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Science, By Itself, Cannot Supply Us With An Ethic. It Can Show Us How To Achieve A Given End, And It May Show Us That Some Ends Cannot Be Achieved. But Among Ends That Can Be Achieved Our Choice Must Be Decided By Other Than Purely Scientific Considerations. If A Man Were To Say, "i Hate The Human Race, And I Think It Would 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 Science Could Prove Such A Man Mistaken.

-Bertrand Russell

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Science, By Itself, Cannot

Bertrand Russell

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Science, By Itself, Cannot Supply Us With An Ethic. It Can Show Us How To Achieve A Given End, And It May Show Us That Some Ends Cannot Be Achieved. But Among Ends That Can Be Achieved Our Choice Must Be Decided By Other Than Purely Scientific Considerations. If A Man Were To Say, "i Hate The Human Race, And I Think It Would 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 Science Could Prove Such A Man Mistaken.

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Orthodoxy Is The Grave Of Intelligence, No Matter What Orthodoxy It May Be.

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Perhaps The Nuclear Physicists Have Come So Near To The Ultimate Secrets That He Thinks It Time To Bring Their Activities To A Stop. And What Simpler Method Could He Devise Than To Let Them Carry Their Ingenuity To The Point Where They Exterminate The Human Race?

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They Must Often Change, Who Would Be Constant In Happiness Or Wisdom. Those Who Continually Search For Happiness Will Never Find It. Happiness Is Made, Not Found. To Be Without Some Of The Things You Want Is An Indispensable Part Of Happiness.

The Coward Wretch Whose Hand And Heart Can Bear To Torture Aught Below, Is Ever First To Quail And Start From The Slightest Pain Or Equal Foe.

We Must Be Sceptical Even Of Our Scepticism.

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To Think I Have Spent My Life On Absolute Muck.

Philosophy, From The Earliest Times, Has Made Greater Claims, And Achieved Fewer Results, Than Any Other Branch Of Learning.

Those Who Have Never Known The Deep Intimacy And The Intense Companionship Of Happy Mutual Love Have Missed The Best Thing That Life Has To Give.

Every Increase In Knowledge Requires An Increase In Wisdom

Of These Austerer Virtues The Love Of Truth Is The Chief, And In Mathematics, More Than Elsewhere, The Love Of Truth May Find Encouragement For Waning Faith. Every Great Study Is Not Only An End In Itself, But Also A Means Of Creating And Sustaining A Lofty Habit Of Mind; And This Purpose Should Be Kept Always In View Throughout The Teaching And Learning Of Mathematics.

The Commonest Objection To Birth Control Is That It Is Against Nature.

Machines Deprive Us Of Two Things Which Are Certainly Important Ingredients Of Human Happiness, Namely, Spontaneity And Variety.

A Marriage Is Likely To Be Called Happy If Neither Party Ever Expected To Get Much Happiness Out Of It.

Much That Passes As Idealism Is Disguised Hatred Or Disguised Love Of Power.

Idealism And Realism

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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 Through The Two Stages Of Observation And Generalization. He Had Not, However, What Scientific Technique Demands - A Careful Choice Of Significant Facts On The One Hand, And, On The Other Hand, Various Means Of Arriving At Laws Otherwise Than My Mere Generalization.

All Movements Go Too Far.

It Is Preoccupation With Possessions, More Than Anything Else, That Prevents Us From Living Freely And Nobly.

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What Hunger Is In Relation To Food, Zest Is In Relation To Life.

I Do Not Believe That Science Per Se Is An Adequate Source Of Happiness, Nor Do I Think That My Own Scientific Outlook Has Contributed Very Greatly To My Own Happiness, Which I Attribute To Defecating Twice A Day With Unfailing Regularity.

The Search For Something Permanent Is One Of The Deepest Of The Instincts Leading Men To Philosophy.

The Scientific Attitude Of Mind Involves A Sweeping Away Of All Other Desires In The Interest Of The Desire To Know.

Science May Set Limits To Knowledge, But Should Not Set Limits To Imagination.

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Diet, Injections, And Injunctions Will Combine, From A Very Early Age, To Produce The Sort Of Character And The Sort Of Beliefs That The Authorities Consider Desirable, And Any Serious Criticism Of The Powers That Be Will Become Psychologically Impossible. Even If All Are Miserable, All Will Believe Themselves Happy, Because The Government Will Tell Them That They Are So.

We Have Almost Reached The Point Where Praise Of Rationality Is Held To Mark A Man As An Old Fogey Regrettably Surviving From A Bygone Age.

