Aaaa
Aaaa
Aaaa
QuotesScience
QuizWhat's
NewScience
StoriesChemistry
StoriesPerpetual
MotionNewslettterSearch
Feedback
HomeText MenuNewsWall CalendarScience StoreSurveyPrivacyTerms of Use
TODAY IN SCIENCE HISTORY
Celebrating 16 Years on the Web
Find science on
Go to or your birthday
Today in Science History - Quickie Quiz
Who said: The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes
difficult. But America cannot resist this transition, we must lead it... That is
how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That s what will l
end meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.
Ronald Reagan George W. Bush Barack Obama Submit more quiz questions >>
Home > Dictionary of Science Quotations > Scientist Names Index R > Bertrand Rus
sell Quotes
Thumbnail of Bertrand Russell (source)
Bertrand Russell
(18 May 1872 - 2 Feb 1970)
Welsh mathematician, logician and philosopher known for his work in mathematical
logic, but was also active in social and political campaigns, advocating pacifi
sm and nuclear disarmament.
Short biography of Bertrand Russell >>
Science Quotes by Bertrand Russell (86 quotes)
>> Click for Bertrand Russell Quotes on | Achievement | Aristotle | Arithmetic |
Belief | Difference | Error | Fact | Knowledge | Law | Life | Logic | Mathemati
cs | Method | Mind | Mistake | Observation | Philosopher | Philosophy | Power |
Science | Science And Religion | Scientific Method | Truth |
Bertrand Russell quote A process which led from the amoeba to man
Read more about this quote
(source)
A hallucination is a fact, not an error; what is erroneous is a judgment based u
pon it.
Bertrand Russell
The Monist (Apr 1914), 24:2, 173.
Science quotes on: | Error (161) | Fact (361) | Judgment (41)
A process which led from the amoeba to man appeared to the philosophers to be ob
viously a progress though whether the amoeba would agree with this opinion is not
known.
Bertrand Russell
From 'Current Tendencies', delivered as the first of a series of Lowell Lectures
in Boston (Mar 1914). Collected in Our Knowledge of the External World (1914),
12.
have believed what he had been told; but, finding that his professors disagreed
with each other, he was forced to conclude that no existing doctrine was certain
.
Bertrand Russell
From 'Philosophy For Laymen', collected in Unpopular Essays (1950, 1996), 57.
Science quotes on: | Assure (2) | Belief (161) | Certainty (69) | Conclu
de (5) | Construct (7) | Ren Descartes (33) | Doctrine (34) | Existing (5
) | Father (20) | Modern (53) | Philosophy (145) | Professor (24) | Te
acher (59) | Told (2)
Even if the open windows of science at first make us shiver after the cozy indoo
r warmth of traditional humanizing myths, in the end the fresh air brings vigor,
and the great spaces have a splendor of their own.
Bertrand Russell
What I Believe (1925). In The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell, 1903-1959 (199
2), 370.
Science quotes on: | Myth (25) | Science (998) | Tradition (18) | Truth
(495)
Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty.
To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom, in the pursuit of truth as in the e
ndeavour after a worthy manner of life.
Bertrand Russell
In An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (1943), 23.
Science quotes on: | Beginning (78) | Conquer (5) | Cruelty (7) | Endeav
our (24) | Fear (58) | Life (524) | Manner (14) | Pursuit (39) | Super
stition (36) | Truth (495) | Wisdom (96) | Worthy (7)
Frege has the merit of ... finding a third assertion by recognising the world of
logic which is neither mental nor physical.
Bertrand Russell
Our Knowledge of the External World (1914), 201.
Science quotes on: | Assertion (17) | Find (66) | Logic (140) | Mental (
25) | Merit (16) | Physical (39) | Recognition (46)
Gradually,
the aspect of science as knowledge is being thrust into the backgroun
d by the aspect of science as the power of manipulating nature. It is because sc
ience gives us the power of manipulating nature that it has more social importan
ce than art. Science as the pursuit of truth is the equal, but not the superior,
of art. Science as a technique, though it may have little intrinsic value, has
a practical importance to which art cannot aspire.
