Bertrand Russell Quotes

The development of beings with minds is probably the highest individuation the world has ever known, and its prehistory is the history of life on earth.

The vestiges of the bicameral mind do not exist in any empty psychological space.

Just as the design of our bodies can be understood only in terms of natural selection, so the design of our minds can be understood only in terms of memetic selection.

The Same organizing forces that have shaped nature in all her forms are also responsible for the structure of our minds.

Traits don't change, states of mind do.

How much more generous it would be if, instead of writing parables about childhood wounds, psychologists were to accept that some differences between the sexes just are, that they are in the nature of the beasts, because each sex has an evolved tendency to develop that way in response to experience.

The status quo is more tenacious than anyone would ever imagine. The human mind prefers continuity rather than change. So it really has to be committed to eliminating a bad habit to even start down that path.

I don't always understand other people's motives. I will repeat that for my own benefit, if you don't mind. I don't always understand other people's motives.

Belief in God is apparently a psychological artifact of mammalian reproduction.

A part of being an actor is I people watch. I like to observe their behaviour, watch their reactions on the street and see how they talk to each other, and that's impossible when they are looking back at you. I used to enjoy taking the train and watching people in their own minds, struggling with themselves.

Such is the constitution of the human mind, that any kind of knowledge, if it be really such, is its own reward.

Nature wishes that woman should attract man, yet she often cunningly moulds into her face a little sarcasm, which seems to say, 'Yes, I am willing to attract, but to attract a little better kind of a man than any I yet behold

The mind is an enchanting thing.

It's not that big a mystery about types. It's not even that big a mystery why so many people are picking up on things now. It's like we were talking about the primitive thing before and all that. Nothing has really changed much. The things that have changed are like we're on the noon now. There are more buildings now. But we're still basically two monkeys sitting here.

The churning of a human mind is unpredictable, as is the anatomy of the human heart.

Sometimes what my analytical mind says to me is not what I'll do.

The most important thing is transforming our minds, for a new way of thinking, a new outlook: we should strive to develop a new inner world.

Considering the way evolution works, it should not be surprising if every man has got a Don Giovanni somewhere inside him.

Mankind will possess incalculable advantages and extraordinary control over human behavior when the scientific investigator will be able to subject his fellow men to the same external analysis he would employ for any natural object, and when the human mind will contemplate itself not from within but from without.

I'm your mind", it claims. "You can't parse ME into dendrites and synapses

Though our conduct seems so very different from that of the higher animals, the primary instincts are much alike in them and in us.

To my mind, the two most fascinating subjects in the universe are sex and the eighteenth century.

Suppose you had inherited the same body and temperament and mind that Al Capone had. Suppose you had had his environment and experiences. You would then be precisely what he was. . . . For it is those things - and only those things - that made him what he was. . . . You deserve very little credit for being what you are - and remember, the people who come to you irritated, bigoted, unreasoning, deserve very little discredit for being what they are.

Were we able to extract from any man a complete answer to the question, "What comes into your mind when you think about God?" we might predict with certainty the future of that man.

Man, like the universe, is a machine. Nothing enters our minds or determines our actions which is not directly or indirectly a response to stimuli beating upon our sense organs from without.