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What Is Best In Mathematics Deserves Not Merely To Be Learnt As A Task, But To Assimilated As A Part Of Daily Thought, And Brought Again And Again Before The Mind With Ever-renewed Encouragement.

Our Instinctive Emotions Are Those That We Have Inherited From A Much More Dangerous World, And Contain, Therefore, A Larger Portion Of Fear Than They Should.

Dangerous World

Human Nature Being What It Is, People Will Insist Upon Getting Some Pleasure Out Of Life.

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One Is Often Told That It Is A Very Wrong Thing To Attack Religion, Because Religion Makes Men Virtuous. So I Am Told; I Have Not Noticed It.

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Cynicism Such As One Finds Very Frequently Among The Most Highly Educated Young Men And Women Of The West, Results From The Combination Of Comfort And Powerlessness.

The Moral Thing I Should Wish To Say To Them Is Very Simple; I Should Say: "love Is Wise - Hatred Is Foolish." In This World, Which Is Getting More And More Closely Interconnected, We Have To Learn To Tolerate Each Other.

The Newspapers At One Time Said That I Was Dead But After Carefully Examining The Evidence I Came To The Conclusion That This Statement Was False.

Patriotism Which Has The Quality Of Intoxication Is A Danger Not Only To Its Native Land But To The World, And "my Country Never Wrong" Is An Even More Dangerous Maxim Than "my Country, Right Or Wrong."

Dora And I Are Now Married, But Just As Happy As We Were Before.

Good Nature Is, Of All Moral Qualities, The One That The World Needs Most, And Good Nature Is The Result Of Ease And Security, Not Of A Life Of Arduous Struggle.

Most Of The Greatest Evils That Man Has Inflicted Upon Man Have Come Through People Feeling Quite Certain About Something Which, In Fact, Was False.

The Wise Man Will Be As Happy As Circumstances Permit, And If He Finds The Contemplation Of The Universe Painful Beyond A Point, He Will Contemplate Something Else Instead.

Mysticism Is, In Essence, Little More Than A Certain Intensity And Depth Of Feeling In Regard To What Is Believed About The Universe.

There Is No Logical Impossibility In The Hypothesis That The World Sprang Into Being Five Minutes Ago, Exactly As It Then Was, With A Population That "remembered" A Wholly Unreal Past. There Is No Logically Necessary Connection Between Events At Different Times; Therefore Nothing That Is Happening Now Or Will Happen In The Future Can Disprove The Hypothesis That The World Began Five Minutes Ago.

The Question Of "unreality"is A Very Important One. Misled By Grammar, The Great Majority Of Those Logicians Who Have Dealt With This Question Have Dealt With It On Mistaken Lines. They Have Regarded Grammatical Form As A Surer Guide In Analysis Than, In Fact, It Is. And They Have Not Known What Differences In Grammatical Form Are Important.

There Lies Before Us, If We Choose, Continual Progress In Happiness, Knowledge And Wisdom. Shall We Instead Choose Death, Because We Cannot Forget Our Quarrels? I Appeal As A Human Being To Human Beings; Remember Your Humanity, And Forget The Rest.

An Extra-terrestrial Philosopher, Who Had Watched A Single Youth Up To The Age Of Twenty-one And Had Never Come Across Any Other Human Being, Might Conclude That It Is The Nature Of Human Beings To Grow Continually Taller And Wiser In An Indefinite Progress Towards Perfection; And This Generalization Would Be Just As Well Founded As The Generalization Which Evolutionists Base Upon The Previous History Of This Planet.

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An Individual Human Existence Should Be Like A River

[the Church] Is In Its Major Part An Opponent Still Of Progress And Improvement In All The Ways That Diminish Suffering In The World, Because It Has Chosen To Label As Morality A Certain Narrow Set Of Rules Of Conduct Which Have Nothing To Do With Human Happiness; And When You Say That This Or That Ought To Be Done Because It Would Make For Human Happiness, They Think That Has Nothing To Do With The Matter At All. "what Has Human Happiness To Do With Morals? The Object Of Morals Is Not To Make People Happy.

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.

Science Is What You Know, Philosophy Is What You Don't Know.

The Human Race May Well Become Extinct Before The End Of The Century.

In The Great Depression, Things Could Only Be Set Right By Causing The Idle Plant To Work Again . . . Roosevelt . . . Spent Billions Of Public Money And Created A Huge Public Debt, But By So Doing He Revived Production And Brought His Country Out Of The Depression. Businessmen, Who In Spite Of Such A Sharp Lesson Continued To Believe In Old-fashioned Economics, Were Infinitely Shocked, And Although Roosevelt Saved Them From Ruin, They Continued To Curse Him And To Speak Of Him As 'the Madman In The White House.' . . . [it's One More] Striking Example Of Inability To Learn From Experience.