Bertrand Russell
In The Scientific Outlook (1931, 2009), xxiv.
Science quotes on: | Art (94) | Aspect (20) | Background (14) | Equal (2
7) | Importance (122) | Intrinsic (8) | Knowledge (749) | Nature (600)
| Power (119) | Practical (40) | Pursuit (39) | Science (998) | Science
And Art (106) | Social (20) | Superior (18) | Technique (15) | Technolo
gy (108) | Truth (495) | Value (76)
I conclude that, while it is true that science cannot decide questions of value,
that is because they cannot be intellectually decided at all, and lie outside t
he realm of truth and falsehood. Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attai
ned by scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know
.
Bertrand Russell
Religion and Science (1935), 243.
Science quotes on: | Attainment (26) | Conclusion (82) | Decision (34) |
Discovery (411) | Falsehood (13) | Intellect (116) | Knowledge (749) |
Mankind (123) | Method (91) | Question (180) | Realm (21) | Truth (495)
| Value (76)
Man is a rational animal so at least I have been told. Aristotle, so far as I know
, was the first man to proclaim explicitly that man is a rational animal. His re
ason for this view was that some people can do sums.
It is in virtue of the inte
llect that man is a rational animal. The intellect is shown in various ways, but
most emphatically by mastery of arithmetic. The Greek system of numerals was ve
ry bad, so that the multiplication table was quite difficult, and complicated ca
lculations could only be made by very clever people.
Bertrand Russell
From An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (1937, 1943), 5. Collected in The Basic
Writings of Bertrand Russell (2009), 45.
Science quotes on: | Animal (162) | Aristotle (104) | Arithmetic (42) |
Calculation (48) | Clever (6) | Complication (18) | Difficulty (83) | Gr
eece (6) | Intellect (116) | Mastery (11) | Rational (20) | Reason (187)
Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty a beauty
cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our wea
ker nature, without the georgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely
pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show.
The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, wh
ich is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics a
s surely as in poetry.
Bertrand Russell
Essay, 'The Study of Mathematics' (1902), collected in Philosophical Essays (191
0), 73-74. Also collected in Mysticism and Logic: And Other Essays (1919), 60.
Science quotes on: | Beauty (107) | Mathematics (405) | Sculpture (6) |
Truth (495)
Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, mo
re than elsewhere, the love of truth may find encouragement for waning faith. Ev
ery great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and s
ustaining a lofty habit of mind; and this purpose should be kept always in view
throughout the teaching and learning of mathematics.
Bertrand Russell
Essay, 'The Study of Mathematics' (1902), collected in Philosophical Essays (191
0), 73-74. Also collected in Mysticism and Logic: And Other Essays (1919), 73.
Science quotes on: | Mathematics (405) | Truth (495)
One must expect a war between U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. which will begin with the tota
l destruction of London. I think the war will last 30 years, and leave a world w
ithout civilised people, from which everything will have to build afresh a process
taking (say) 500 years.
Stated just one month after the Hiroshima atomic explosion. Russell became one o
f the best-known antinuclear activists of his era.
Bertrand Russell
Letter to Gamel Brenan (1 Sep 1945). In Nicholas Griffin (Ed.), The Selected Let
ters of Bertrand Russell (2002), 410.
Science quotes on: | Atomic Bomb (74) | War (88)
One of the chiefest triumphs of modern mathematics consists in having discovered
what mathematics really is.
Bertrand Russell
International Monthly (1901), 4, 84. In Robert doward Moritz, Memorabilia Mathema
tica (1914), 109.
