Philosophy

“A stupid man's report of what a clever man says can never be accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something he can understand.””

— Bertrand Russell

“To teach how to live without certainty, and yet without being paralyzed by hesitation, is perhaps the chief thing that philosophy, in our age, can still do for those who study it.””

— Bertrand Russell

“Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty”

— Bertrand Russell

“Almost everything that distinguishes the modern world from earlier centuries is attibutable to science, which achieved its most spectacular triumphs in the seventeenth century.””

— Bertrand Russell

“Men are born ignorant, not stupid; they are made stupid by education.””

— Bertrand Russell

“The search for something permanent is one of the deepest of the instincts leading men to philosophy.””

— Bertrand Russell

“This [Hegel's philosophy] illustrates an important truth, namely, that the worse your logic, the more interesting the consequences to which it gives rise.””

— Bertrand Russell

“William James describes a man who got the experience from laughing-gas; whenever he was under its influence, he knew the secret of the universe, but when he came to, he had forgotten it. At last, with immense effort, he wrote down the secret before the vision had faded. When completely recovered, he rushed to see what he had written. It was: "A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.””

— Bertrand Russell

“I dislike Nietzsche because he likes the contemplation of pain, because he erects conceit into a duty, because the men whom he most admires are conquerors, whose glory is cleverness in causing men to die.””

— Bertrand Russell