Bertrand Russell citations (582 citations, Page 17)

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

“There are some simple maxims […] which I think might be commanded to writers of expository prose. First: never use a long word if a short word will do. Second: if you want to make a statement with a great many qualifications, put some of the qualifications in separate sentences. Third: do not let the beginning of your sentence lead the reader to an expectation which is contradicted by the end.”

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Bertrand Russell

"How I Write", The Writer, September 1954
1950s

“Children must be under authority, and are themselves aware that they must be, although they like to play a game of rebellion at times. The case of children is unique in the fact that those who have authority over them are sometimes fond of them. Where this is the case, the children do not resent the authority in general, even when they resist it on particular occasions. Education authorities, as opposed to teachers, have not this merit, and do in fact sacrifice the children to what they consider the good of the State by teaching them "patriotism," i. e., a willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.”

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Bertrand Russell

Source: 1920s, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 13: Freedom in Society

“Dread of disaster makes everybody act in the very way that increases the disaster. Psychologically the situation is analogous to that of people trampled to death when there is a panic in a theatre caused by a cry of 'Fire!' In the situation that existed in the great depression, things could only be set right by causing the idle plant to work again. But everybody felt that to do so was to risk almost certain loss. Within the framework of classical economics there was no solution. Roosevelt saved the situation by bold and heretical action. He spent billions of public money and created a huge public debt, but by so doing he revived production and brought his country out of the depression. Businessmen, who in spite of such a sharp lesson continued to believe in old-fashioned economics, were infinitely shocked, and although Roosevelt saved them from ruin, they continued to curse him and to speak of him as 'the madman in the White House.”

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Bertrand Russell

Except for Fabre's investigation of the behavior of insects, I do not know any equally striking example of inability to learn from experience.
Part II: Man and Man, Ch. 14: Economic Co-operation and Competition, pp. 132–3
1950s, New Hopes for a Changing World (1951)

“The first thing to realize, if you wish to become a philosopher, is that most people go through life with a whole world of beliefs that have no sort of rational justification, and that one man's world of beliefs is apt to be incompatible with another man's, so that they cannot both be right. People's opinions are mainly designed to make them feel comfortable; truth, for most people is a secondary consideration.”

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Bertrand Russell

"How to Become a Philosopher" (1942), in The Art of Philosophizing, and Other Essays (New York: Philosophical Library, 1968), p. 2
1940s

“What modern apologists call 'true' Christianity is something depending upon a very selective process. It ignores much that is to be found in the Gospels: for example, the parable of the sheep and the goats, and the doctrine that the wicked will suffer eternal torment in Hell fire. It picks out certain parts of the Sermon on the Mount, though even these it often rejects in practice. It leaves the doctrine of non-resistance, for example, to be practised only by non-Christians such as Gandhi. The precepts that it particularly favours are held to embody such a lofty morality that they must have had a divine origin. And yet … these precepts were uttered by Jews before the time of Christ.”

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Bertrand Russell

"Can Religion Cure Our Troubles?", in Stockholm newspaper Dagens Nyheter, part II (11 November 1954)
1950s

“My abandonment of former beliefs was, however, never complete. Some things remained with me, and still remain: I still think that truth depends upon a relation to fact, and that facts in general are nonhuman; I still think that man is cosmically unimportant, and that a Being, if there were one, who could view the universe impartially, without the bias of here and now, would hardly mention man, except perhaps in a footnote near the end of the volume; but I no longer have the wish to thrust out human elements from regions where they belong; I have no longer the feeling that intellect is superior to sense, and that only Plato's world of ideas gives access to the 'real' world. I used to think of sense, and of thought which is built on sense, as a prison from which we can be freed by thought which is emancipated from sense. I now have no such feelings. I think of sense, and of thoughts built on sense, as windows, not as prison bars. I think that we can, however imperfectly, mirror the world, like Leibniz's monads; and I think it is the duty of the philosopher to make himself as undistorting a mirror as he can. But it is also his duty to recognize such distortions as are inevitable from our very nature. Of these, the most fundamental is that we view the world from the point of view of the here and now, not with that large impartiality which theists attribute to the Deity. To achieve such impartiality is impossible for us, but we can travel a certain distance towards it. To show the road to this end is the supreme duty of the philosopher.”

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Bertrand Russell

Source: 1950s, My Philosophical Development (1959), p. 213

“In a logically perfect language, there will be one word and no more for every simple object, and everything that is not simple will be expressed by a combination of words, by a combination derived, of course, from the words for the simple things that enter in, one word for each simple component.”

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Bertrand Russell

1910s, The Philosophy of Logical Atomism (1918)

“[The church] is in its major part an opponent still of progress and improvement in all the ways that diminish suffering in the world, because it has chosen to label as morality a certain narrow set of rules of conduct which have nothing to do with human happiness; and when you say that this or that ought to be done because it would make for human happiness, they think that has nothing to do with the matter at all. "What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is not to make people happy."”

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Bertrand Russell

"How The Churches Have Retarded Progress"
1920s, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)

“[Freedom] is the greatest of political goods. I do not say freedom is the greatest of all goods: the best things come from within—they are such things as creative art, and love, and thought. Such things can be helped or hindered by political conditions, but not actually produced by them; and freedom is, both in itself and in its relation to these other goods the best thing that political and economic conditions can secure.”

