#bertrand-russell — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #bertrand-russell, aggregated by home.social.
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In Praise of the Useless: Bertrand Russell’s Salve for Hard Times
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.themarginalian.org/2026/05/14/bertrand-russell-useless-knowledge/
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A quotation from Bertrand Russell
Differences between nations, so long as they do not lead to hostility, are by no means to be deplored. Living for a time in a foreign country makes us aware of merits in which our own country is deficient, and this is true whichever country our own may be. The same thing holds of differences between different regions within one country, and of the differing types produced by different professions. Uniformity of character and uniformity of culture are to be regretted. Biological evolution has depended upon inborn differences between individuals or tribes, and cultural evolution depends upon acquired differences. When these disappear, there is no longer any material for selection. In the modern world, there is a real danger of too great similarity between one region and another in cultural respects. One of the best ways of minimising this evil is an increase in the autonomy of different groups.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Lecture (1949-01-23), “Control and Initiative: Their Respective Spheres,” Reith Lecture, “Authority and the Individual” No. 5, BBC RadioMore about this quote: wist.info/russell-bertrand/840…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bertrandrussell #autonomy #culture #difference #diversity #evolution #nations #regions #similarity #uniformity #variety
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How to Grow Old: Bertrand Russell on What Makes a Fulfilling Life
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.themarginalian.org/2026/05/10/how-to-grow-old-bertrand-russell/
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A quotation from Bertrand Russell
In our own day […] there has been too much of a tendency towards authority, and too little care for the preservation of initiative. Men in control of vast organisations have tended to be too abstract in their outlook, to forget what actual human beings are like, and to try to fit men to systems rather than systems to men.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Lecture (1949-01-30), “Individual and Social Ethics,” Reith Lecture, “Authority and the Individual” No. 6, BBC RadioMore about this quote: wist.info/russell-bertrand/838…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bertrandrussell #authority #control #freewill #humanity #individual #individuality #initiative #management #organizations #power #systems
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Ten guidelines for nurturing a thriving democracy by #BertrandRussell
via @wallabag
https://kottke.org/18/06/ten-guidelines-for-nurturing-a-thriving-democracy-by-bertrand-russell
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ho letto il libro di #PiergiorgioOdifreddi su #BertrandRussell, #CattivoMaestro ( #RaffaelloCortinaEditore)
Ve lo consiglio assolutamente, non solo per conoscere una grande mente, ma per l'onestà con cui è raccontata, senza omissione dei lati meno edificanti:
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A quotation from Bertrand Russell
Those who believe that the voice of the people is the voice of God may infer that any unusual opinion or peculiar taste is almost a form of impiety, and is to be viewed as a culpable rebellion against the legitimate authority of the herd. This will only be avoided if liberty is as much valued as democracy, and it is realized that a society in which each is the slave of all is only a little better than one in which each is the slave of a despot. There is equality where all are slaves, as well as where all are free. This shows that equality, by itself, is not enough to make a good society.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Lecture (1949-01-16), “The Conflict of Technique and Human Nature,” Reith Lecture, “Authority and the Individual” No. 4, BBC RadioMore about this quote: wist.info/russell-bertrand/837…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bertrandrussell #authority #conformity #democracy #dissent #equality #freedom #freedomofthought #herd #heterodoxy #liberty #majority #mob #popularopinion #slavery #tyrannyofthemajority #wethepeople #voxpopuli
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A quotation from Bertrand Russell
Too little liberty brings stagnation, and too much brings chaos.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Lecture (1949-01-09), “The Role of Individuality,” Reith Lecture, “Authority and the Individual” No. 3, BBC RadioMore about this quote: wist.info/russell-bertrand/835…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bertrandrussell #anarchy #chaos #control #freedom #liberty #license #restriction #stagnation #tyranny
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Make your interests gradually wider and more impersonal, until bit by bit the walls of the ego recede, and your life becomes increasingly merged in the universal life.
