Bertrand Russell — Philosophical Quotes

665 quotes · Philosopher, Mathematician

Page 28 of 50

Bertrand Russell Quotes

All Philosophical Angry Hopeful Wise Love 665 quotes · page 28 of 50

Bertrand Russell

Philosopher, Mathematician

Philosophical

“Truth is for the gods; from our human point of view, it is an ideal, towards which we can approximate, but which we cannot hope to reach.”

Views Truth Is Point Of View

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Bertrand Russell

Philosopher, Mathematician

Philosophical

“Sir Arthur Eddington deduces religion from the fact that atoms do not obey the laws of mathematics. Sir James Jeans deduces it from the fact that they do.”

Law Science Jeans

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Philosophical

“Only mathematics and mathematical logic can say as little as the physicist means to say.”

Mean Science Mathematical Logic

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Philosophical

“What the world needs is not dogma but an attitude of scientific inquiry.”

Needs Attitude

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Philosophical

“Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world, the chief glory of man.”

Thinking Men

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Philosophical

“Every philosophical problem, when it is subjected to the necessary analysis and justification, is found either to be not really philosophical at all, or else to be, in the sense in which we are using the word, logical.”

Problem Philosophical Analysis

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Philosophical

“... the word "theory" ... was originally an Orphic word, which Cornford interprets as "passionate sympathetic contemplation" ... For Pythagoras, the "passionate sympathetic contemplation" was intellectual, and issued in mathematical knowledge ... To those who have reluctantly learnt a little mathematics in school this may seem strange; but to those who have experienced the intoxicating delight of sudden understanding that mathematics gives, from time to time, to those who love it, the Pythagorean view will seem completely natural.”

Giving School Views

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Philosophical

“The three main extra-rational activities in modern life are religion, war, and love. all these are extra-rational, but love is not anti-rational, that is to say, a reasonable man may reasonably rejoice in its existence”

Men War Love Is

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Philosophical

“In astronomy, the law of gravitation is plainly better worth knowing than the position of a particular planet on a particular night, or even on every night throughout a year. There are in the law a splendour and simplicity and sense of mastery which illuminate a mass of otherwise uninteresting details. But in history the matter is far otherwise. Historical facts, many of them, have an intrinsic value, a profound interest on their own account, which makes them worthy of study, quite apart from any possibility of linking them together by means of causal laws.”

Mean Night Science

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Philosophical

“The triumph of science has been mainly due to its practical utility, and there has been an attempt to divorce this aspect from that of theory, thus making science more and more a technique, and less and less a doctrine as to the nature of the world. The penetration of this point of view to philosophers is very recent.”

Views Divorce Technique

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Philosophical

“We are ... led to a somewhat vague distinction between what we may call "hard" data and "soft" data. This distinction is a matter of degree, and must not be pressed; but if not taken too seriously it may help to make the situation clear. I mean by "hard" data those which resist the solvent influence of critical reflection, and by "soft" data those which, under the operation of this process, become to our minds more or less doubtful.”

Mean Science Taken

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Philosophical

“Science, in its ultimate ideal, consists of a set of propositions arranged in a hierarchy, the lowest level of the hierarchy being concerned with particular facts, and the highest with some general law, governing everything in the universe. The various levels in the hierarchy have a two-fold logical connection, travelling one up, one down; the upward connection proceeds by induction, the downward by deduction.”

Two Law Science

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