Bertrand Russell: Citáty v angličtine (page 13)

“My objections to Marx are of two sorts: one, that he was muddle-headed; and the other, that his thinking was almost entirely inspired by hatred. The doctrine of surplus value, which is supposed to demonstrate the exploitation of wage-earners under capitalism, is arrived at: (a) by surreptitiously accepting Malthus's doctrine of population, which Marx and all his disciples explicitly repudiate; (b) by applying Ricardo's theory of value to wages, but not to the prices of manufactured articles. He is entirely satisfied with the result, not because it is in accordance with the facts or because it is logically coherent, but because it is calculated to rouse fury in wage-earners. Marx's doctrine that all historical events have been motivated by class conflicts is a rash and untrue extension to world history of certain features prominent in England and France a hundred years ago. His belief that there is a cosmic force called Dialectical Materialism which governs human history independently of human volitions, is mere mythology. His theoretical errors, however, would not have mattered so much but for the fact that, like Tertullian and Carlyle, his chief desire was to see his enemies punished, and he cared little what happened to his friends in the process.”

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Bertrand Russell

Zdroj: 1950s, Portraits from Memory and Other Essays (1956), p. 211

“There are three forces on the side of life which require no exceptional mental endowment, which are not very rare at present, and might be very common under better social institutions. They are love, the instinct of constructiveness, and the joy of life. All three are checked and enfeebled at present by the conditions under which men live—not only the less outwardly fortunate, but also the majority of the well-to-do. Our institutions rest upon injustice and authority: it is only by closing our hearts against sympathy and our minds against truth that we can endure the oppressions and unfairnesses by which we profit. The conventional conception of what constitutes success leads most men to live a life in which their most vital impulses are sacrificed, and the joy of life is lost in listless weariness. Our economic system compels almost all men to carry out the purposes of others rather than their own, making them feel impotent in action and only able to secure a certain modicum of passive pleasure. All these things destroy the vigor of the community, the expansive affections of individuals, and the power of viewing the world generously. All these things are unnecessary and can be ended by wisdom and courage. If they were ended, the impulsive life of men would become wholly different, and the human race might travel towards a new happiness and a new vigor.”

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Bertrand Russell

Zdroj: 1910s, Why Men Fight https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Why_Men_Fight (1917), pp. 18-19

“No man who believes that all is for the best in this suffering world can keep his ethical values unimpaired, since he is always having to find excuses for pain and misery.”

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Bertrand Russell

The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell: A fresh look at empiricism, 1927-42 (G. Allen & Unwin, 1996), p. 217
Attributed from posthumous publications

“The typical Westerner wishes to be the cause of as many changes as possible in his environment; the typical Chinaman wishes to enjoy as much and as delicately as possible.”

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Bertrand Russell

The Problem of China (1922), Ch. XII: The Chinese Character
1920s

“Of course not. After all, I may be wrong.”

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Bertrand Russell

When asked asked if he was willing to die for his beliefs.
The Times book of quotations (2000), p. 84
Disputed
Varianta: "I would never die for my beliefs because I might be wrong."

“It is not by prayer and humility that you cause things to go as you wish, but by acquiring a knowledge of natural laws.”

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Bertrand Russell

1950s, The Impact of Science on Society (1952)

“If human nature were unchangeable, as ignorant people still suppose it to be, the situation would indeed be hopeless.”

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Bertrand Russell

Zdroj: 1920s, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 17: Some Prospects: Cheerful and Otherwise

“Man differs from other animals in one very important respect, and that is that he has some desires which are, so to speak, infinite, which can never be fully gratified, and which would keep him restless even in Paradise. The boa constrictor, when he has had an adequate meal, goes to sleep, and does not wake until he needs another meal. Human beings, for the most part, are not like this.”

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Bertrand Russell

1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)

“Thee might observe incidentally that if the state paid for child-bearing it might and ought to require a medical certificate that the parents were such as to give a reasonable result of a healthy child – this would afford a very good inducement to some sort of care for the race, and gradually as public opinion became educated by the law, it might react on the law and make that more stringent, until one got to some state of things in which there would be a little genuine care for the race, instead of the present haphazard higgledy-piggledy ways.”

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Bertrand Russell

Letter to Alys Pearsall Smith (1894); published in The Selected Letters of Bertrand Russell, Volume 1: The Private Years (1884–1914), edited by Nicholas Griffin. It should be noted that in his talk of "the race", he is referring to "the human race". Smith married Russell in December 1894; they divorced in 1921.
1890s

“Perhaps the best hope for the future of mankind is that ways will be found of increasing the scope and intensity of sympathy.”

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Bertrand Russell

1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)

“A European who goes to New York and Chicago sees the future… when he goes to Asia he sees the past.”

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Bertrand Russell

Zdroj: 1920s, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 8: Eastern and Western Ideals of Happiness

“All's well that ends well; which is the epitaph I should put on my tombstone if I were the last man left alive.”

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Bertrand Russell

Letter to Lucy Donnely, April 22, 1906
1900s

“No man is liberated from fear who dare not see his place in the world as it is; no man can achieve the greatness of which he is capable until he has allowed himself to see his own littleness.”

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Bertrand Russell

Dreams and Facts (1919)
1910s

“The politician may change sides so frequently as to find himself always in the majority, but most politicians have a preference for one party to the other, and subordinate their love of power to this preference.”

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Bertrand Russell

1950s, What Desires Are Politically Important? (1950)

“It seems clear to me that marriage ought to be constituted by children, and relations not involving children ought to be ignored by the law and treated as indifferent by public opinion. It is only through children that relations cease to be a purely private matter.”

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Bertrand Russell

Letter to Ottoline Morrell, January 30, 1916
1910s

“I am neither as drunk as a Lord, nor as sober as a judge. I am more in the condition of a Lord Justice.”

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Bertrand Russell

Disputed

“I greatly doubt whether the men who become pirate chiefs are those who are filled with retrospective terror of their fathers, or whether Napoleon, at Austerlitz, really felt that he was getting even with Madame Mère. I know nothing of the mother of Attila, but I rather suspect that she spoilt the little darling, who subsequently found the world irritating because it sometimes resisted his whims.”

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Bertrand Russell

Zdroj: 1930s, Power: A New Social Analysis (1938), Ch. 2: Leaders and Followers

“Competition for power is of two sorts: between organizations, and between individuals for leadership within an organization.”

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Bertrand Russell

Zdroj: 1930s, Power: A New Social Analysis (1938), p. 165

“If you accept the ordinary laws of science, you have to suppose that human life and life in general on this planet will die out in due course: it is a stage in the decay of the solar system… You see in the moon the sort of thing to which the earth is tending – something dead, cold, and lifeless.
I am told that that sort of view is depressing, and people will sometimes tell you that if they believed that, they would not be able to go on living. Do not believe it; it is all nonsense. Nobody really worries much about what is going to happen millions of years hence. Even if they think they are worrying much about that, they are really deceiving themselves. They are worried about something much more mundane, or it may merely be a bad digestion; but nobody is really seriously rendered unhappy by the thought of something that is going to happen to this world millions and millions of years hence. Therefore, although it is of course a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out – at least I suppose we may say so, although sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation – it is not such as to render life miserable. It merely makes you turn your attention to other things.”

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Bertrand Russell

"The Argument from Design"
1920s, Why I Am Not a Christian (1927)

“None but a coward dares to boast that he has never known fear.”

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Bertrand Russell

Attributed to Russell in M. Kumar Dictionary of Quotations, p. 76, but actually said by Marshal Lannes, according to The London Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences (1824), p. 664
Misattributed