We are all, whatever part of the world we come from, persuaded that our own nation is superior to all others. Seeing that each nation has its characteristic merits and demerits, we adjust our standard of values so as to make out that the merits possessed by our nation are the really important ones, while its demerits are comparatively trivial. Here, again, the rational man … [ Read more ]
Author: Bertrand Russell | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: International, Life & Society
If an opinion contrary to your own makes you angry, that is a sign that you are subconsciously aware of having no good reason for thinking as you do… The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there is no good evidence either way. Persecution is used in theology, not in arithmetic, because in arithmetic there is knowledge, but in theology there … [ Read more ]
Author: Bertrand Russell | Source: Farnam Street | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Thought | Inquiry
In all affairs it’s a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
Author: Bertrand Russell | Subjects: Concepts, Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement
It is preoccupation with possession, more than anything else, that prevents men from living freely and nobly.
Author: Bertrand Russell | Subjects: Consumerism, Life & Society, Material Possessions, Personal Improvement
One of the painful things about our time is that those who feel certainty are stupid, and those with any imagination and understanding are filled with doubt and indecision.
Author: Bertrand Russell | Subjects: Concepts, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement
Knowledge is good and ignorance is evil: to this principle the lover of the world can admit no exception. Nor is it power in and for itself that is the source of danger. What is dangerous is power wielded for the sake of power, not power wielded for the sake of genuine good.
Author: Bertrand Russell | Subjects: Concepts, Insight, Intelligence | Knowledge, Life & Society, Power
It is only in so far as we renounce the world as its lovers that we can conquer it as its technicians. But this division in the soul is fatal to what is best in man.
Author: Bertrand Russell | Subjects: Environment | Sustainability, Insight, Life & Society
Step by step, as science has developed, the impulse of love which gave it birth has been increasingly thwarted, while the impulse of power, which was at first a mere camp-follower, has gradually usurped command in virtue of its unforeseen success. The lover of nature has been baffled, the tyrant over nature has been rewarded.
Author: Bertrand Russell | Subjects: Education | Scholarship, Math & Science
We may seek knowledge of an object because we love the object or because we wish to have power over it. The former impulse leads to the kind of knowledge that is contemplative, the latter to the kind that is practical.
Author: Bertrand Russell | Subjects: Concepts, Education | Scholarship, Intelligence | Knowledge, Personal Improvement
The good life is one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Neither love without knowledge, nor knowledge without love can produce a good life.
Author: Bertrand Russell | Subjects: Concepts, Intelligence | Knowledge, Life & Society, Love, Personal Improvement
All human activity is prompted by desire. There is a wholly fallacious theory advanced by some earnest moralists to the effect that it is possible to resist desire in the interests of duty and moral principle. I say this is fallacious, not because no man ever acts from a sense of duty, but because duty has no hold on him unless he desires to be
Authors: Bertrand Russell, Maria Popova | Source: The Marginalian (Brain Pickings) (September 21, 2015) | Subjects: Articles & Links, Excerpts, Psychology | Behavior