Bertrand Russell citations (582 citations, Page 10)

Bertrand Russell: 582 citations 1 J'aime

Bertrand Russell citations célèbres

“Nous pouvons détruire les animaux plus facilement qu’ils ne peuvent nous détruire : c’est la seule base solide de notre prétention de supériorité. Nous valorisons l’art, la science et la littérature, parce que ce sont des choses dans lesquelles nous excellons. Mais les baleines pourraient valoriser le fait de souffler et les ânes pourraient considérer qu’un bon braiement est plus exquis que la musique de Bach. Nous ne pouvons prouver qu'ils ont tort, sauf par l’exercice de notre pouvoir arbitraire. Tous les systèmes éthiques, en dernière analyse, dépendent des armes de guerre.”

Bertrand Russell

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)

“J'ai trouvé, pour prendre un exemple important, que par l'analyse de la physique et de la perception, on peut entièrement résoudre le problème du rapport de l'esprit et de la matière. Il est vrai que personne n'a accepté ce qui me paraît la solution, mais je crois et j'espère que c'est seulement parce que l'on n'a pas compris ma théorie.”

Bertrand Russell

Histoire de mes idées philosophiques (1961)

“Une chose est ce qu’elle est, et pas autre chose.”

Bertrand Russell

De l’Évèque Joseph Butler : Everything is what it is, and not another thing.
en

“Le Tractacus logico-philosophicus de M. Wittgenstein, qu’il se révèle ou non comme donnant la vérité définitive sur les sujets dont il traite, mérite certainement, par son ampleur et sa portée et sa profondeur, d’être considéré comme événement important dans le monde philosophique.”

Bertrand Russell

Autres publications

“Trois passions, simples et extrêmement fortes, ont gouverné ma vie : la recherche passionnée de l’amour, la quête du savoir et une douloureuse pitié devant la souffrance de l’humanité.”

Bertrand Russell

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.

“Quand la guerre fut finie, je vis que tout ce que j’avais fait avait été complètement inutile[…]. Je n'avais pas sauvé une seule vie ou raccourci la guerre d'une seule minute. Je n’avais pas été capable de quoi que ce soit pour diminuer la profonde amertume qui donnerait le Traité de Versailles.”

Bertrand Russell

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.”

Bertrand Russell

Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects

“J'estime que dans toutes les définitions de la vie bienheureuse, il faut faire entrer un instinct d'animal, sans quoi la vie devient fade et sans intérêt”

Bertrand Russell

Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects

“Le propre de la philosophie est de commencer par quelque chose de si simple qu'il ne semble pas la peine de l'énoncer, et de terminer par quelque chose de si paradoxal que personne n'y croira.”

Bertrand Russell

La philosophie de l'atomisme logique (1918)

personnes

“L'homme est la résultante de causes qui n'avaient pas prévu les effets qui en découleraient : son origine, son développement, ses espoirs et ses craintes, ses émotions et ses convictions ne sont que le produit d'associations d'atomes accidentelles… Aucun feu, aucun héroïsme, aucune pensée ni aucun sentiment aussi intenses soient-ils, ne peuvent préserver une vie au-delà de la tombe… Tout le labeur effectué au cours des âges, toute la ferveur, toute l'inspiration, toute l'éclatante expression du génie humain, sont voués à disparaître dans l'extinction générale de notre système solaire, et tout l'édifice des réalisations humaines sera inévitablement enfoui sous les décombres d'un univers en ruines.”

Bertrand Russell

Pourquoi je ne suis pas un chrétien (1957)

univers , pensée , vie , hommes

“…Cet écrit circonstanciel, tout empreint de passion et de sérieux, est aussi un des écrits (certains assureraient même : l’écrit) politiques majeurs de Russell. Richard A. Rempel rappelle ainsi, avec raison, que cet ouvrage est généralement reconnu, « tant par les spécialistes que par le publique en général, comme la plus importante contribution de Russell à la philosophie politique.»”