Those Who Advocate Common Usage In Philosophy Sometimes Speak In A Manner That Suggests The Mystique Of The 'common Man.'

The Conception Of The Necessary Unit Of All That Is Resolves Itself Into The Poverty Of The Imagination, And A Freer Logic Emancipates Us From The Straitwaistcoated Benevolent Institution, Which Idealism Palms Off As The Totality Of Being.

In Adolescence, I Hated Life And Was Continually On The Verge Of Suicide, From Which, However, I Was Restrained By The Desire To Know More Mathematics. Now, On The Contrary, I Enjoy Life; I Might Almost Say That With Every Year That Passes I Enjoy It More.

Most Human Beings, Though In Varying Degrees, Desire To Control, Not Only Their Own Lives But Also The Lives Of Others

Lives Of Others

My Own View On Religion Is . . . It Helped In Early Days To Fix The Calendar, And . . . To Chronicle Eclipses . . . These Two Services I Am Prepared To Acknowledge.

The Whole Realm Of Thought And Opinion Is Utterly Unsuited To Public Control; It Ought To Be As Free, And As Spontaneous As Is Possible. The State Is Justified In Insisting That Children Shall Be Educated, But It Is Not Justified In Forcing Their Education To Proceed On A Uniform Plan And To Be Directed To The Production Of A Dead Level Of Glib Uniformity.

I Am Firm; You Are Obstinate; He Is A Pig-headed Fool.

With Equal Passion I Have Sought Knowledge. I Have Wished To Understand The Hearts Of Men. I Have Wished To Know Why The Stars Shine. And I Have Tried To Apprehend The Pythagorean Power By Which Number Holds Sway About The Flux. A Little Of This, But Not Much, I Have Achieved.

When You Are Studying Any Matter Or Considering Any Philosophy, Ask Yourself Only: What Are The Facts, And What Is The Truth That The Facts Bear Out. Never Let Yourself Be Diverted By What You Wish To Believe, But Look Only And Surely At What Are The Facts.

Every Man, Wherever He Goes, Is Encompassed By A Cloud Of Comforting Convictions, Which Move With Him Like Flies On A Summer Day.

To The Young I Should Offer Two Maxims: Don't Accept Superficial Solutions Of Difficult Problems. It Is Better To Do A Little Good Than Much Harm. I Should Not Offer Anything More Specific; Every Young Person Should Decide On His Or Her Own Credo.

Shakespeare . . . If He Does Not Give You Delight, You Had Better Ignore Him [if You Can].

To Expect A Personality To Survive The Disintegration Of The Brain Is Like Expecting A Cricket Club To Survive When All Of Its Members Are Dead.

Aristotle And Plato Considered Greeks So Innately Superior To Barbarians That Slavery Is Justified So Long As The Master Is Greek And The Slave Barbarian.

Experience Has Taught Me A Technique For Dealing With Such People [...] I Counter The Devotees Of The Great Pyramid By Adoration Of The Sphinx; And The Devotee Of Nuts By Pointing Out That Hazelnuts And Walnuts Are As Deleterious As Other Foods And Only Brazil Nuts Should Be Tolerated. But When I Was Younger I Had Not Yet Acquired This Technique, With The Result That My Contacts With Cranks Were Sometimes Alarming.

This Is One Of Those Views Which Are So Absolutely Absurd That Only Very Learned Men Could Possibly Adopt Them.

I Do Not Think Any Reasonable Person Can Doubt That In India, China And Japan, If The Knowledge Of Birth Control Existed, The Birthrate Would Fall Very Rapidly

Science, By Itself Cannot, Supply Us With An Ethic.

Historically, It Is Quite Doubtful Whether Christ Ever Existed At All, And If He Did We Do Not Know Anything About Him.

For My Part I Distrust All Generalizations About Women, Favorable And Unfavorable, Masculine And Feminine, Ancient And Modern; All Alike, I Should Say, Result From Paucity Of Experience.

Masculine And Feminine

Civilized People Cannot Fully Satisfy Their Sexual Instinct Without Love.

It's Easy To Fall In Love. The Hard Part Is Finding Someone To Catch You.

Falling In Love

New Relationship

One Should As A Rule Respect Public Opinion In So Far As Is Necessary To Avoid Starvation And To Keep Out Of Prison, But Anything That Goes Beyond This Is Voluntary Submission To An Unnecessary Tyranny.

