A fanatical group all together have a comfortable feeling that they’re all friends with one another. They are all very much excited about the same thing. You can see it in any political party. There’s always a fringe of fanatics in any political party, and they feel very cozy with one another; and when that is spread about and is combined with a propensity to hate some other group, you get fanaticism well developed.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Interview by Woodrow Wyatt, BBC TV (1959)
(Source)
Collected in Bertrand Russell's BBC Interviews (1959) [UK] and Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind (1960) [US]. Reprinted (abridged) in The Humanist (1982-11/12), and in Russell Society News, #37 (1983-02).
Quotations by:
Russell, Bertrand
One of the things that militates against happiness is worry, and that’s one respect in which I’ve become much happier as I’ve grown older. I worry much less and I found a very useful plan in regard to worry, which is to think, “Now what is the very worst thing that could happen?” And then think, “Well, after all it wouldn’t be so very bad a hundred years hence; it probably won`t matter.” After you’ve really made yourself think that, you won`t worry so much. Worry comes from not facing unpleasant possibilities.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Interview by Woodrow Wyatt, BBC TV (1959)
Collected in Bertrand Russell's BBC Interviews (1959) [UK] and Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind (1960) [US]. Reprinted (abridged) in The Humanist (1982-11/12), and in Russell Society News, #37 (1983-02).
In fact the state is primarily an organization for killing foreigners, that’s its main purpose. There are, of course, other things they do. They do a certain amount of educating, but, in the course of educating you, try very hard to make the young think it is a grand thing to kill foreigners.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Interview by Woodrow Wyatt, BBC TV (1959)
Collected in Bertrand Russell's BBC Interviews (1959) [UK] and Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind (1960) [US].
There’s a great deal to be said for nationalism, for keeping diversity — in literature, in art, in language, and in all kinds of cultural things. But when it comes to politics, I think nationalism is an unmitigated evil. I don’t think there’s a single thing to be said in its favor.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Interview by Woodrow Wyatt, BBC TV (1959)
Collected in Bertrand Russell's BBC Interviews (1959) [UK] and Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind (1960) [US]. Reprinted (abridged) in The Humanist (1982-11/12), and in Russell Society News, #37 (1983-02).
Well, it is part of our emotional apparatus that we are liable to both love and hate, and we like to exercise them. We love our compatriots and we hate foreigners. Of course, we love our compatriots only when we’re thinking of foreigners. When we’ve forgotten foreigners, we don’t love them so much.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Interview by Woodrow Wyatt, BBC TV (1959)
Collected in Bertrand Russell's BBC Interviews (1959) [UK] and Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind (1960) [US]. Reprinted (abridged) in The Humanist (1982-11/12), and in Russell Society News, #37 (1983-02).
Every human being, like every animal, wants to live in what is felt to be a safe environment — an environment where you won’t be exposed to unexpected peril. Now, when a man tells you that something you’ve always believed was in fact not true, it gives you a frightful shock and you think, “Oh! I don’t know where I am. When I think I’m planting my foot upon the ground, perhaps I’m not.” And you get into a terror.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Interview by Woodrow Wyatt, BBC TV (1959)
On resistance to scientific discovery.
Collected in Bertrand Russell's BBC Interviews (1959) [UK] and Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind (1960) [US]. Reprinted (abridged) in The Humanist (1982-11/12), and in Russell Society News, #37 (1983-02).
I should like to say that you have, through your knowledge, powers which humans have never had before. You can use these powers well or you can use them ill. You will use them well if you realize that humankind is all one family and that we can all be happy or we can all be miserable.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Interview by Woodrow Wyatt, BBC TV (1959)
Collected in Bertrand Russell's BBC Interviews (1959) [UK] and Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind (1960) [US].
The time is passed when you could have a happy minority living upon the misery of the great mass. That time is passed. People won’t acquiesce in it, and you will have to learn to put up with the knowledge that your neighbor is also happy, if you want to be happy yourself. I think, if people are wisely educated, they will have a more expansive nature and will find no difficulty in allowing the happiness of others as a necessary condition of their own.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Interview by Woodrow Wyatt, BBC TV (1959)
Collected in Bertrand Russell's BBC Interviews (1959) [UK] and Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind (1960) [US].
Sometimes in a vision, I see a world of happy human beings, all vigorous, all intelligent, none of them oppressing, none of them oppressed. A world of human beings aware that their common interests outweigh those in which they compete, striving toward those really splendid possibilities that the human intellect and the human imagination make possible such a world as I was speaking of can exist if everyone chooses that it should. And if it does exist, if it does come to exist, we shall have a world very much more glorious, very much more splendid, more happy, more full of imagination and happy emotions, than any world that the world has ever known before.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Interview by Woodrow Wyatt, BBC TV (1959)
Collected in Bertrand Russell's BBC Interviews (1959) [UK] and Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind (1960) [US]. Reprinted (abridged) in The Humanist (1982-11/12), and in Russell Society News, #37 (1983-02).
WYATT: Do you think that philosophy contribute to happiness?
RUSSELL: Yes, if you happen to be interested in philosophy and good at it, but not otherwise – but so does bricklaying. Anything you’re good at contributes to happiness.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Interview by Woodrow Wyatt, BBC TV (1959)
Collected in Bertrand Russell's BBC Interviews (1959) [UK] and Bertrand Russell Speaks His Mind (1960) [US].
