Bertrand Russell

Formality Thus the absence of all mention of particular things or properties in logic or pure mathematics is a necessary result of the fact that this study is, as we say, "purely formal".

Ordinary language is totally unsuited for expressing what physics really asserts, since the words of everyday life are not sufficiently abstract. Only mathematics and mathematical logic can say as little as the physicist means to say.

Mathematics is, I believe, the chief source of the belief in eternal and exact truth, as well as a sensible intelligible world.

Zeno was concerned with three problems... These are the problem of the infinitesimal, the infinite, and continuity.

Calculus required continuity, and continuity was supposed to require the infinitely little; but nobody could discover what the infinitely little might be.

When a man tells you that he knows the exact truth about anything you are safe in inferring that he is an inexact man.

What has human happiness to do with morals? The object of morals is not to make people happy.

Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable.

Common sense, however it tries,_x000D_ cannot avoid being surprised from time to time.

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.

Gradually, by selective breeding, the congenital differences between rulers_x000D_ and ruled will increase until they become almost different species. A revolt_x000D_ of the plebs would become as unthinkable as an organized insurrection of_x000D_ sheep against the practice of eating mutton.

Well, there are many religions, but I suppose they all worship the same God.

Hitler is an outcome of Rousseau.

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.

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.

The harm that theology has done is not to create cruel impulses, but to give them the sanction of what professes to be lofty ethic, and to confer an apparently sacred character upon practices which have come down from more ignorant and barbarous times.

Science seems to be at war with itself.... Naive realism leads to physics, and physics, if true, shows naive realism to be false. Therefore naive realism, if true, is false; therefore it is false.

There is no greater reason for children to honour parents than for parents to honour children except, that while the children are young, the parents are stronger than children.

Although it is a gloomy view to suppose that life will die out, sometimes when I contemplate the things that people do with their lives I think it is almost a consolation

There will still be things that machines cannot do. They will not produce great art or great literature or great philosophy; they will not be able to discover the secret springs of happiness in the human heart; they will know nothing of love and friendship.

I had supposed until that time that it was quite common for parents to love their children, but the war persuaded me that it is a rare exception. I had supposed that most people liked money better than almost anything else, but I discovered that they liked destruction even better. I had supposed that intellectuals frequently loved truth, but I found here again that not ten per cent of them prefer truth to popularity.