Bertrand Russell Quotes About Achievement
-
Aristotle, in spite of his reputation, is full of absurdities. He says that children should be conceived in the Winter, when the wind is in the North, and that if people marry too young the children will be female. He tells us that the blood of females is blacker than that of males; that the pig is the only animal liable to measles; that an elephant suffering from insomnia should have its shoulders rubbed with salt, olive-oil, and warm water; that women have fewer teeth than men, and so on. Nevertheless, he is considered by the great majority of philosophers a paragon of wisdom.
→ -
No great achievement is possible without persistent work.
→ -
The solution of the difficulties which formerly surrounded the mathematical infinite is probably the greatest achievement of which our age has to boast.
→ -
To be able to concentrate for a considerable time is essential to difficult achievement.
→ -
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 distorting medium of their own desires.
→ -
[Man] ... his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual life beyond the grave; that all the labour of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins.
→ -
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway about the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
→ -
Happiness is not best achieved by those who seek it directly.
→ -
Unless a man has been taught what to do with success after getting it, the achievement of it must inevitably leave him a prey to boredom.
→ -
The more we realize our minuteness and our impotence in the face of cosmic forces, the more amazing becomes what human beings have achieved.
→ -
Science, by itself, cannot supply us with an ethic. It can show us how to achieve a given end, and it may show us that some ends cannot be achieved. But among ends that can be achieved our choice must be decided by other than purely scientific considerations. If a man were to say, "I hate the human race, and I think it would be a good thing if it were exterminated," we could say, "Well, my dear sir, let us begin the process with you." But this is hardly argument, and no amount of science could prove such a man mistaken.
→ -
In science the successors stand upon the shoulders of their predecessors; where one man of supreme genius has invented a method, a thousand lesser men can apply it. ... In art nothing worth doing can be done without genius; in science even a very moderate capacity can contribute to a supreme achievement.
→ -
Most men do not feel in themselves the competence required for leading their group to victory, and therefore seek out a captain who appears to possess the courage and sagacity necessary for the achievement of supremacy. Even in religion this impulse appears. Nietzsche accused Christianity of inculcating a slave-morality, but ultimate triumph was always the goal. "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.
→
Related Authors
-
Russell Crowe Actor -
Rudolf Carnap Philosopher -
David Hume Philosopher -
G. H. Hardy Mathematician -
Friedrich Nietzsche Philologist -
Gottlob Frege Mathematician -
George Boole Mathematician -
Albert Einstein Theoretical Physicist -
Immanuel Kant Philosopher -
John Stuart Mill Philosopher -
Ludwig Wittgenstein Philosopher -
Karl Popper Philosopher -
Jean-Paul Sartre Philosopher -
Georg Cantor Mathematician -
Gottfried Leibniz Mathematician -
Rene Descartes Philosopher -
Noam Chomsky Linguist -
Alfred North Whitehead Mathematician -
George Edward Moore Philosopher -
Kurt Gödel Logician