Philosophy Quotes by Bertrand Russell

Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.

— Bertrand Russell

Philosophy bakes no bread

— Bertrand Russell

Philosophy is an unusually ingenious attempt to think fallaciously.

— Bertrand Russell

“Prudence versus passion is a conflict that runs through history.”

— Bertrand Russell

Science is what you know, philosophy is what you don't know.

— Bertrand Russell

Whoever wishes to become a philosopher must learn not to be frightened by absurdities.

— Bertrand Russell

Science is what we know, and philosophy is what we don't know.

— Bertrand Russell

It is undesirable to believe a proposition when there is no ground whatever for supposing it true

— Bertrand Russell

The finding of arguments for a conclusion given in advance is not philosophy, but special pleading

— Bertrand Russell

The essence of education is that it is a change effected in the organism to satisfy the operator.

— Bertrand Russell

“Philosophy, as I shall understand the word, is something intermediate between theology and science.”

— Bertrand Russell

Ethical metaphysics is fundamentally an attempt, however disguised, to give legislative force to our own wishes.

— Bertrand Russell

Aristotle's metaphysics, roughly speaking, may be described as Plato diluted by common sense. He is difficult because Plato and common sense do…

— Bertrand Russell

I can only say that, while my own opinions as to ethics do not satisfy me, other people's satisfy me still less.

— Bertrand Russell

“Hegel's philosophy is very difficult—he is, I should say, the hardest to understand of all the great philosophers. Before entering on any…

— Bertrand Russell

There is little of the true philosophic spirit in Aquinas. He does not, like the Platonic Socrates, set out to follow wherever…

— Bertrand Russell

Humanistic ethics is based on the principle that only humans themselves can determine the criterion for virtue and not an authority transcending…

— Bertrand Russell

The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something…

— Bertrand Russell

“More erudite authors who advocate an irrationalist point of view, such as the pragmatist philosophers, are not to be caught out so…

— Bertrand Russell

Organic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the philosopher, and this development, we are assured, is indubitably…

— Bertrand Russell

Philosophers, for the most part, are constitutionally timid, and dislike the unexpected. Few of them would be genuinely happy as pirates or…

— Bertrand Russell

The doctrine (of) maintaining that the language of daily life, with words used in their ordinary meanings, suffices for philosophy . .…

— Bertrand Russell

If a philosophy is to bring happiness it should be inspired by kindly feelings. Marx pretended that he wanted the happiness of…

— Bertrand Russell

“Even if (as I myself believe) almost all Hegel's doctrines are false, he still retains an importance which is not merely historical,…

— Bertrand Russell

“I dislike Nietzsche because he likes the contemplation of pain, because he erects conceit into a duty, because the men whom he…

— Bertrand Russell

“We shall be compelled to renounce the hope of finding philosophical proofs of religious beliefs. ...Hence, once more, the value of philosophy…

— Bertrand Russell

“There is a widespread philosophical tendency towards the view which tells us that Man is the measure of all things, that truth…

— Bertrand Russell

As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as…

— Bertrand Russell

“If any one asks: ‘Why should I accept the results of valid arguments based on true premisses?’ we can only answer by…

— Bertrand Russell

If the ordinary wage-earner worked four hours a day, there would be enough for everybody and no unemployment -- assuming a certain…

— Bertrand Russell

“I should like to say two things, one intellectual and one moral. The intellectual thing I should want to say is this:…

— Bertrand Russell

“Two things are to be remembered: that a man whose opinions and theories are worth studying may be presumed to have had…

— Bertrand Russell

Men who allow their love of power to give them a distorted view of the world are to be found in every…

— Bertrand Russell

“When you come to look into this argument from design, it is a most astonishing thing that people can believe that this…

— Bertrand Russell

Science, by itself cannot, supply us with an ethic.

— Bertrand Russell

To create a good philosophy you should renounce metaphysics but be a good mathematician.

— Bertrand Russell

Bad philosophers may have a certain influence; good philosophers, never.

— Bertrand Russell

To create a healthy philosophy you should renounce metaphysics but be a good mathematician.

— Bertrand Russell

Philosophy seems to me on the whole a rather hopeless business.

— Bertrand Russell

The legacy of Greece to Western philosophy is Western philosophy.

— Bertrand Russell