Science quotes on: | Mathematics (405) | Truth (495)
One of the main purposes of scientific inference is to justify beliefs which we
entertain already; but as a rule they are justified with a difference. Our pre-s
cientific general beliefs are hardly ever without exceptions; in science, a law
with exceptions can only be tolerated as a makeshift. Scientific laws, when we h
ave reason to think them accurate, are different in form from the common-sense r
ules which have exceptions: they are always, at least in physics, either differe
ntial equations, or statistical averages. It might be thought that a statistical
average is not very different from a rule with exceptions, but this would be a
mistake. Statistics, ideally, are accurate laws about large groups; they differ
from other laws only in being about groups, not about individuals. Statistical l
aws are inferred by induction from particular statistics, just as other laws are
inferred from particular single occurrences.
Bertrand Russell
The Analysis of Matter (1927), 191.
Science quotes on: | Accuracy (40) | Average (17) | Belief (161) | Commo
n Sense (44) | Difference (142) | Differential Equation (4) | Entertainmen
t (6) | Exception (17) | Group (26) | Individual (68) | Inference (16)
| Justification (24) | Large (28) | Law (295) | Makeshift (2) | Mistake
(45) | Occurrence (25) | Physics (174) | Purpose (76) | Reason (187) |
Rule (60) | Science (998) | Statistics (96) | Toleration (4)
One of the symptoms of approaching nervous breakdown is the belief that one's wo
rk is terribly important.
Bertrand Russell
Autobiography
Science quotes on: | Work (247)
Only mathematics and mathematical logic can say as little as the physicist means
to say. (1931)
Bertrand Russell
In The Scientific Outlook (1931, 2009), 57.
Science quotes on: | Logic (140) | Mathematics (405) | Physicist (80)
Organic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoan to the phi
losopher, and this development, we are assured, is indubitably an advance. Unfor
tunately it is the philosopher, not the protozoon, who gives us this assurance.
Bertrand Russell
From Herbert Spencer lecture delivered at Oxford (1914) 'On Scientific Method in
Philosophy', collected in Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays (1919), 106.
Science quotes on: | Evolution (355) | Philosopher (75)
People are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.
Bertrand Russell
In Dr. N Sreedharan, Quotations of Wit and Wisdom (2007), 20.
Science quotes on: | Education (190) | Ignorance (118)
Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there
is knowledge, but in theology there is only opinion. So whenever you find yourse
lf getting angry about a difference of opinion, be on your guard, you will proba
bly find, on examination, that your belief is going beyond what the evidence war
rants.?
Bertrand Russell
In An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (1943), 22.
Science quotes on: | Anger (10) | Arithmetic (42) | Belief (161) | Diffe
rence (142) | Evidence (94) | Knowledge (749) | Opinion (91) | Persecuti
on (5) | Theology (22)
Philosophy is that part of science which at present people chose to have opinion
s about, but which they have no knowledge about. Therefore every advance in know
ledge robs philosophy of some problems which formerly it had and will belong to s
cience.
Bertrand Russell
'The Philosophy of Logical Atomism' (1918). In Betrand Russell and Robert Charle
s Marsh (Ed.), Logic and Knowledge: Essays, 1901-1950 (1988), 281.
Science, by itself, cannot supply us with an ethic. It can show us how to achiev
e a given end, and it may show us that some ends cannot be achieved. But among e
nds that can be achieved our choice must be decided by other than purely scienti
fic considerations. If a man were to say, I hate the human race, and I think it w
ould be a good thing if it were exterminated, we could say, Well, my dear sir, let
us begin the process with you. But this is hardly argument, and no amount of sci
ence could prove such a man mistaken.
Bertrand Russell
'The Science to Save us from Science', New York Times Magazine (19 Mar 1950). Co
llected in M. Gardner (ed.), Great Essays in Science (1950), 396-397.
Science quotes on: | Achievement (80) | Argument (30) | Choice (43) | Co
nsideration (43) | Decision (34) | End (62) | Ethic (8) | Extermination
(6) | Hatred (8) | Human Race (31) | Mistake (45) | Process (106) | Sc
ience (998) | Supply (19)
Science, in its ultimate ideal, consists of a set of propositions arranged in a
hierarchy, the lowest level of the hierarchy being concerned with particular fac
ts, and the highest with some general law, governing everything in the universe.