Pure Mathematics Consists Entirely Of Assertions To The Effect That, If Such And Such A Proposition Is True Of Anything, Then Suchand Such Another Proposition Is True Of That Thing.... Thus Mathematics May Be Defined As The Subject In Which We Never Know What We Are Talking About, Nor Whether What We Are Saying Is True.

The Eugenic Society . . . Is Perpetually Bewailing The Fact That Wage-earners Breed Faster Than Middle-class People.

In Obedience To The Feeling Of Reality, We Shall Insist That, In The Analysis Of Propositions, Nothing "unreal" Is To Be Admitted. But, After All, If There Is Nothing Unreal, How, It May Be Asked, Could We Admit Anything Unreal? The Reply Is That, In Dealing With Propositions, We Are Dealing In The First Instance With Symbols, And If We Attribute Significance To Groups Of Symbols Which Have No Significance, We Shall Fall Into The Error Of Admitting Unrealities, In The Only Sense In Which This Is Possible, Namely, As Objects Described.

One Is Always A Little Afraid Of Love, But Above All, One Is Afraid Of Pain Or Causing Pain.

A Process Which Led From The Amoeba To Man Appeared To The Philosophers To Be Obviously A Progress Though Whether The Amoeba Would Agree With This Opinion Is Not Known.

Mathematics Is, I Believe, The Chief Source Of The Belief In Eternal And Exact Truth, As Well As A Sensible Intelligible World.

We Shall Say That We Have Acquaintance With Anything Of Which We Are Directly Aware, Without The Intermediary Of Any Process Of Inference Of Any Knowledge Of Truths.

People Are Zealous For A Cause When They Are Not Quite Positive That It Is True.

Positive Thinking

As Soon As We Abandon Our Own Reason, And Are Content To Rely Upon Authority, There Is No End To Our Trouble. . . . No Catholic, For Instance, Takes Seriously The Text Which Says That A Bishop Should Be The Husband Of One Wife.

The Human Animal, Like Others, Is Adapted To A Certain Amount Of Struggle For Life [and] The Mere Absence Of Effort From His Life Removes An Essential Ingredient Of Happiness. [. . .] He Forgets That To Be Without Some Of The Things You Want Is An Indispensable Part Of Happiness.

Bacon Not Only Despised The Syllogism, But Undervalued Mathematics, Presumably As Insufficiently Experimental. He Was Virulently Hostile To Aristotle , But He Thought Very Highly Of Democritus , Although He Did Not Deny That The Course Of Nature Exemplifies A Divine Purpose, He Objected To Any Admixture Of Teleological Explanation In The Actual Investigation Of Phenomena; Everything, He Held, Should Be Explained As Following Necessarily From Efficient Causes .

When We Perceive Any Object Of A Familiar Kind, Much Of What Appears Subjectively To Be Immediately Given Is Really Derived From Past Experience.

Almost All Education Has A Political Motive.

The Root Of The Matter Is A Very Simple And Old Fashioned Thing... Love Or Compassion. If You Feel This, You Have A Motive For Existence, A Guide For Action, A Reason For Courage, An Imperative Necessity For Intellectual Honesty.

In The Ordinary Business Of Life Punctuality Is . . . Necessary.

Ants And Savages Put Strangers To Death.

Boys And Girls Should Be Taught Respect For Each Other's Liberty... And That Jealousy And Possessiveness Kill Love.

Philosophers, For The Most Part, Are Constitutionally Timid, And Dislike The Unexpected. Few Of Them Would Be Genuinely Happy As Pirates Or Burglars. Accordingly They Invent Systems Which Make The Future Calculable, At Least In Its Main Outlines.

Vanity Is A Motive Of Immense Potency.

Man Is A Credulous Animal, And Must Believe Something; In The Absence Of Good Grounds For Belief, He Will Be Satisfied With Bad Ones.

The Most Valuable Things In Life Are Not Measured In Monetary Terms. The Really Important Things Are Not Houses And Lands, Stocks And Bonds, Automobiles And Real State, But Friendships, Trust, Confidence, Empathy, Mercy, Love And Faith.

We Need A Science To Save Us From Science.

Hell: A Place Where The Police Are German, The Motorists French And The Cooks English.

Thinking You Know When In Fact You Don't Is A Fatal Mistake, To Which We Are All Prone

A Great Many Worries Can Be Diminished By Realizing The Unimportance Of The Matter Which Is Causing Anxiety.

Men Who Are Unhappy, Like Men Who Sleep Badly, Are Always Proud Of The Fact.

War...seems A Mere Madness, A Collective Insanity.

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