We can destroy animals more easily than they can destroy us; that is the only solid basis of our claim to superiority. We value art and science and literature, because these are things in which we excel. But whales might value spouting, and donkey might maintain that a good bray is more exquisite than the music of Bach. We cannot prove them wrong except by the exercise of arbitrary power. All ethical systems, in the last analysis, depend upon weapons of war.
en
Supériorité de l'espèce humaine basée sur le pouvoir arbitraire (1931-33)
Œuvres
Éloge de l'oisiveté
Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell:
582
citations
1
J'aime
Bertrand Russell citations célèbres
Histoire de mes idées philosophiques (1961)
“Une chose est ce qu’elle est, et pas autre chose.”
De l’Évèque Joseph Butler : Everything is what it is, and not another thing.
en
Autres publications
extrait de autobiographie
Principes de reconstruction sociale (1924)
Source: Principes de reconstruction social http://books.google.fr/books?id=V2sUmFK3LqwC&pg=PA1, Bertrand Russell, revue et corrigé par Normand Baillargeon , introduction.
Principes de reconstruction sociale (1924)
Bertrand Russell Citations
“Si nous n'avions pas peur de la mort, je ne crois pas que serait jamais née l'idée d'immortalité.”
Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects
Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects
Pourquoi je ne suis pas un chrétien (1957)
Principes de reconstruction sociale (1924)
Réponse de Bertrand Russell à Ludwig Wittgenstein, en 1921, alors qu’il se trouve à Pekin.
Correspondance
Histoire de mes idées philosophiques (1961)
Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and purification, 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.
en
La méthode scientifique en philosophie (1914)
In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays
Bertrand Russell: Citations en anglais
Bertrand Russell
livre
A History of Western Philosophy
Source: 1940s, A History of Western Philosophy (1945)
“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.”
"A Liberal Decalogue" http://www.panarchy.org/russell/decalogue.1951.html, from "The Best Answer to Fanaticism: Liberalism", New York Times Magazine (16/December/1951); later printed in The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1969), vol. 3: 1944-1967, pp. 71-2
1950s
Contexte: The Ten Commandments that, as a teacher, I should wish to promulgate, might be set forth as follows:
1. Do not feel absolutely certain of anything.
2. Do not think it worth while to proceed by concealing evidence, for the evidence is sure to come to light.
3. Never try to discourage thinking for you are sure to succeed.
4. When you meet with opposition, even if it should be from your husband or your children, endeavour to overcome it by argument and not by authority, for a victory dependent upon authority is unreal and illusory.
5. Have no respect for the authority of others, for there are always contrary authorities to be found.
6. Do not use power to suppress opinions you think pernicious, for if you do the opinions will suppress you.
7. Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
8. Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent that in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
9. Be scrupulously truthful, even if the truth is inconvenient, for it is more inconvenient when you try to conceal it.
10. Do not feel envious of the happiness of those who live in a fool's paradise, for only a fool will think that it is happiness.
Often paraphrased as "The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts."
Compare: "One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision." B. Russell, New Hopes for a Changing World (1951). Compare also: "The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity." W. B. Yeats, The Second Coming (1919).
See also: Dunning-Kruger effect, Historical Antecedents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning–Kruger_effect#Historical_antecedents.
1930s, Mortals and Others (1931-35)
Variante: The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.
1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)
Contexte: We love those who hate our enemies, and if we had no enemies there would be very few people whom we should love.
All this, however, is only true so long as we are concerned solely with attitudes towards other human beings. You might regard the soil as your enemy because it yields reluctantly a niggardly subsistence. You might regard Mother Nature in general as your enemy, and envisage human life as a struggle to get the better of Mother Nature. If men viewed life in this way, cooperation of the whole human race would become easy. And men could easily be brought to view life in this way if schools, newspapers, and politicians devoted themselves to this end. But schools are out to teach patriotism; newspapers are out to stir up excitement; and politicians are out to get re-elected. None of the three, therefore, can do anything towards saving the human race from reciprocal suicide.
“Either Man will abolish war, or war will abolish Man.”
Fact and Fiction (1961), Part IV, Ch. 10: "Can War Be Abolished?", p. 276
1960s
Ch VIII: The World As It Could Be Made, p. 129-130
1910s, Proposed Roads To Freedom (1918)
Contexte: One of the most horrible things about commercialism is the way in which it poisons the relations of men and women. The evils of prostitution are generally recognized, but, great as they are, the effect of economic conditions on marriage seems to me even worse. There is not infrequently, in marriage, a suggestion of purchase, of acquiring a woman on condition of keeping her in a certain standard of material comfort. Often and often, a marriage hardly differs from prostitution except by being harder to escape from. The whole basis of these evils is economic. Economic causes make marriage a matter of bargain and contract, in which affection is quite secondary, and its absence constitutes no recognized reason for liberation. Marriage should be a free, spontaneous meeting of mutual instinct, filled with happiness not unmixed with a feeling akin to awe: it should involve that degree of respect of each for the other that makes even the most trifling interference with liberty an utter impossibility, and a common life enforced by one against the will of the other an unthinkable thing of deep horror.
Source: Dear Bertrand Russell: A Selection of His Correspondence with the General Public 1950-68
Of Sir Richard Jebb, Some Cambridge Dons of the Nineties (1956)
1950s
Letter to W. W. Norton, 11 March, 1931
1930s
“We need a science to save us from science.”
NY Times Magazine, as reported in High Points in the Work of the High Schools of New York City, Vol. 34 (1952), p. 46
1950s
The ABC of Relativity (1925), p. 166
1920s
Variante: "Most people would rather die than think; many do."
A Fresh Look at Empiricism: 1927-42 (1996), p. 283
Attributed from posthumous publications
"On Civil Disobedience", April 15th, 1961
1960s
Source: 1910s, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays http://archive.org/stream/mysticism00russuoft/mysticism00russuoft_djvu.txt (1918), Ch. 1: Mysticism and Logic
“I am as firmly convinced that religions do harm as I am that they are untrue.”
Bertrand Russell
livre
Why I Am Not a Christian
1920s, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)
1930s, The Conquest of Happiness (1930)
“Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.”
Bertrand Russell
livre
The Conquest of Happiness
Source: 1930s, The Conquest of Happiness (1930)
“To fear love is to fear life, and those who fear life are already three parts dead.”
1920s, Marriage and Morals (1929)
Bertrand Russell's Best: Silhouettes in Satire (1958), "On Religion".<!--originally taken from What is an Agnostic? (1953).-->
1950s
Contexte: I observe that a very large portion of the human race does not believe in God and suffers no visible punishment in consequence. And if there were a God, I think it very unlikely that he would have such an uneasy vanity as to be offended by those who doubt his existence.
1960s, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1967-1969)
Contexte: 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.
As quoted in The Reader's Digest, Vol. 37 (1940), p. 90; no specific source given.
Disputed
Variante: In all affairs – love, religion, politics, or business – it's a healthy idea, now and then, to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
Part III: Man and Himself, Ch. 16: Ideas Which Have Become Obsolete, p. 158
Source: 1950s, New Hopes for a Changing World (1951)
