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Even in civilized mankind faint traces of monogamous instinct can be perceived.

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
Traces
Faint
Perceived
Civilized
Instinct
Marriage
Mankind
Even
Monogamous

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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A life which goes excessively against natural impulse is... likely to involve effects of strain that may be quite as bad as indulgence in forbidden impulses would have been. People who live a life which is unnatural beyond a point are likely to be filled with envy, malice and uncharitableness.
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I have come to realize that an early symptom of approaching mental illness is the belief that one's work is terribly important. If you consider your work very important you should take a day off.
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What men really want is not knowledge but certainty.
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Nothing is so exhausting as indecision, and nothing is so futile.
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[Kant] was like many people: in intellectual matters he was skeptical, but in moral matters he believed imjplicitly in the maximx that he had imbibed at his mother's knee.
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We all have a tendency to think that the world must conform to our prejudices. The opposite view involves some effort of thought, and most people would die sooner than think in fact they do so.
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Fervent religious believers sacrifice pleasures of the body, but instead enjoy pleasures of the mind, including the joy of knowing that those men who didn't follow their religion would be tortured for eternity.
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William James used to preach the will-to-believe. For my part, I should wish to preach the will-to-doubt. None of our beliefs are quite true all at least have a penumbra of vagueness and error. What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
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If the ordinary wage-earner worked four hours a day, there would be enough for everybody, and no unemployment — assuming a certain very moderate amount of sensible organization. This idea shocks the well-to-do, because they are convinced that the poor would not know how to use so much leisure.
Bertrand Russell
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One who believes, as I do, that the free intellect is the chief engine of human progress, cannot but be fundamentally opposed to Bolshevism, as much as to the Church of Rome.
Bertrand Russell
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Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.
Bertrand Russell
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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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Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear.
Bertrand Russell
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The coward wretch whose hand and heart Can bear to torture aught below, Is ever first to quail and start From the slightest pain or equal foe.
Bertrand Russell
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The use of force stands in need of control by a public neutral authority, in the interests of liberty no less than of justice. Within a nation, this public authority will naturally be the state in relations between nations, if the present anarchy is to cease, it will have to be some international parliament.
Bertrand Russell
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Machines have altered our way of life, but not our instincts. Consequently, there is maladjustment.
Bertrand Russell
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War...seems a mere madness, a collective insanity.
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To acquire immunity to eloquence is of the utmost importance to the citizens of a democracy.
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Every man, wherever he goes, is encompassed by a cloud of comforting convictions, which move with him like flies on a summer day.
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The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other.
Bertrand Russell