Instinctively we divide mankind into friends and foes — friends, towards whom we have the morality of co-operation; foes, towards whom we have that of competition. But this division is constantly changing; at one moment a man hates his business competitor, at another, when both are threatened by Socialism or by an external enemy, he suddenly begins to view him as a brother. Always when we pass beyond the limits of the family it is the external enemy which supplies the cohesive force. In times of safety we can afford to hate our neighbour, but in times of danger we must love him.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Lecture (1948-12-26), “Social Cohesion and Human Nature,” Reith Lecture, No. 1 (14:16), BBC Radio
(Source)
As collected, with edits, in Authority and the Individual (1949).
A life without adventure is likely to be unsatisfying, but a life in which adventure is allowed to take whatever form it will is sure to be short.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Lecture (1948-12-26), “Social Cohesion and Human Nature,” Reith Lecture, No. 1 (25:36), BBC Radio
(Source)
As collected, with edits, in Authority and the Individual (1949).
We now know that a life which goes excessively against natural impulse is one which is likely to involve effects of strain that may be quite as bad as indulgence in forbidden impulses would have been. People who live a life which is unnatural beyond a point are likely to be filled with envy, malice and all uncharitableness. They may develop strains of cruelty, or, on the other hand, they may so completely lose all joy in life that they have no longer any capacity for effort.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Lecture (1948-12-26), “Social Cohesion and Human Nature,” Reith Lecture, No. 1, BBC Radio
(Source)
As collected, with edits, in Authority and the Individual (1949).
Too little liberty brings stagnation, and too much brings chaos.
Those who believe that the voice of the people is the voice of God may infer that any unusual opinion or peculiar taste is almost a form of impiety, and is to be viewed as a culpable rebellion against the legitimate authority of the herd. This will only be avoided if liberty is as much valued as democracy, and it is realized that a society in which each is the slave of all is only a little better than one in which each is the slave of a despot. There is equality where all are slaves, as well as where all are free. This shows that equality, by itself, is not enough to make a good society.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Lecture (1949-01-16), “The Conflict of Technique and Human Nature,” Reith Lecture, “Authority and the Individual” No. 4, BBC Radio
(Source)
This passage was not included in the original broadcast (transcript), but only in the collected and edited version in Authority and the Individual (1949).
More on "the voice of the people is the voice of God" here.
Self-respect will keep a man from being abject when he is in the power of enemies, and will enable him to feel that he may be in the right when the world is against him. If a man has not this quality, he will feel that majority opinion, or governmental opinion, is to be treated as infallible, and such a way of feeling, if it is general, makes both moral and intellectual progress impossible.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Lecture (1949-01-16), “The Conflict of Technique and Human Nature,” Reith Lecture, No. 4 (27:01), BBC Radio
(Source)
As collected, with edits, in Authority and the Individual (1949).
Differences between nations, so long as they do not lead to hostility, are by no means to be deplored. Living for a time in a foreign country makes us aware of merits in which our own country is deficient, and this is true whichever country our own may be. The same thing holds of differences between different regions within one country, and of the differing types produced by different professions. Uniformity of character and uniformity of culture are to be regretted. Biological evolution has depended upon inborn differences between individuals or tribes, and cultural evolution depends upon acquired differences. When these disappear, there is no longer any material for selection. In the modern world, there is a real danger of too great similarity between one region and another in cultural respects. One of the best ways of minimising this evil is an increase in the autonomy of different groups.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Lecture (1949-01-23), “Control and Initiative: Their Respective Spheres,” Reith Lecture, “Authority and the Individual” No. 5, BBC Radio
(Source)
In our own day […] there has been too much of a tendency towards authority, and too little care for the preservation of initiative. Men in control of vast organisations have tended to be too abstract in their outlook, to forget what actual human beings are like, and to try to fit men to systems rather than systems to men.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Lecture (1949-01-30), “Individual and Social Ethics,” Reith Lecture, “Authority and the Individual” No. 6, BBC Radio
(Source)
On the one hand, security and justice require centralized governmental control, which must extend to the creation of a world government if it is to be effective. Progress, on the contrary, requires the utmost scope for personal initiative that is compatible with social order.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Lecture (1949-01-30), “Individual and Social Ethics,” Reith Lecture, No. 6, BBC Radio
(Source)
As collected, with edits, in Authority and the Individual (1949).
There are some among philosophers and statesmen who think that the State can have an excellence of its own, and not merely as a means to the welfare of the citizens. I cannot see any reason to agree with this view. “The State” is an abstraction; it does not feel pleasure or pain, it has no hopes or fears, and what we think of as its purposes are really the purposes of individuals who direct it. When we think concretely, not abstractly, we find, in place of “the State,” certain people who have more power than falls to the share of most men. And so glorification of “the State” turns out to be, in fact, glorification of a governing minority. No democrat can tolerate such a fundamentally unjust theory.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Lecture (1949-01-30), “Individual and Social Ethics,” Reith Lecture, No. 6, BBC Radio
(Source)
As collected, with edits, in Authority and the Individual (1949).
Wherever one finds oneself inclined to bitterness, it is a sign of emotional failure: a larger heart, and a greater self-restraint, would put a calm autumnal sadness in the place of the instinctive outcry of pain.
Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Letter (1903-04-13) to Lucy Donnelly
(Source)
Collected in his Autobiography, Vol. 1: 1872-1914, ch. 6 "'Principia Mathematica'" (1967).