Bertrand Russell

Principes de reconstruction sociale (1924)

passion

“A onze ans, j'ai commencé la”

Bertrand Russell

“Mes étudiants sont des bolcheviques, parce que c’est la mode. Ils ne comprennent pas que je sois pas davantage bolchevique moi-même. Il n'ont pas le niveau pour faire de la logique mathématique. Je leur enseigne la psychologie, la philosophie, la politique et Einstein. De temps à autre je les invite à une soirée chez moi et ils font partir des feux d’artifices dans la cour. Il préfèrent cela à mes cours.”

Bertrand Russell

Réponse de Bertrand Russell à Ludwig Wittgenstein, en 1921, alors qu’il se trouve à Pekin.
Correspondance

mode , temps , mathématiques

“Bertrand Russell est un philosophe sans philosophie. On pourrait dire la même chose en disant qu’il est un philosophe de toutes les philosophies. Il n’est guère de point de vue philosophique important aujourd’hui que l’on ne trouve reflété dans ses écrits à une période ou une autre.”

Bertrand Russell

guerre

“Le socialisme, quoi que nous pensions de ses mérites, est un grand pouvoir, qui se développe et transforme la vie économique et politique; et le socialisme doit son nom à un petit nombre de théoriciens isolés.”

Bertrand Russell

Principes de reconstruction sociale (1924)

vie

“La science n'a jamais tout à fait raison, mais elle a rarement tout à fait tort, et, en général, elle a plus de chance d'avoir raison que les théories non scientifiques. Il est donc rationnel de l'accepter à titre d'hypothèse.”

Bertrand Russell

Histoire de mes idées philosophiques (1961)

science , chance

“Tout problème philosophique, soumis à une analyse et une élucidation indispensables, se trouve ou bien n'être pas philosophique du tout ou bien logique, dans le sens où nous employons ce terme.”

Bertrand Russell

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)

problème , Sens

“Mais il demeurera toujours fidèle au principe de parcimonie qui, comme il le dit lui-même, caractérise sa « renonciation progressive à Pythagore ». Une formulation particulière de ce principe consiste à dire que « la logique mathématique a pour but, non de donner aux mots un statut ontologique qui pourrait être mis en doute, mais plutôt de diminuer le nombre de mots dont la signification directe est de désigner un objet ». Voilà bien le principe paradigmatique que Russell lègue à la philosophie toute entière : lorsque le sage montre la lune, il est prudent au préalable de jouer à l’imbécile en examinant le doigt.”

Bertrand Russell

mathématiques

“Prenez garde que personne ne fasse de vous sa proie par la philosophie.”

Bertrand Russell

personnes

“De façon générale, on estime que gagner de l'argent, c'est bien, mais que le dépenser, c'est mal. Quelle absurdité, si l'on songe qu'il y a toujours deux parties dans une transaction: autant soutenir que les clés, c'est bien, mais les trous de serrures, non.”

Bertrand Russell livre Éloge de l'oisiveté

In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays

Bertrand Russell: Citations en anglais

“Obscenity is whatever happens to shock some elderly and ignorant magistrate.”

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Bertrand Russell

Quoted in Look (New York, 23 February 1954).
Cf. Russell (1928), Sceptical Essays, «It is obvious that "obscenity" is not a term capable of exact legal definition; in the practice of the Courts, it means "anything that shocks the magistrate".»
1950s

“Now, what is 'unrighteousness' in practice? It is in practice behavior of a kind disliked by the herd. By calling it unrighteousness, and by arranging an elaborate system of ethics around this conception, the herd justifies itself in wreaking punishment upon the objects of its own dislike, while at the same time, since the herd is righteous by definition, it enhances its own self-esteem at the very moment when it lets loose its impulse to cruelty. This is the psychology of lynching, and of the other ways in which criminals are punished. The essence of the conception of righteousness, therefore, is to afford an outlet for sadism by cloaking cruelty as justice.”

