberley (1842-1876) and Katharine Louisa Stanley (1844-1874) and died 2 February 1970 in Wales, at the age of 97 years of unspecified causes.^ Bertrand Russell died in Wales in 1970.

Bertrand Russell biography 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.essortment.com [Source type: General]

^ He died in Wales on February 2, 1970.

Bertrand Russell Life and Philosophy: English Philosopher, Logician, Mathematician and Social Reformist 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC great-philosophers.suite101.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

^ On February 2, 1970, Bertrand Russell died, a couple of months before his 98th birthday.

Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.users.muohio.edu [Source type: Original source]

.Bertrand Arthur William married Alys Whitall Pearsall Smith 13 December 1894 .^ In December 1894 he married Alys Pearsall Smith, whom he had first met as a 17-year-old.

BBC Wales - Arts - Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.bbc.co.uk [Source type: General]

^ Russell biography Bertrand Arthur William Russell .

Russell biography 11 September 2009 8:42 UTC www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]
Russell biography 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES]

^ Letter to Alys Pearsall Smith (1894).

Bertrand Russell - Wikiquote 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC en.wikiquote.org [Source type: Original source]

Children

Offspring of Bertrand Arthur William Russell and Dora Winifred Black (1894-1986)
Name	Birth	Death
John Conrad Russell, 4th Earl Russell (1921-1987)
.Katharine Jane Russell (1923-?^ He and Dora had two children together: John Conrad Russell, 4th Earl Russell (born November 1921) and Katharine Jane Russell (born December 1923). BBC Wales - Arts - Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.bbc.co.uk [Source type: General] ^ Their children were John Conrad Russell, 4th Earl Russell , born on 16 November 1921 and Katharine Jane Russell (now Lady Katharine Tait) born on 29 December 1923. Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES] ^ Their children were John Conrad Russell, 4th Earl Russell and Katharine Jane Russell (now Lady Katharine Tait). The Infidels - Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.theinfidels.org [Source type: Original source] Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC pustakalaya.olenepal.org [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES] )
Harriet Ruth Russell (1930-?)
Edit facts

.Offspring of Bertrand Arthur William Russell and Patricia Helen Spence (?-?^ Bertrand Arthur William Russell Quiz - 3rd Earl Russell - British Pphilosopher - Nobel Prize in Literature . Bertrand Arthur William Russell Quiz - 3rd Earl Russell - British Pphilosopher - Nobel Prize in Literature \| Go 4 Quiz 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC www.go4quiz.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES] ^ Earl Bertrand Arthur William Russell . Mathematicians - Bertrand Russell 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC mathematica.ludibunda.ch [Source type: General] ^ Top Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Columbia Encyclopedia - People Russell, Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3d Earl, 1872-1970, British philosopher, mathematician, and social reformer, b. Bertrand Russell: Biography from Answers.com 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC email.answers.com [Source type: FILTERED WITH BAYES] )
Name	Birth	Death
Conrad Sebastian Robert Russell, 5th Earl Russell (1937-2004)
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Citations and remarks

‡ General

2.2.15.3.3.2.3.1.2 in http://www.angelfire.com/realm/gotha/Part18.htm

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First World War

Between the wars, and second marriage

Second World War

Post-Second World War

Later life

Political causes

Final years and death

Self-assessment and summary of his own life

Titles and honours from birth

Views

Views on philosophy

Views on society

Further reading

Selected bibliography of Russell's books

Additional references

Russell

Secondary references

Books about Russell's philosophy

Biographical books

Notes

References

External links

Quotes

From Wikiquote

Contents

See also

Sourced

The Study of Mathematics (1902)

A Free Man's Worship (1903)

Our Knowledge of the External World (1914)

The Philosophy of Logical Atomism (1918)

Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (1918)

Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy (1919)

Review of The Meaning of Meaning (1926)

Sceptical Essays (1928)

Marriage and Morals (1929)

Conquest of Happiness (1930)

In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935)

Power: A New Social Analysis (1938)

A History of Western Philosophy (1945)

Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic? (1947)

Unpopular Essays (1950)

Ch. 1: Philosophy and Politics

Ch. 2: Philosophy for Laymen

Ch. 4: Philosophy's Ulterior Motives

Ch. 5: The Superior Virtue of the Oppressed

Ch. 7: An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish

Ch. 9: Ideas That Have Helped Mankind

Ch.^ If [America] becomes militant, it will be because its people choose to become such; it will be because they think that war and warlikeness are desirable. Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source] 10: Ideas That Have Harmed Mankind

The Impact of Science on Society (1951)

The Russell-Einstein Manifesto (1955)

My Philosophical Development (1959)

The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1967)

Disputed

Misattributed

Quotes about Russell

External links

Online writings

Genealogy

From Familypedia

Children

Citations and remarks

Contributors

Citable sentences

Related links

Ch.^ If [America] becomes militant, it will be because its people choose to become such; it will be because they think that war and warlikeness are desirable.
Quotes 19 January 2010 9:52 UTC antiwar.com [Source type: Original source]

10: Ideas That Have Harmed Mankind