Bertrand Russell: Human (page 2)

Bertrand Russell was logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist. Explore interesting quotes on human.
Bertrand Russell: 1124   quotes 604   likes

“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.”

Variant: 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.
Source: 1910s, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays http://archive.org/stream/mysticism00russuoft/mysticism00russuoft_djvu.txt (1918), 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.

“How much good it would do if one could exterminate the human race.”

A characteristic saying of Russell, reported by Aldous Huxley in a letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell dated 8 October 1917, as quoted in Bibliography of Bertrand Russell (Routledge, 2013)
1910s

“I like mathematics because it is not human and has nothing particular to do with this planet or with the whole accidental universe – because, like Spinoza's God, it won't love us in return.”

Letter to Lady Ottoline Morrell, March, 1912, as quoted in Gaither's Dictionary of Scientific Quotations (2012), p. 1318
1910s