The various levels in the hierarchy have a two-fold logical connection, travell
ing one up, one down; the upward connection proceeds by induction, the downward
by deduction.
Bertrand Russell
In The Scientific Outlook (1931, 2009), 38.
Science quotes on: | Arrangement (28) | Connection (46) | Consist (9) |
Deduction (40) | Everything (46) | Fact (361) | General (37) | Govern (2
) | Hierarchy (7) | Ideal (27) | Induction (23) | Law (295) | Logical
(3) | Particular (27) | Proposition (33) | Science (998) | Scientific Me
thod (107) | Set (16) | Ultimate (34) | Universe (316)
Scientific method, although in its more refined forms it may seem complicated, i
s in essence remarkably simply. It consists in observing such facts as will enab
le the observer to discover general laws governing facts of the kind in question
. The two stages, first of observation, and second of inference to a law, are bo
th essential, and each is susceptible of almost indefinite refinement. (1931)
Bertrand Russell
In The Scientific Outlook (1931, 2009), 3.
Science quotes on: | Inference (16) | Law (295) | Observation (293) | Sc
ientific Method (107)
Sir Arthur Eddington deduces religion from the fact that atoms do not obey the l
aws of mathematics. Sir James Jeans deduces it from the fact that they do.
Bertrand Russell
In The Scientific Outlook (1931, 2009), 77.
Science quotes on: | Atom (170) | Deduction (40) | Sir Arthur Stanley Eddi
ngton (38) | Fact (361) | Sir James Jeans (24) | Law (295) | Mathematics
(405) | Obedience (9) | Religion (132)
The demand for certainty is one which is natural to man, but is nevertheless an
intellectual vice. If you take your children for a picnic on a doubtful day, the
y will demand a dogmatic answer as to whether it will be fine or wet, and be dis
appointed in you when you cannot be sure.
Bertrand Russell
From 'Philosophy For Laymen', collected in Unpopular Essays (1950, 1996), 38. Th
is idea may be summarized as What men want is not knowledge, but certainty
a widel
y circulated aphorism attributed to Russell, but for which Webmaster has so far
found no citation. (Perhaps it is a summary, never expressed in those exact word
s, but if you know the primary source, please contact Webmaster.)
Science quotes on: | Answer (109) | Certainty (69) | Child (96) | Demand
(20) | Dogmatic (2) | Doubtful (3) | Fine (12) | Intellectual (22) |
Natural (53) | Vice (5) | Weather (12) | Wet (3)
The examination system, and the fact that instruction is treated mainly as a tra
ining for a livelihood, leads the young to regard knowledge from a purely utilit
arian point of view as the road to money, not as the gateway to wisdom.
Bertrand Russell
In 'Education as a Political Institution', Atlantic Monthly, (Jun 1916), 117 755
. Also in Principles of Social Reconstruction (1916, 2013), 113.
Science quotes on: | Examination (49) | Knowledge (749) | Money (91) | U
seful (19)
The fact that all Mathematics is Symbolic Logic is one of the greatest discoveri
es of our age; and when this fact has been established, the remainder of the pri
nciples of mathematics consists of the analysis of Symbolic Logic itself.
Bertrand Russell
In Bertrand Russell, The Principles of Mathematics (1903), 5.
Science quotes on: | Logic (140) | Mathematics (405)
The first man who said fire burns was employing scientific method, at any rate if
he had allowed himself to be burnt several times. This man had already passed th
rough the two stages of observation and generalization. He had not, however, wha
t scientific technique demands a careful choice of significant facts on the one ha
nd, and, on the other hand, various means of arriving at laws otherwise than my
mere generalization. (1931)
Bertrand Russell
In The Scientific Outlook (1931, 2009), 3.
Science quotes on: | Inference (16) | Law (295) | Observation (293) | Sc
ientific Method (107)
The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense in which E
nergy is the fundamental concept in physics.
Bertrand Russell
Power: A New Social Analysis (1938), 10.
