xy

“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. These things I believe, and the world, for all its horrors, has left me unshaken.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

“The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

“People seem good while they are oppressed, but they only wish to become oppressors in their turn: life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

“To understand the actual world as it is, not as we should wish it to be, is the beginning of wisdom.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

“Change is one thing, progress is another.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

“Some part of life – perhaps the most important part – must be left to the spontaneous action of individual impulse, for where all is system there will be mental and spiritual death.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

“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.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

“In obedience to the feeling of reality, we shall insist that, in the analysis of propositions, nothing "unreal" is to be admitted. But, after all, if there is nothing unreal, how, it may be asked, could we admit anything unreal? 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.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

“I wish to propose for the reader's favourable consideration a doctrine which may, I fear, appear wildly paradoxical and subversive. The doctrine in question is this: that it is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

“The people who are regarded as moral luminaries are those who forego ordinary pleasures themselves and find compensation in interfering with the pleasures of others.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

“The above proposition is occasionally useful.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

“We later learned that all the nineteen passengers in the non-smoking compartment had been killed. When the plane had hit the water a hole had been made in the plane and the water had rushed in. I had told a friend at Oslo who was finding me a place that he must find me a place where I could smoke, remarking jocularly, 'If I cannot smoke, I shall die.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

“Instinctively we divide mankind into friends and foes - friends, towards whom we have the morality of co-operation; foes, towards whom we have that of competition. But this division is constantly changing; at one moment a man hates his business competitor, at another, when both are threatened by Socialism or by an external enemy, he suddenly begins to view him as a brother. Always when we pass beyond the limits of the family it is the external enemy which supplies the cohesive force. In times of safety we can afford to hate our neighbour, but in times of danger we must love him.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

“When a man acts in ways that annoy us we wish to think him wicked, and we refuse to face the fact that his annoying behaviour is a result of antecedent causes which, if you follow them long enough, will take you beyond the moment of his birth and therefore to events for which he cannot be held responsible by any stretch of imagination.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

“Acquisitiveness – the wish to possess as much as possible of goods, or the title to goods – is a motive which, I suppose, has its origin in a combination of fear with the desire for necessaries.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

“Freedom in education has many aspects. There is first of all freedom to learn or not to learn. Then there is freedom as to what to learn. And in later education there is freedom of opinion.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

“All serious innovation is only rendered possible by some accident
enabling unpopular persons to survive.”

Bertrand Russell book In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays

“Stupidity and unconscious bias often work more damage than venality.”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

“dont let the old break you; let the love make you”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist