He was a British philosopher, logician, and social critic widely known for his work in mathematical logic and analytic philosophy. His most influential contributions include his defense of logicism (the view that mathematics is in some important sense reducible to logic), and his refining of the predicate calculus introduced by Gottlob Frege (which still forms the basis of most contemporary logic).
According to him, the world consists of just one type of substance, neither exclusively mental nor exclusively physical. Russell is generally recognized as one of the founders of modern analytic philosophy, and one of the most important logicians of the twentieth century.
(1770 – 1827)
– Bertrand Russell Quotes –
Extreme hopes are born of extreme misery.
~ Bertrand Russell
Many people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
~ Bertrand Russell
The time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time.
~ Bertrand Russell
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver … in the end, the fresh air brings vigor, and the great spaces have a splendor of their own.
~ Bertrand Russell
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.
~ Bertrand Russell
Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.
~ Bertrand Russell
Both in thought and in feeling, even though time be real, to realise the unimportance of time is the gate of wisdom.
~ Bertrand Russell
Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
~ Bertrand Russell
Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people’s happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race.
~ Bertrand Russell
Boredom is a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.
~ Bertrand Russell
We are faced with the paradoxical fact that education has become one of the chief obstacles to intelligence and freedom of thought.
~ Bertrand Russell
Conventional people are roused to fury by departure from convention, largely because they regard such departure as a criticism of themselves.
~ Bertrand Russell
Next to enjoying ourselves, the next greatest pleasure consists in preventing others from enjoying themselves, or, more generally, in the acquisition of power.
~ Bertrand Russell
Awareness of universals is called conceiving, and a universal of which we are aware is called a concept.
~ Bertrand Russell
Mathematics takes us into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the actual word, but every possible word, must conform.
~ Bertrand Russell
Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.
~ Bertrand Russell
Much that passes as idealism is disguised hatred or disguised love of power.
~ Bertrand Russell
To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.
~ Bertrand Russell
Neither a man nor a crowd nor a nation can be trusted to act humanely or to think sanely under the influence of a great fear.
~ Bertrand Russell
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
~ Bertrand Russell
Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives’ mouths.
~ Bertrand Russell
Men who are unhappy, like men who sleep badly, are always proud of the fact.
~ Bertrand Russell
War does not determine who is right – only who is left.
~ Bertrand Russell
It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this.
~ Bertrand Russell
If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years.
~ Bertrand Russell
