Quote #82

Reason is a harmonising, controlling force rather than a creative one.

More from Bertrand Russell

  1. In a logically perfect language, there will be one word and no more for every simple object, and everything that is not simple will be expr…
  2. The theoretical understanding of the world, which is the aim of philosophy, is not a matter of great practical importance to animals, or to…
  3. To understand a name you must be acquainted with the particular of which it is a name.
  4. When the intensity of emotional conviction subsides, a man who is in the habit of reasoning will search for logical grounds in favour of th…
  5. The reason that I call my doctrine logical atomism is because the atoms that I wish to arrive at as the sort of last residue in analysis ar…
  6. A truer image of the world, I think, is obtained by picturing things as entering into the stream of time from an eternal world outside, tha…
  7. My desire and wish is that the things I start with should be so obvious that you wonder why I spend my time stating them. This is what I ai…
  8. Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the di…

All Bertrand Russell quotes