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The free intellect is the chief engine of human progress.

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
Chiefs
Intellect
Progress
Free
Human
Humans
Engine
Engines
Chief

More quotes by Bertrand Russell

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People seem good while they are oppressed, but they only wish to become oppressors in their turn: life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.
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An Honest politician will not be tolerated by a democracy unless he is very stupid ... because only a very stupid man can honestly share the prejudices of more than half the nation.
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When people begin to philosophize they seem to think it necessary to make themselves artificially stupid.
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The whole of theology, in regard to hell no less than to heaven, takes it for granted that Man is what is of most importance in the Universe of created beings. Since all theologians are men, this postulate has met with little opposition.
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One is always a little afraid of love, but above all, one is afraid of pain or causing pain.
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The typical Westerner wishes to be the cause of as many changes as possible in his environment the typical Chinaman wishes to enjoy as much and as delicately as possible.
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Freedom comes only to those who no longer ask of life that it shall yield them any of those personal goods that are subject to the mutations of time.
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Intelligence, it might be said, has caused our troubles but it is not unintelligence that will cure them. Only more and wiser intelligence can make a happier world
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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.
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Plato has dramatic strength ... but is quite unaware of the strength of the argument against his position ... and allows himself to be grossly unfair in arguing against it.
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That which exists through itself is called The Eternal. The Eternal has neither name nor shape. It is the one essence, the one primal spirit. Essence and life cannot be seen. They are contained in the light of heaven. The light of heaven cannot be seen. It is contained in the two eyes.
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One of the symptoms of an approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's work is terribly important.
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On the one hand, philosophy is to keep us thinking about things that we may come to know, and on the other hand to keep us modestly aware of how much that seems like knowledge isn't knowledge
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One's work is never so bad as it appears on bad days, nor so good as it appears on good days.
Bertrand Russell
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Children, after being limbs of Satan in traditional theology and mystically illuminated angels in the minds of educational reformers, have reverted to being little devils not theological demons inspired by the evil one, but scientific Freudian abominations inspired by the unconscious.
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Is a man what he seems to the astronomer, a tiny lump of impure carbon and water crawling impotently on a small and unimportant planet? Or is he what he appears to Hamlet? Is he perhaps both as once?
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I did not know I loved you until I heard myself telling so, for one instance I thought, Good God, what have I said? and then I knew it was true.
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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.
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The tendency of our perceptions is to emphasise increasingly the objective elements in an impression, unless we have some special reason, as artists have, for doing the opposite.
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(on A History of Western Philosophy) I was sometimes accused by reviewers of writing not a true history but a biased account of the events that I arbitrarily chose to write of. But to my mind, a man without a bias cannot write interesting history - if, indeed, such man exists.
Bertrand Russell