-- Bertrand Russell⬆ #Wisdom #Quotes #BertrandRussell #Life #Knowledge #Spirituality
⬇ #Photography #Panorama #Sunrise #SacandagaLake #Adirondacks #NewYork
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A quotation from Bertrand Russell
There are some among philosophers and statesmen who think that the State can have an excellence of its own, and not merely as a means to the welfare of the citizens. I cannot see any reason to agree with this view. “The State” is an abstraction; it does not feel pleasure or pain, it has no hopes or fears, and what we think of as its purposes are really the purposes of individuals who direct it. When we think concretely, not abstractly, we find, in place of “the State,” certain people who have more power than falls to the share of most men. And so glorification of “the State” turns out to be, in fact, glorification of a governing minority. No democrat can tolerate such a fundamentally unjust theory.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Lecture (1949-01-30), “Individual and Social Ethics,” Reith Lecture, No. 6, BBC RadioMore about this quote: wist.info/russell-bertrand/834…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bertrandrussell #government #leadership #minority #oligarchy #power #state #statepower
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A quotation from Bertrand Russell
It is a dangerous error to confound truth with matter-of-fact. Our life is governed not only by facts, but by hopes; the kind of truthfulness which sees nothing but facts is a prison for the human spirit. Dreams are only to be condemned when they are a lazy substitute for an effort to change reality; when they are an incentive, they are fulfilling a vital purpose in the incarnation of human ideals. To kill fancy in childhood is to make a slave to what exists, a creature tethered to earth and therefore unable to create heaven.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Education and the Good Life, Part 2, ch. 5 “Play and Fancy” (1926)More about this quote: wist.info/russell-bertrand/832…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bertrandrussell #fairytales #childrensliterature #change #dreams #fact #hope #ideals #mundanity #progress #truth
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Many people would sooner die than think; In fact, they do so.
-- Bertrand Russell -
A quotation from Bertrand Russell
And it is only through imagination that men become aware of what the world might be; without it, “progress” would become mechanical and trivial.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Education and the Good Life, Part 1, ch. 1 “Postulates of Modern Educational Theory” (1926)More about this quote: wist.info/russell-bertrand/831…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bertrandrussell #aspiration #conceptualization #creativity #imagination #improvement #inspiration #possibility #progress
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A quotation from Bertrand Russell
I think the gist of the matter is that a saint can live without politeness, and indeed that politeness is incompatible with a saintly character. But the man who is always to be sincere must be free from spite and envy and malice and pettiness. Most of us have a dose of these vices in our composition and therefore have to excerise tact to avoid giving offence. We cannot all be saints, and if saintliness is impossible, we may at least try not to be too disagreeable.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Essay (1933-02-01) “On Tact,” New York AmericanMore about this quote: wist.info/russell-bertrand/601…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bertrandrussell #compensation #diplomacy #disagreeability #friction #imperfection #offense #politeness #pragmatism #prudence #saint #sincerity #tact #virtue
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Philosophy expert reveals the character trait that shows someone is highly intelligent
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A quotation from Bertrand Russell
Almost everybody is deeply affected when some one he loves suffers from cancer. Most people are moved when they see the sufferings of unknown patients in hospitals. Yet when they read that the death-rate from cancer is such-and-such, they are as a rule only moved to momentary personal fear lest they or some one dear to them should acquire the disease. The same is true of war: people think it dreadful when their son or brother is mutilated, but they do not think it a million times as dreadful that a million people should be mutilated. A man who is full of kindliness in all personal dealings may derive his income from incitement to war or from the torture of children in “backward” countries.
All these familiar phenomena are due to the fact that sympathy is not stirred, in most people, by a merely abstract stimulus. A large proportion of the evils in the modern world would cease if this could be remedied.Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Education and the Good Life, Part 1, ch. 2 “The Aims of Education” (1926)More about this quote: wist.info/russell-bertrand/828…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bertrandrussell #abstraction #beloved #disease #distance #involvement #lovedones #moved #sensitivity #sympathy #visibility #war
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The Four Desires Driving All Human Behavior: Bertrand Russell’s Magnificent Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
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A quotation from Bertrand Russell
The next stage in the development of a desirable form of sensitiveness is sympathy. There is a purely physical sympathy: a very young child will cry because a brother or sister is crying. This, I suppose, affords the basis for the further developments.
The two enlargements that are needed are: first, to feel sympathy even when the sufferer is not an object of special affection; secondly, to feel it when the suffering is merely known to be occurring, not sensibly present. The second of these enlargements depends mainly upon intelligence. It may only go so far as sympathy with suffering which is portrayed vividly and touchingly, as in a good novel; it may, on the other hand, go so far as to enable a man to be moved emotionally by statistics. This capacity for abstract sympathy is as rare as it is important.Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Education and the Good Life, Part 1, ch. 2 “The Aims of Education” (1926)More about this quote: wist.info/russell-bertrand/828…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bertrandrussell #abstraction #factsandfigures #loveyourneighbor #sensitivity #statistics #stranger #suffering #sympathy #understanding
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When you want to teach children to think, you begin by treating them seriously when they are little, giving them responsibilities, talking to them candidly, providing privacy and solitude for them, and making them readers and thinkers of significant thoughts from the beginning. That's if you want to teach them to think.