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Bertrand Russell

"The Idea of Righteousness"
1930s, Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? (1930)

“The world at present is obsessed by the conflict of rival ideologies, and one of the apparent causes of conflict is the desire for the victory of our own ideology and the defeat of the other. I do not think that the fundamental motive here has much to do with ideologies. I think the ideologies are merely a way of grouping people, and that the passions involved are merely those which always arise between rival groups. Ideologies, in fact, are one of the methods by which herds are created, and the psychology is much the same however the herd may have been generated.”

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Bertrand Russell

1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)

“I remain convinced that obstinate addiction to ordinary language in our private thoughts is one of the main obstacles to progress in philosophy.”

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Bertrand Russell

Quoted in Library of Living Philosophers: The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell (1944)
1940s

“The past alone is truly real: the present is but a painful, struggling birth into the immutable being of what is no longer. Only the dead exist fully. The lives of the living are fragmentary, doubtful, and subject to change; but the lives of the dead are complete, free from the sway of Time, the all but omnipotent lord of the world. Their failures and successes, their hopes and fears, their joys and pains, have become eternal—our efforts cannot now abate one jot of them. Sorrows long buried in the grave, tragedies of which only a fading memory remains, loves immortalized by Death's hallowing touch these have a power, a magic, an untroubled calm, to which no present can attain. …On the banks of the river of Time, the sad procession of human generations is marching slowly to the grave; in the quiet country of the Past, the march is ended, the tired wanderers rest, and the weeping is hushed.”

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Bertrand Russell

On History (1904)
1900s

“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.”

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Bertrand Russell

Part I, The Present Condition of Russia, Ch. 1: What Is Hoped From Bolshevism
1920s, The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920)

“I should say that the universe is just there, and that is all.”

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Bertrand Russell

BBC Radio Debate on the Existence of God, Bertrand Russell v. Frederick Copleston (1948)
1940s

“No man treats a motorcar as foolishly as he treats another human being. When the car will not go, he does not attribute its annoying behaviour to sin; he does not say, "You are a wicked motorcar, and I shall not give you any more petrol until you go." He attempts to find out what is wrong and to set it right. An analogous way of treating human beings is, however, considered to be contrary to the truths of our holy religion.”

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Bertrand Russell

"The Doctrine of Free Will"
1930s, Has Religion Made Useful Contributions to Civilization? (1930)

“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.”

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Bertrand Russell

Source: 1910s, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays http://archive.org/stream/mysticism00russuoft/mysticism00russuoft_djvu.txt (1918), Ch. 5: Mathematics and the Metaphysicians

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

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Bertrand Russell

1900s, "The Study of Mathematics" (November 1907)

“One who believes, as I do, that the free intellect is the chief engine of human progress, cannot but be fundamentally opposed to Bolshevism, as much as to the Church of Rome.”

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Bertrand Russell

Part I, Ch. 9: International Policy
1920s, The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920)

“Probably in time physiologists will be able to make nerves connecting the bodies of different people; this will have the advantage that we shall be able to feel another man's tooth aching.”

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Bertrand Russell

Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948), p. 493
1940s

“Those who advocate common usage in philosophy sometimes speak in a manner that suggests the mystique of the 'common man.' They may admit that in organic chemistry there is need of long words, and that quantum physics requires formulas that are difficult to translate into ordinary English, but philosophy (they think) is different. It is not the function of philosophy – so they maintain – to teach something that uneducated people do not know; on the contrary, its function is to teach superior persons that they are not as superior as they thought they were, and that those who are really superior can show their skill by making sense of common sense. No one wants to alter the language of common sense, any more than we wish to give up talking of the sun rising and setting. But astronomers find a different language better, and I contend that a different language is better in philosophy. Let us take an example, that of perception. There is here an admixture of philosophical and scientific questions, but this admixture is inevitable in many questions, or, if not inevitable, can only be avoided by confining ourselves to comparatively unimportant aspects of the matter in hand. Here is a series of questions and answers.
Q. When I see a table, will what I see be still there if I shut my eyes?
A. That depends upon the sense in which you use the word 'see.'
Q. What is still there when I shut my eyes?
A. This is an empirical question. Don't bother me with it, but ask the physicists.
Q. What exists when my eyes are open, but not when they are shut?
A. This again is empirical, but in deference to previous philosophers I will answer you: colored surfaces.
Q. May I infer that there are two senses of 'see'? In the first, when I 'see' a table, I 'see' something conjectural about which physics has vague notions that are probably wrong. In the second, I 'see' colored surfaces which cease to exist when I shut my eyes.
A. That is correct if you want to think clearly, but our philosophy makes clear thinking unnecessary. By oscillating between the two meanings, we avoid paradox and shock, which is more than most philosophers do.”

