Quote

Language serves not only to express thought but to make possible thoughts which could not exist without it.

Bertrand Russell

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Bertrand Russell
Age: 97 †
Born: 1872
Born: May 18
Died: 1970
Died: February 2
Analytic Philosopher
Autobiographer
Epistemologist
Essayist
Journalist
Logician
Mathematician
Metaphysician
Peace Activist
Philosopher
Tryleg
Bertrand Arthur William Russell
Russell
Bertrand Russell
3rd Earl Russell
Bertrand Russell
Earl Russell
Bertrand Arthur William Russell
3rd Earl Russell
Exist
Thoughts
Learning
Possible
Language
Thought
Serves
Without
Programming
Make
Express

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

Image
There is an element of the busybody in our conception of virtue: unless a man makes himself a nuisance to a great many people, we do not think he can be an exceptionally good man.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Moreover, the attitude that one ought to believe such and such a proposition, independently of the question whether there is evidence in its favor, is an attitude which produces hostility to evidence and causes us to close our minds to every fact that does not suit our prejudices.
Bertrand Russell
Image
All religions are both harmful and untrue.
Bertrand Russell
Image
It is not known why the Lord made the human body as he did, since one might suppose that omnipotence could have made it such as would not have shocked the nice people.
Bertrand Russell
Image
If I were a medical man, I should prescribe a holiday to any patient who considered his work important.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Human nature is so constructed that it gives affection most readily to those who seem least to demand it.
Bertrand Russell
Image
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 behavior 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.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Even if we could be certain that one of the world's religions were perfectly true, given the sheer number of conflicting faiths on offer, every believer should expect damnation purely as a matter of probability.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Why repeat the old errors, if there are so many new errors to commit?
Bertrand Russell
Image
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 Russell
Image
The desire to understand the world and the desire to reform it are the two great engines of progress, without which human society would stand still or retrogress.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The supreme maxim in scientific philosophising is this: wherever possible, logical constructions are to be substituted for inferred entities.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Government can easily exist without laws, but law cannot exist without government.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of the world.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The skill of the politician consists in guessing what people can be brought to think advantageous to themselves the skill of the expert consists in calculating what really is advantageous, provided people can be brought to think so.
Bertrand Russell
Image
We do not like to be robbed of an enemy we want someone to hate when we suffer. It is so depressing to think that we suffer because we are fools yet, taking mankind in the mass, that is the truth.
Bertrand Russell
Image
When people begin to philosophize they seem to think it necessary to make themselves artificially stupid.
Bertrand Russell
Image
What men really want is not knowledge but certainty.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Science tells us what we can know, but what we can know is little, and if we forget how much we cannot know we become insensitive to many things of great importance.
Bertrand Russell
Image
There are two motives for reading a book one, that you enjoy it the other, that you can boast about it.
Bertrand Russell