Bertrand Russell: Trending quotes (page 21)

"The Moral Problem"
1920s, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)
Source: Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects
Context: There is one very serious defect to my mind in Christ's moral character, and that is that He believed in hell. I do not myself feel that any person who is really profoundly humane can believe in everlasting punishment.

Feeling , Personality

“It seems to me a fundamental dishonesty, and a fundamental treachery to intellectual integrity to hold a belief because you think it's useful and not because you think it's true.”

Bertrand Russell

Thinking

“Whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.”

Bertrand Russell The Problems of Philosophy

Source: The Problems of Philosophy

Learning

“Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.”

Bertrand Russell

1940s, A History of Western Philosophy (1945)

Imagination , Knowledge , Science

“We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side; one which we preach but do not practise, and another which we practise but seldom preach.”

Bertrand Russell

Source: 1920s, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 8: Eastern and Western Ideals of Happiness

“I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous, and that what needs to be preached in modern industrial countries is quite different from what always has been preached.”

Bertrand Russell

World , Thinking , Country

“Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.”

Bertrand Russell

1930s, The Conquest of Happiness (1930)

Men , Sleep

“There was a footpath leading across fields to New Southgate, and I used to go there alone to watch the sunset and contemplate suicide. I did not, however, commit suicide, because I wished to know more of mathematics.”

Bertrand Russell

Mathematics , Suicide

“It is not what the man of science believes that distinguishes him, but how and why he believes it. His beliefs are tentative, not dogmatic; they are based on evidence, not on authority or intuition.”

Bertrand Russell

Science

“A happy life must be to a great extent a quiet life, for it is only in an atmosphere of quiet that true joy can live.”

Bertrand Russell book The Conquest of Happiness

Source: The Conquest of Happiness

Life , Joy , Happiness

“Mathematics rightly viewed possesses not only truth but supreme beauty.”

Bertrand Russell

1900s, "The Study of Mathematics" (November 1907)
Context: 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. 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. What is best in mathematics deserves not merely to be learnt as a task, but to be assimilated as a part of daily thought, and brought again and again before the mind with ever-renewed encouragement.

Truth , Beauty , Mathematics

“A sense of duty is useful in work but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not to be endured with patient resignation.”

Bertrand Russell

People , Sense , Personality