Bertrand Arthur William Russell (1872–1970) was a British philosopher, mathematician, logician, social critic, and peace activist. He is widely regarded as one of the founders of analytic philosophy, which is today the dominant philosophical tradition in the English-speaking world.
Born in Trellech, Wales, into a prominent aristocratic family, Russell’s parents were radical thinkers. His father was an atheist. After his parents died, Russell was raised by his grandparents in a strict Christian household. As a teenager, he kept a dairy in which he described his doubts about God and his ideas about free will in a dairy. He wrote his diary in Greek letters so that his conservative family couldn’t read it.
Russell studied mathematics and philosophy at Cambridge and later returned as a fellow and lecturer. In Principia Mathematica (1910–13,) he and the British mathematician Alfred North Whitehead attempted to express all of mathematics in formal logic terms. Russell’s most significant and famous idea, the theory of descriptions, had profound consequences for his discipline. He further expounded logical atomism in Our Knowledge of the External World (1914) and neutral monism in The Analysis of Mind (1921.)
Russell was one of the greatest public intellectuals of the 20th century. He was active in many social and political campaigns until his death. In reaction to World War I he became a radical pacifist, incurring government fines, dismissal from Cambridge and finally a 6-month prison sentence. He supported women’s suffrage and advocated against nuclear weapons.
In 1944 Russell returned to England and was reelected a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. In 1950, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature for “his many-sided and significant writings, in which he appeared as the champion of humanity and freedom of thought.”
Russell’s enduring works shaped the face of 20th century British philosophy. He wrote a number of books aimed at the public, including the bestselling The History of Western Philosophy (1945.) His other notable works include Problems of Philosophy (1912,) The Analysis of Mind (1921,) and Roads to Freedom (1918.)
Russell was a famous would-be-atheist and a confirmed agnostic—his agnosticism was reinforced by his recognition that the word “religion” does not have a very definite meaning. His well-known lecture Why I Am Not A Christian (1927) remains, to this day, a definitive, nearly creedal, proclamation of his commitment to atheism. Russell described God’s existence as “a large and serious question,” and rejected some of the classical theistic arguments (the first cause argument, the design argument, and the moral argument) for lack of evidence.
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One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one’s work is terribly important.
—Bertrand A. Russell
The essence of the liberal outlook is a belief that men should be free to question anything if they can support their questioning by solid arguments.
—Bertrand A. Russell
To be able to concentrate for a considerable time is essential to difficult achievement.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Intelligence is not to make no mistakes, but quickly to see how to make them good.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Of all forms of caution, caution in love is perhaps the most fatal to true happiness.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Happiness, Love, Caution
Although this may seem a paradox, 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 inferring that he is an inexact man.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Truth, Facts
The good life, as I conceive it, is a happy life. I do not mean that if you are good you will be happy; I mean that if you are happy you will be good.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Happiness, Life
Self-respect will keep a man from being abject when he is in the power of enemies, and will enable him to feel that he may be in the right when the world is against him.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Confidence, Assurance
A great many worries can be diminished by realizing the unimportance of the matter which is causing anxiety.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Worry, Managing Worries
So far as I can remember, there is not one word in the Gospels in praise of intelligence.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Intelligence
To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Civilization, Intelligence
A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, than from a view which regards time as the devouring tyrant of all that is.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Time Management, Time
The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: One liners, Love
Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: People, Thoughts, Thought
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is th beginning of wisdom.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Fear, Anxiety, Wisdom
The essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Belief
Science is what you know, philosophy what you don’t know.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Science
Contempt for happiness is usually contempt for other people’s happiness, and is an elegant disguise for hatred of the human race.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Happiness
Man is a rational animal—so at least I have been told. Throughout a long life, I have looked diligently for evidence in favor of this statement, but so far I have not had the good fortune to come across it, though I have searched in many countries spread over three continents.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Men
It is a waste of energy to be angry with a man who behaves badly, just as it is to be angry with a car that won’t go.
—Bertrand A. Russell
We have, in fact, two kinds of morality side by side; one which we preach but do not practice and another which we practice but seldom preach.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Morality, Morals
Man needs, for his happiness, not only the enjoyment of this or that, but hope and enterprise and change.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Happiness, Change, Hope, Aspirations
The opinions that are held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the passion is the measure of the holders lack of rational conviction. Opinions in politics and religion are almost always held passionately.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Unless a man has been taught what to do with success after getting it, the achievement of it must inevitably leave him a prey to boredom.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Success, Boredom
A sense of duty is useful in work, but offensive in personal relations. People wish to be liked, not endured with patient resignation.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Friendship, Duty
Continuity of purpose is one of the most essential ingredients of happiness in the long run, and for most men this comes chiefly through their work.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Happiness
Real life is, to most men … a perpetual compromise between the ideal and the possible.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Acceptance, Realistic Expectations, Expectation
The fundamental cause of the trouble is that in the modem world the stupid are cocksure while the intelligent are full of doubt.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Ignorance, Intelligence
There should be no enforced respect for grown-ups. We cannot prevent children from thinking us fools by merely forbidding them to utter their thoughts; in fact, they are more likely to think ill of us if they dare not say so.
—Bertrand A. Russell
Topics: Children
One of the most interesting and harmful delusions to which men and nations can be subjected is that of imagining themselves special instruments of the Divine Will.
—Bertrand A. Russell
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