- #BertrandRussell
#philosophy #philosophyquotes #parenting -
The Continuous Creative Act of Holding on and Letting Go: 10 Beautiful Minds on the Art of Growing Older
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.themarginalian.org/2026/03/15/growing-older/
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A quotation from Bertrand Russell
Neither acquiescence in skepticism nor acquiescence in dogma is what education should produce. What it should produce is a belief that knowledge is attainable in a measure, though with difficulty; that much of what passes for knowledge at any given time is likely to be more or less mistaken, but that the mistakes can be rectified by care and industry. In acting upon our beliefs, we should be very cautious where a small error would mean disaster; nevertheless it is upon our beliefs that we must act. This state of mind is rather difficult: it requires a high degree of intellectual culture without emotional atrophy. But though difficult it is not impossible; it is in fact the scientific temper. Knowledge, like other good things, is difficult, but not impossible; the dogmatist forgets the difficulty, the skeptic denies the possibility. Both are mistaken, and their errors, when wide-spread, produce social disaster.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Education and the Good Life, Part 1, ch. 2 “The Aims of Education” (1926)More about this quote: wist.info/russell-bertrand/826…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bertrandrussell #action #caution #dogma #dogmatism #education #knowledge #rationality #science #selfawareness #skeptic #skepticism #truthseeking #pedagogy
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A quotation from Bertrand Russell
If you tell children that they ought to be affectionate, you run the risk of producing cant and humbug. But if you make them happy and free, if you surround them with kindness, you will find that they become spontaneously friendly with everybody, and that almost everybody responds by being friendly with them. A trustful affectionate disposition justifies itself, because it gives irresistible charm, and creates the response which it expects. This is one of the most important results to be expected from the right education of character.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Education and the Good Life, Part 2, ch. 11 “Affection and Sympathy” (1926)More about this quote: wist.info/russell-bertrand/824…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bertrandrussell #affection #character #childrearing #children #education #goodexample #instruction #kindness #learning #parenting #setanexample
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Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.
— Bertrand Russell
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How to Grow Old: Bertrand Russell on What Makes a Fulfilling Life
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.themarginalian.org/2026/02/24/how-to-grow-old-bertrand-russell/
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A quotation from Bertrand Russell
The cultivation of wide sympathies, given the instinctive germ, is mainly an intellectual matter: it depends upon the right direction of attention, and the realization of facts which militarists and authoritarians suppress. Take, for example, Tolstoy’s description of Napoleon going round the battlefield of Austerlitz after the victory. Most histories leave the battlefield as soon as the battle is over; by the simple expedient of lingering on it for another twelve hours, a completely different picture of war is produced. This is done, not by suppressing facts, but by giving more facts. And what applies to battles applies equally to other forms of cruelty. In all cases, it should be quite unnecessary to point the moral; the right telling of the story should be sufficient. Do not moralize, but let the facts produce their own moral in the child’s mind.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Education and the Good Life, Part 2, ch. 11 “Affection and Sympathy” (1926)More about this quote: wist.info/russell-bertrand/375…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bertrandrussell #aftermath #battle #cruelty #education #interpretation #meaning #moral #moralizing #story #storytelling #sympathy #teaching #theme #war #pedagogy
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A quotation from Bertrand Russell
In fact the whole antithesis between self and the rest of the world, which is implied in the doctrine of self-denial, disappears as soon as we have any genuine interest in persons or things outside ourselves. Through such interests a man comes to feel himself part of the stream of life, not a hard separate entity like a billiard-ball, which can have no relation with other such entities except that of collision.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, Part 2, ch. 17 “The Happy Man” (1930)More about this quote: wist.info/russell-bertrand/819…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bertrandrussell #body #engagement #externalities #interest #life #living #meaningoflife #relationship #self #selfabsorption #selfcenteredness #selfdenial #selfsufficiency #separation #spirit #worldliness
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A quotation from Bertrand Russell
The happy life is to an extraordinary extent the same as the good life. Professional moralists have made too much of self-denial, and in so doing have put the emphasis in the wrong place. Conscious self-denial leaves a man self-absorbed and vividly aware of what he has sacrificed; in consequence it fails often of its immediate object and almost always of its ultimate purpose. What is needed is not self-denial, but that kind of direction of interest outward which will lead spontaneously and naturally to the same acts that a person absorbed in the pursuit of his own virtue could only perform by means of conscious self-denial.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, Part 2, ch. 17 “The Happy Man” (1930)More about this quote: wist.info/russell-bertrand/818…
#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bertrandrussell #asceticism #temperance #celibacy #abstinence #diet #focus #goodlife #happiness #interest #selfdenial #selfrestriction