Science quotes on: | Concept (44) | Energy (118) | Fundamental (67) | Ph
ysics (174) | Power (119) | Sense (124) | Social Science (18)
The human race may well become extinct before the end of the century. Speaking a
s a mathematician, I should say the odds are about three to one against survival
.
Bertrand Russell
Interview, Playboy (Mar 1963). 10, No. 3, 42. In Kenneth Rose One Nation Undergr
ound: The Fallout Shelter in American Culture (2004), 39.
Science quotes on: | Atomic Bomb (74)
The more we realize our minuteness and our impotence in the face of cosmic force
s, the more amazing becomes what human beings have achieved.
Bertrand Russell
New Hopes for a Changing World (1952), 187.
Science quotes on: | Achievement (80)
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no go
od evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic.
Bertrand Russell
Unpopular Essays (1950, 2007), 104.
Science quotes on: | Controversy (13) | Evidence (94) | Science And God (2
)
The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem wort
h stating and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it
Bertrand Russell
The Philosophy of Logical Atomism (1959), 10.
The scientific attitude of mind involves a sweeping away of all other desires in
the interest of the desire to know.
Bertrand Russell
Mysticism and Logic: And Other Essays (1919), 44.
Science quotes on: | Attitude (18) | Desire (53) | Knowledge (749) | Min
d (307)
The significance of a fact is relative to [the general body of scientific] knowl
edge. To say that a fact is significant in science, is to say that it helps to e
stablish or refute some general law; for science, though it starts from observat
ion of the particular, is not concerned essentially with the particular, but wit
h the general. A fact, in science, is not a mere fact, but an instance. In this
the scientist differs from the artist, who, if he deigns to notice facts at all,
is likely to notice them in all their particularity.
Bertrand Russell
In The Scientific Outlook (1931, 2009), 38.
Science quotes on: | Artist (25) | Difference (142) | Establish (11) | F
act (361) | General (37) | Instance (8) | Knowledge (749) | Law (295) |
Notice (13) | Observation (293) | Particular (27) | Relative (13) | Sc
ience And Art (106) | Scientific Method (107) | Scientist (274) | Signific
ance (34) | Significant (9)
The trouble with the world is that
ull of doubt.
Bertrand Russell
Essay, originally published in the
tupidity' (10 May 1933). Collected
says 1931-1935 (2014), 28.
Science quotes on: | Doubt (72)
The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than man, wh
ich is the touchstone of highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as su
rely as in poetry.
Bertrand Russell
Essay, 'The Study of Mathematics' (1902), collected in Philosophical Essays (191
0), 73-74. Also collected in Mysticism and Logic: And Other Essays (1919), 60.
Science quotes on: | Mathematics (405) | Poetry (70)
The universe may have a purpose, but nothing we know suggests that, if so, this
purpose has any similarity to ours.
Bertrand Russell
Portraits from Memory and Other Essays
Science quotes on: | Universe (316)
The world of mathematics, which you condemn, is really a beautiful world; it has
nothing to do with life and death and human sordidness, but is eternal, cold an
d passionless. To me, pure, mathematics is one of the highest forms of art; it h
as a sublimity quite special to itself, and an immense dignity derived, from the
fact that its world is exempt I, from change and time. I am quite serious in th
is. The only difficulty is that none but mathematicians can enter this enchanted
region, and they hardly ever have a sense of beauty. And mathematics is the onl
y thing we know of that is capable of perfection; in thinking about it we become
Gods.
Bertrand Russell
Letter to Helen Thomas (30 Dec 1901). Quoted in Nicholas Griffin (ed.), The Sele
cted Letters of Bertrand Russell (1992), Vol. 1, 224.
Science quotes on: | Beauty (107) | Capability (30) | Cold (26) | Condem
nation (10) | Death (199) | Difficulty (83) | Enchantment (6) | Eternity
(23) | Form (79) | God (246) | Human (198) | Life (524) | Mathematics
(405) | Passion (29) | Perfection (45) | Science And Art (106) | Specia
l (33) | Sublimity (2)
There are infinite possibilities of error, and more cranks take up fashionable u
ntruths than unfashionable truths.
