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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

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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
Authority
Humanistic
Principles
Criterion
Virtue
Transcending
Humans
Criteria
Ethics
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Determine
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The first essential character [of civilization], I should say, is forethought. This, indeed, is what mainly distinguishes men from brutes and adults from children.
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Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the earth's surface relative to other matter second, telling other people to do so.
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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.
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In considering irregular appearances, there are certain very natural mistakes which must be avoided.
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No opinion has ever been too errant to become a creed.
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Even in civilized mankind faint traces of monogamous instinct can be perceived.
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If a Black Death could be spread throughout the world once in every generation survivors could procreate freely without making the world too full.
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There may be no good reasons for very many opinions that are held with passion.
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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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I am paid by the word, so I always write the shortest words possible.
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Every advance in civilization has been denounced as unnatural while it was recent
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Shakespeare . . . If he does not give you delight, you had better ignore him [if you can].
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Hatred of enemies is easier and more intense than love of friends. But from men who are more anxious to injure opponents than to benefit the world at large no great good is to be expected.
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For the learning of every virtue there is an appropriate discipline, and for the learning of suspended judgment the best discipline is philosophy.
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Boys and young men acquire readily the moral sentiments of their social milieu, whatever these sentiments may be.
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God and Satan alike are essentially human figures, the one a projection of ourselves, the other of our enemies.
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I believe that when I die I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive. I am not young, and I love life. But I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting.
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If two hitherto rival football teams, under the influence of brotherly love, decided to co-operate in placing the football first beyond one goal and then beyond the other, no one's happiness would be increased
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Beware the man of the single book
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The great majority of men and women, in ordinary times, pass through life without ever contemplating or criticising, as a whole, either their own conditions or those of the world at large.
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