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Bertrand Russell

Source: 1950s, Portraits from Memory and Other Essays (1956), p. 159

“If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance with his instincts, he will accept it even on the slenderest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way.”

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Bertrand Russell

Source: 1910s, Proposed Roads To Freedom (1918), Ch. VI: International relations, p. 97

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

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Bertrand Russell

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

“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?”

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Bertrand Russell

"Can a Scientific Community Be Stable?," Lecture, Royal Society of Medicine, London (29 November 1949)
1940s

“I may as well say at once that I do not distinguish between inference and deduction. What is called induction appears to me to be either disguised deduction or a mere method of making plausible guesses.”

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Bertrand Russell

Principles of Mathematics (1903), Ch. II: Symbolic Logic, p. 11
1900s

“Whatever we know without inference is mental.”

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Bertrand Russell

Human Knowledge: Its Scope and Limits (1948), p. 224
1940s

“Man is essentially a dreamer, wakened sometimes for a moment by some peculiarly obtrusive element in the outer world, but lapsing again quickly into the happy somnolence of imagination. Freud has shown how largely our dreams at night are the pictured fulfilment of our wishes; he has, with an equal measure of truth, said the same of day-dreams; and he might have included the day-dreams which we call beliefs.”

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Bertrand Russell

Source: 1920s, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 2: Dreams and Facts

“Political ideals must be based upon ideals for the individual life. The aim of politics should be to make the lives of individuals as good as possible.”

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Bertrand Russell

1910s, Political Ideals (1917)

“All exact science is dominated by the idea of approximation. When a man tells you that he knows the exact truth about anything, you are safe in infering that he is an inexact man.”

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Bertrand Russell

As quoted in World Unity, Vol. IX, 3rd edition (1931), p. 190
1930s

“Love is better than hate, because it brings harmony instead of conflict into the desires of the persons concerned. Two people between whom there is love succeed or fail together, but when two people hate each other the success of either is the failure of the other.”

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Bertrand Russell

1920s, What I Believe (1925)

“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.”

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Bertrand Russell

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

“When people begin to philosophize they seem to think it necessary to make themselves artificially stupid.”

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Bertrand Russell

Theory of Knowledge (1913)
1910s

“The degree of one's emotion varies inversely with one's knowledge of the facts – the less you know the hotter you get.”

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Bertrand Russell

Attributed to Russell in Distilled Wisdom (1964) by Alfred Armand Montapert, p. 145
1960s

“When one admits that nothing is certain one must, I think, also admit that some things are much more nearly certain than others. 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. 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.”

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Bertrand Russell

"Skepticism"
1940s, Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic? http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/russell8.htm (1947)

“I do wish I believed in the life eternal, for it makes me quite miserable to think man is merely a kind of machine endowed, unhappily for himself, with consciousness.”

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Bertrand Russell

Greek Exercises (1888); at the age of fifteen, Russell used to write down his reflections in this book, for fear that his people should find out what he was thinking.
Youth

“Power, like vanity, is insatiable. Nothing short of omnipotence could satisfy it completely. And as it is especially the vice of energetic men, the causal efficacy of love of power is out of all proportion to its frequency. It is, indeed, by far the strongest motive in the lives of important men.
Love of power is greatly increased by the experience of power, and this applies to petty power as well as to that of potentates.”

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Bertrand Russell

1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)

“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.”

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Bertrand Russell

Variante: 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.
Source: 1910s, Our Knowledge of the External World (1914), p. 33