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Collective wisdom, alas, is no adequate substitute for the intelligence of individuals. Individuals who opposed received opinions have been the source of all progress, both moral and intellectual. They have been unpopular, as was natural.

Bertrand Russell

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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
Individual
Intelligence
Alas
Intellectual
Substitutes
Source
Collectives
Progress
Collective
Opinion
Received
Wisdom
Opposed
Unpopular
Moral
Opinions
Substitute
Natural
Individuals
Adequate

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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Find more pleasure in intelligent dissent than in passive agreement, for, if you value intelligence as you should, the former implies a deeper agreement than the latter.
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Next to worry probably one of the most potent causes of unhappiness is envy.
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Folly is perennial and yet the human race has survived.
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You could live without the opera singer, but not without the services of the baker. On this ground you might say that the baker performs a greater service but no lover of music would agree.
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Cynicism such as one finds very frequently among the most highly educated young men and women of the West, results from the combination of comfort and powerlessness.
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Worry is a form of fear.
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The really useful education is that which follows the direction of the child's own instinctive interests, supplying knowledge for which it is seeking, not dry, detailed information wholly out of relation to its spontaneous desires.
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All traditional logic habitually assumes that precise symbols are being employed. It is therefore not applicable to this terrestial life but only to an imagined celestial existence... logic takes us nearer to heaven than other studies.
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Answering questions is a major part of sex education. Two rules cover the ground. First, always give a truthful answer to a question secondly, regard sex knowledge as exactly like any other knowledge.
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Those who advocate common usage in philosophy sometimes speak in a manner that suggests the mystique of the 'common man.'
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The man who is unhappy will, as a rule, adopt an unhappy creed, while the man who is happy will adopt a happy creed each may attribute his happiness or unhappiness to his beliefs, while the real causation is the other way round.
Bertrand Russell
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Mysticism is, in essence, little more than a certain intensity and depth of feeling in regard to what is believed about the universe.
Bertrand Russell
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If any philosopher had been asked for a definition of infinity, he might have produced some unintelligible rigmarole, but he would certainly not have been able to give a definition that had any meaning at all.
Bertrand Russell
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By self-interest, Man has become gregarious, but in instinct he has remained to a great extent solitary hence the need of religion and morality to reinforce self-interest.
Bertrand Russell
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The luxury to disparage freedom is the privilege of those who already possess it.
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Right conduct can never, except by some rare accident, be promoted by ignorance or hindered by knowledge.
Bertrand Russell
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To write tragedy, a man must feel tragedy. To feel tragedy, a man must be aware of the world in which he lives. Not only with his mind, but with his blood and sinews.
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Philosophy bakes no bread
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The man who has fed the chicken every day throughout its life at last wrings its neck instead, showing that more refined views as to the uniformity of nature would have been useful to the chicken.
Bertrand Russell
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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