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Bertrand Russell

Source: 1910s, Proposed Roads To Freedom (1918), Ch. V: Government and Law, p. 75

“If, when a man writes a poem or commits a murder, the bodily movements involved in his act result solely from physical causes, it would seem absurd to put up a statue to him in the one case and to hang him in the other.”

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Bertrand Russell

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

“Marriage is for women the commonest mode of livelihood, and the total amount of undesired sex endured by women is probably greater in marriage than in prostitution.”

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Bertrand Russell

1920s, Marriage and Morals (1929)

“To those who inquire as to the purpose of mathematics, the usual answer will be that it facilitates the making of machines, the travelling from place to place, and the victory over foreign nations, whether in war or commerce. … The reasoning faculty itself is generally conceived, by those who urge its cultivation, as merely a means for the avoidance of pitfalls and a help in the discovery of rules for the guidance of practical life.”

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Bertrand Russell

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

“The great majority of men and women, in ordinary times, pass through life without ever contemplating or criticising, as a whole, either their own conditions or those of the world at large. They find themselves born into a certain place in society, and they accept what each day brings forth, without any effort of thought beyond what the immediate present requires. Almost as instinctively as the beasts of the field, they seek the satisfaction of the needs of the moment, without much forethought, and without considering that by sufficient effort the whole conditions of their lives could be changed.”

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Bertrand Russell

Introduction, p. 4
1910s, Proposed Roads To Freedom (1918)

“The state is primarily an organization for killing foreigners.”

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Bertrand Russell

Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind (1960), p. 83
1960s

“Take the question whether other people exist. …It is plain that it makes for happiness to believe that they exist – for even the greatest misanthropist would not wish to be deprived of the objects of his hate. Hence the belief that other people exist is, pragmatically, a true belief. But if I am troubled by solipsism, the discovery that a belief in the existence of others is 'true' in the pragmatist's sense is not enough to allay my sense of loneliness: the perception that I should profit by rejecting solipsism is not alone sufficient to make me reject it. For what I desire is not that the belief in solipsism should be false in the pragmatic sense, but that other people should in fact exist. And with the pragmatist's meaning of truth, these two do not necessarily go together. The belief in solipsism might be false even if I were the only person or thing in the universe.”

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Bertrand Russell

"William James's Conception of Truth" [1908], published in Philosophical Essays (London, 1910)
1900s

“We invite this Congress, and through it the scientists of the world and the general public, to subscribe to the following resolution:
"In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them."”

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Bertrand Russell

1950s, The Russell-Einstein Manifesto (1955)

“Indignation is a submission of our thoughts, but not of our desires.”

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Bertrand Russell

1900s, A Free Man's Worship (1903)

“The Chinese are a great nation, incapable of permanent suppression by foreigners. They will not consent to adopt our vices in order to acquire military strength; but they are willing to adopt our virtues in order to advance in wisdom. I think they are the only people in the world who quite genuinely believe that wisdom is more precious than rubies. That is why the West regards them as uncivilized.”

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Bertrand Russell

The Problem of China (1922), Ch. XIII: Higher education in China
1920s

“It is entirely clear that there is only one way in which great wars can be permanently prevented, and that is the establishment of an international government with a monopoly of serious armed force.”

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Bertrand Russell

"The Atomic Bomb and the Prevention of War" in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (1 October 1945)
1940s

“The world would be a happier place than it is if acquisitiveness were always stronger than rivalry. But in fact, a great many men will cheerfully face impoverishment if they can thereby secure complete ruin for their rivals. Hence the present level of taxation.
Vanity is a motive of immense potency. Anyone who has much to do with children knows how they are constantly performing some antic, and saying "Look at me." "Look at me" is one of the most fundamental desires of the human heart. It can take innumerable forms, from buffoonery to the pursuit of posthumous fame.”

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Bertrand Russell

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

“The camera is as subjective as we are.”

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Bertrand Russell

An Outline of Philosophy Ch.15 The Nature of our Knowledge of Physics (1927)
1920s

“Too little liberty brings stagnation, and too much brings chaos.”

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Bertrand Russell

Authority and the Individual (1949), p. 37
1940s

“No rules, however wise, are a substitute for affection and tact.”

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Bertrand Russell

Source: 1930s, In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935), Ch. 12: Education and Discipline

“I believe that Communism is necessary to the world, and I believe that the heroism of Russia has fired men's hopes in a way which was essential to the realization of Communism in the future. Regarded as a splendid attempt, without which ultimate success would have been very improbable, Bolshevism deserves the gratitude and admiration of all the progressive part of mankind.”

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Bertrand Russell

Preface
1920s, The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism (1920)

“Brief and powerless is Man's life; on him and all his race the slow, sure doom falls pitiless and dark.”

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Bertrand Russell

1900s, A Free Man's Worship (1903)

“An irrational fear should never be simply let alone, but should be gradually overcome by familiarity with its fainter forms.”

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Bertrand Russell

On Education, Especially in Early Childhood (1926), Ch. 4: Fear
1920s

“The law of causality, I believe, like much that passes muster among philosophers, is a relic of a bygone age, surviving, like the monarchy, only because it is erroneously supposed to do no harm.”

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Bertrand Russell

Source: 1910s, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays http://archive.org/stream/mysticism00russuoft/mysticism00russuoft_djvu.txt (1918), Ch. 9: On the Notion of Cause