Bertrand Russell: Frases en inglés (página 12)

“When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of the belief which he finds in himself.”

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Bertrand Russell

Fuente: 1910s, Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays http://archive.org/stream/mysticism00russuoft/mysticism00russuoft_djvu.txt (1918), Ch. 1: Mysticism and Logic

“Some part of life – perhaps the most important part – must be left to the spontaneous action of individual impulse, for where all is system there will be mental and spiritual death.”

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Bertrand Russell

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

“Change is one thing, progress is another.”

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Bertrand Russell

1950s, Unpopular Essays (1950)

“To understand the actual world as it is, not as we should wish it to be, is the beginning of wisdom.”

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Bertrand Russell

1930s, Mortals and Others (1931-35)

“People seem good while they are oppressed, but they only wish to become oppressors in their turn: life is nothing but a competition to be the criminal rather than the victim.”

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Bertrand Russell

Letter to Ottoline Morrell, 17 December, 1920
1920s

“I have lived in the pursuit of a vision, both personal and social. Personal: to care for what is noble, for what is beautiful, for what is gentle; to allow moments of insight to give wisdom at more mundane times. Social: to see in imagination the society that is to be created, where individuals grow freely, and where hate and greed and envy die because there is nothing to nourish them. These things I believe, and the world, for all its horrors, has left me unshaken.”

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Bertrand Russell

1960s, The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell (1967-1969)

“The most important thing a father can do for his children is to love their mother.”

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Bertrand Russell

Attributed to Reverend Theodore Hesburgh in Sol Gordon Let's Make Sex a Household Word: A Guide for Parents and Children (John Day Company, 1975), p. 79
Misattributed

“[T]he plan we are advocating amounts essentially to this: that a certain small income, sufficient for necessaries, should be secured to all, whether they work or not, and that a larger income, as much larger as might be warranted by the total amount of commodities produced, should be given to those who are willing to engage in some work which the community recognizes as useful.”

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Bertrand Russell

Fuente: 1910s, Proposed Roads To Freedom (1918), Ch. IV: Work and Pay, discussing Universal Basic Income (UBI)

“If you think that your belief is based upon reason, you will support it by argument, rather than by persecution, and will abandon it if the argument goes against you. But if your belief is based on faith, you will realize that argument is useless, and will therefore resort to force either in the form of persecution or by stunting and distorting the minds of the young in what is called "education". This last is particularly dastardly, since it takes advantage of the defencelessness of immature minds. Unfortunately it is practiced in greater or less degree in the schools of every civilised country.”

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Bertrand Russell

Fuente: 1950s, Human Society in Ethics and Politics (1954), p. 220

“Arithmetic must be discovered in just the same sense in which Columbus discovered the West Indies, and we no more create numbers than he created the Indians.”

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Bertrand Russell

Principles of Mathematics (1903), p. 451
1900s

“Mathematics takes us still further from what is human, into the region of absolute necessity, to which not only the world, but every possible world, must conform.”

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Bertrand Russell

1900s, "The Study of Mathematics" (November 1907)

“I think modern educational theorists are inclined to attach too much importance to the negative virtue of not interfering with children, and too little to the positive merit of enjoying their company.”

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Bertrand Russell

Fuente: 1930s, In Praise of Idleness and Other Essays (1935), Ch. 12: Education and Discipline

“[Messrs Ogden and Richards] will reply that they are considering the meaning of a "thought," not of a word. A "thought" is not a social phenomenon, like speech, and therefore does not have the two sides, active and passive, which can be distinguished in speech. I should urge, however, that all the reasons which led our authors to avoid introducing images in explaining meaning should have also led them to avoid introducing "thoughts." If a theory of meaning is to be fitted into natural science as they desire, it is necessary to define the meaning of words without introducing anything "mental" in the sense in which what is "mental" is not subject to the laws of physics. Therefore, for the same reasons for which I now hold that the meaning of words should be explained without introducing images – which I argued to be possible in the above-quoted passage – I also hold that meaning in general should be treated without introducing "thoughts," and should be regarded as a property of words considered as physical phenomena. Let us therefore amend their theory. They say: "'I am thinking of A' is the same thing as 'My thought is being caused by A.'" Let us substitute: "'I am speaking of A' is the same thing as 'My speech is being caused by A.'" Can this theory be true?”