Bertrand Russell
Principles of Social Reconstruction (1916). Also in An Outline of Intellectual R
ubbish (1943), reprinted in Unpopular Essays (1950) and collected in 'An Outline
of Intellectual Rubbish', The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell (2009), 61.
Science quotes on: | Crank (3) | Error (161) | Fashionable (4) | Infinit
e (48) | Possibility (76) | Truth (495) | Untruth (3)
There is as much difference between a collection of mentally free citizens and a
community molded by modern methods of propaganda as there is between a heap of
raw materials and a battleship.
Bertrand Russell
From An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (1937, 1943), 9. Collected in The Basic
Writings of Bertrand Russell (2009), 61.
Science quotes on: | Citizen (12) | Collection (29) | Community (33) | D
ifference (142) | Free (19) | Heap (6) | Material (74) | Mental (25) |
Method (91) | Modern (53) | Mold (6) | Propaganda (4) | Raw (5)
This method is, to define as the number of a class the class of all classes simi
lar to the given class. Membership of this class of classes (considered as a pre
dicate) is a common property of all the similar classes and of no others; moreov
er every class of the set of similar classes has to the set of a relation which
it has to nothing else, and which every class has to its own set. Thus the condi
tions are completely fulfilled by this class of classes, and it has the merit of
being determinate when a class is given, and of being different for two classes
which are not similar. This, then, is an irreproachable definition of the numbe
r of a class in purely logical terms.
Bertrand Russell
The Principles of Mathematics (1903), 115.
Science quotes on: | Class (27) | Common (49) | Condition (78) | Definit
ion (94) | Determination (43) | Difference (142) | Fulfillment (7) | Log
ic (140) | Membership (2) | Merit (16) | Method (91) | Number (102) |
Property (52) | Relationship (42) | Set (16) | Similarity (15) | Term (4
6)
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the lon
ging for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering o
f mankind.
Bertrand Russell
The Autobiography of Betrand Russell (1998), 9, first sentence of the Prologue.
Science quotes on: | Biography (201)
Throughout the last four hundred years, during which the growth of science had g
radually shown men how to acquire knowledge of the ways of nature and mastery ov
er natural forces, the clergy have fought a losing battle against science, in as
tronomy and geology, in anatomy and physiology, in biology and psychology and so
ciology. Ousted from one position, they have taken up another. After being worst
ed in astronomy, they did their best to prevent the rise of geology; they fought
against Darwin in biology, and at the present time they fight against scientifi
c theories of psychology and education. At each stage, they try to make the publ
ic forget their earlier obscurantism, in order that their present obscurantism m
ay not be recognized for what it is.
Bertrand Russell
From An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish (1937, 1943), 6. Collected in The Basic
Writings of Bertrand Russell (2009), 47.
Science quotes on: | Anatomy (32) | Astronomy (115) | Battle (12) | Biol
ogy (96) | Clergy (2) | Charles Darwin (219) | Earlier (8) | Education (
190) | Fight (11) | Geology (150) | Growth (75) | Knowledge (749) | Lo
ss (50) | Mastery (11) | Nature (600) | Physiology (45) | Present (46)
| Prevention (27) | Psychology (72) | Public (43) | Recognition (46) |
Rise (16) | Science (998) | Science And Religion (173) | Sociology (6) |
Theory (397)
To a mind of sufficient intellectual power, the whole of mathematics would appea
r trivial, as trivial as the statement that a four-footed animal is an animal. (
1959)
Bertrand Russell
My Philosophical Development (1995), 207.
Science quotes on: | Mathematics (405)
To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization.
Bertrand Russell
The Conquest of Happiness
Science quotes on: | Civilization (101) | Leisure (7)
We are
led to a somewhat vague distinction between what we may call hard data and
oft data. This distinction is a matter of degree, and must not be pressed; but if
not taken too seriously it may help to make the situation clear. I mean by hard d
ata those which resist the solvent influence of critical reflection, and by soft d
ata those which, under the operation of this process, become to our minds more o
r less doubtful.
