Quote

Whether science-and indeed civilization in general-can long survive depends upon psychology, that is to say, it depends upon what human beings desire.

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
Science
Indeed
Human
General
Humans
Beings
Long
Civilization
Depends
Whether
Psychology
Upon
Survive
Desire
Survival

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

Image
It is the things for which there is no evidence that are believed with passion.
Bertrand Russell
Image
It's not what you have lost, but what you have left that counts.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Our beliefs are, however, often contrary to fact.
Bertrand Russell
Image
There are certain things that our age needs. It needs, above all, courageous hope and the impulse to creativeness.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The examination system, and the fact that instruction is treated mainly as a training for a livelihood, leads the young to regard knowledge from a purely utilitarian point of view as the road to money, not as the gateway to wisdom.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Aristotle could have avoided the mistake of thinking that women have fewer teeth than men, by the simple device of asking Mrs. Aristotle to keep her mouth open while he counted.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Science may set limits to knowledge, but should not set limits to imagination.
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
Religion may in most of its forms be defined as the belief that the gods are on the side of the government.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Everything is vague to a degree you do not realize till you have tried to make it precise.
Bertrand Russell
Image
One eminently orthodox Catholic divine laid it down that a confessor may fondle a nun's breasts, provided he does it without evil intent.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The first dogma which I came to disbelieve was that of free will. It seemed to me that all notions of matter were determined by the laws of dynamics and could not therefore be influenced by human wills.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Religions which have any very strong hold over men's actions have generally some instinctive basis.
Bertrand Russell
Image
With civilized men..., it is, I think, chiefly love of excitement which makes the populace applaud when war breaks out the emotion is exactly the same as at a football match, although the results are sometimes somewhat more serious.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The habit of looking to the future and thinking that the whole meaning of the present lies in what it will bring forth is a pernicious one. There can be no value in the whole unless there is value in the parts.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The teacher, like the artist, the philosopher, and the man of letters, can only perform his work adequately if he feels himself to be an individual directed by an inner creative impulse, not dominated and fettered by an outside authority.
Bertrand Russell
Image
There may be no good reasons for very many opinions that are held with passion.
Bertrand Russell
Image
Humanistic ethics is based on the principle that only humans themselves can determine the criterion for virtue and not an authority transcending us.
Bertrand Russell
Image
All the important human advances that we know of since historical times began have been due to individuals of whom the majority faced virulent public opposition.
Bertrand Russell
Image
The time has come, or is about to come, when only large-scale civil disobedience, which should be nonviolent, can save the populations from the universal death which their governments are preparing for them.
Bertrand Russell