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Bertrand Russell

1920s, Review of The Meaning of Meaning (1926)

“To choose one sock from each of infinitely many pairs of socks requires the Axiom of Choice, but for shoes the Axiom is not needed.”

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Bertrand Russell

As quoted in Williams' Weighing the Odds: A Course in Probability and Statistics (2001), p. 498
Attributed from posthumous publications

“It is said (I do not know with what truth) that a certain Hindu thinker believed the earth to rest upon an elephant. When asked what the elephant rested upon, he replied that it rested upon a tortoise. When asked what the tortoise rested upon, he said, "I am tired of this. Suppose we change the subject."”

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Bertrand Russell

This illustrates the unsatisfactory character of the First-Cause argument.
"Is There a God?" (1952)
1950s

“The true function of logic … as applied to matters of experience … is analytic rather than constructive; taken a priori, it shows the possibility of hitherto unsuspected alternatives more often than the impossibility of alternatives which seemed prima facie possible. Thus, while it liberates imagination as to what the world may be, it refuses to legislate as to what the world is.”

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Bertrand Russell

Fuente: 1910s, Our Knowledge of the External World (1914), p. 8

“I have been accused of a habit of changing my opinions … I am not myself in any degree ashamed of having changed my opinions. What physicist who was already active in 1900 would dream of boasting that his opinions had not changed during the last half century? In science men change their opinions when new knowledge becomes available; but philosophy in the minds of many is assimilated rather to theology than to science. … The kind of philosophy that I value and have endeavoured to pursue is scientific, in the sense that there is some definite knowledge to be obtained and that new discoveries can make the admission of former error inevitable to any candid mind. For what I have said, whether early or late, I do not claim the kind of truth which theologians claim for their creeds. I claim only, at best, that the opinion expressed was a sensible one to hold at the time when it was expressed. I should be much surprised if subsequent research did not show that it needed to be modified. I hope, therefore, that whoever uses this dictionary will not suppose the remarks which it quotes to be intended as pontifical pronouncements, but only as the best I could do at the time towards the promotion of clear and accurate thinking. Clarity, above all, has been my aim.”

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Bertrand Russell

Preface to The Bertrand Russell Dictionary of Mind, Matter and Morals (1952) edited by Lester E. Denonn
1950s

“The pursuit of knowledge is, I think, mainly actuated by love of power. And so are all advances in scientific technique. In politics, also, a reformer may have just as strong a love of power as a despot. It would be a complete mistake to decry love of power altogether as a motive. Whether you will be led by this motive to actions which are useful, or to actions which are pernicious, depends upon the social system, and upon your capacities.”

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Bertrand Russell

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

“The criminal law has, from the point of view of thwarted virtue, the merit of allowing an outlet for those impulses of aggression which cowardice, disguised as morality, restrains in their more spontaneous forms. War has the same merit. You must not kill you neighbor, whom perhaps you genuinely hate, but by a little propaganda this hate can be transferred to some foreign nation, against whom all your murderous impulses become patriotic heroism.”

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Bertrand Russell

Part III: Man and Himself, Ch. 17: Fear, p. 175
1950s, New Hopes for a Changing World (1951)

“The State is a collection of officials, different for difference purposes, drawing comfortable incomes so long as the status quo is preserved. The only alteration they are likely to desire in the status quo is an increase of bureaucracy and the power of bureaucrats.”

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Bertrand Russell

Fuente: 1920s, Sceptical Essays (1928), Ch. 12: Free Thought and Official Propaganda http://books.google.com/books?id=9tQsg5ITfHsC&q=%22The+State+is+a+collection+of+officials+different+for+different+purposes+drawing+comfortable+incomes+so+long+as+the+status+quo+is+preserved+The+only+alteration+they+are+likely+to+desire+in+the+status+quo+is+an+increase+of+bureaucracy+and+the+power+of+bureaucrats%22&pg=PA134#v=onepage