Bertrand Russell
Our Knowledge of the External World (1925), 75.
Science quotes on: | Clear (15) | Critical (12) | Data (61) | Distinctio
n (21) | Doubt (72) | Hard (21) | Influence (54) | Mind (307) | Operat
ion (57) | Process (106) | Reflection (30) | Resistance (15) | Seriousne
ss (9) | Situation (22) | Soft (3) | Solvent (3) | Vagueness (8)
What Galileo and Newton were to the seventeenth century, Darwin was to the ninet
eenth.
Bertrand Russell
A History of Western Philosophy (1945), 725.
Science quotes on: | Charles Darwin (219) | Galileo Galilei (68) | Sir Isa
ac Newton (206)
What is best in mathematics deserves not merely to be learnt as a task, but to a
ssimilated as a part of daily thought, and brought again and again before the mi
nd with ever-renewed encouragement.
Bertrand Russell
Essay, 'The Study of Mathematics' (1902), collected in Philosophical Essays (191
0), 73-74. Also collected in Mysticism and Logic: And Other Essays (1919), 60.
Work is of two kinds: first, altering the position of matter at or near the eart
h's surface relative to other such matter; second, telling other people to do so
. The first kind is unpleasant and ill paid; the second is pleasant and highly p
aid.
Bertrand Russell
In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935), 12.
Science quotes on: | Work (247)
[Man]
his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs are
but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism,
no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the g
rave; that all the labour of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, al
l the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast
death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must i
nevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins
Bertrand Russell
'A Free Man's Worship' (1903). In Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on
Religion and Related Subjects (1967), 107.
Science quotes on: | Achievement (80) | Atom (170) | Belief (161) | Deat
h (199) | Devotion (16) | Extinction (41) | Fear (58) | Feeling (53) |
Genius (106) | Growth (75) | Hope (57) | Inspiration (33) | Labour (30)
| Love (71) | Origin (44) | Solar System (31) | Thought (198) | Unive
rse (316)
Quotes by others about Bertrand Russell (5)
The difference between myth and science is the difference between divine inspira
tion of 'unaided reason' (as Bertrand Russell put it) on the one hand and theori
es developed in observational contact with the real world on the other. It is th
e difference between the belief in prophets and critical thinking, between Credo
quia absurdum (I believe because it is absurd Tertullian) and De omnibus est dubi
tandum (Everything should be questioned Descartes). To try to write a grand cosmic
al drama leads necessarily to myth. To try to let knowledge substitute ignorance
in increasingly large regions of space and time is science.
Hannes Alfvn
In 'Cosmology: Myth or Science?'. Journal of Astrophysics and Astronomy (1984),
5, 79-98.
Science quotes on: | Belief (161) | Contact (13) | Cosmology (13) | Ren D
escartes (33) | Difference (142) | Divine (20) | Drama (4) | Ignorance (
118) | Inspiration (33) | Knowledge (749) | Myth (25) | Observation (293
) | Prophet (3) | Question (180) | Real (35) | Reason (187) | Science
(998) | Space And Time (6) | Substitute (13) | Theory (397) | Thinking (
182) | World (294) | Write (22)
Bertrand Russell had given a talk on the then new quantum mechanics, of whose wo
nders he was most appreciative. He spoke hard and earnestly in the New Lecture H
all. And when he was done, Professor Whitehead, who presided, thanked him for hi
s efforts, and not least for leaving the vast darkness of the subject unobscured.
J. Robert Oppenheimer
Quoted in Robert Oppenheimer, The Open Mind (1955), 102.
Science quotes on: | Appreciation (12) | Darkness (12) | Lecture (35) |
Quantum Theory (36) | Wonder (73)
As Bertrand Russell once wrote, two plus two is four even in the interior of the
sun.
Martin Gardner
In When You Were a Tadpole and I Was a Fish: And Other Speculations About This a
nd That (2009), 124.
Science quotes on: | Four (3) | Interior (8) | Plus (2) | Sun (123) |