Bertrand Russell Quotes

It is within science itself, and not in some prior philosophy, that reality is to be identified and described.

I always start with the assumption that everything that happens in the world is actually in the world. It sounds like an obvious thing to say, but it's a very powerful methodological premise.

It is not enough for theory to describe and analyze, it must itself be an event in the universe it describes.

The crude real will not by itself yield truth.

Religion and science have always been matters of faith in something. It is the same something.

Physics is unable to stand on its own feet, but needs a metaphysics on which to support itself, whatever fine airs it may assume towards the latter.

All true knowledge contradicts common sense.

There is a philosophy that says that if something is unobservable -- unobservable in principle -- it is not part of science. If there is no way to falsify or confirm a hypothesis, it belongs to the realm of metaphysical speculation, together with astrology and spiritualism. By that standard, most of the universe has no scientific reality -- it's just a figment of our imaginations.

Religion is a culture of faith; science is a culture of doubt.

One of the reasons I've gotten so attached to talking to scientists is that... they know there is a reality.

Yet, the Universe is real enough to the conscious beings in it, which are as unreal as it is itself.

Philosophers have not kept up with modern developments in science. Particularly physics.

All generalizations are false, including this one.

Philosophy of science without history of science is empty; history of science without philosophy of science is blind.

Nothing puzzles me more than the time and space; and yet nothing troubles me less.

There are only two things. Truth and lies. Truth is indivisible, hence it cannot recognize itself; anyone who wants to recognize it has to be a lie.

While it is true that science cannot decide questions of value, that is because they cannot be intellectually decided at all, and lie outside the realm of truth and falsehood. Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know.

Scientists don't read theology; they don't read philosophy. It doesn't make any difference to what they're doing - for better or worse, it may not be a value judgment, but it's true.

'Do not touch ontologically' doesn't mean 'are separated by empirically measurable hard edges.'

Science is not wisdom.

Maybe scientists are fundamentalist when it comes to defining in some abstract way what is meant by 'truth'. But so is everybody else. I am no more fundamentalist when I say evolution is true than when I say it is true that New Zealand is in the southern hemisphere. We believe in evolution because the evidence supports it, and we would abandon it overnight if new evidence arose to disprove it.

But if science may be said to be blind without philosophy, it is true also that philosophy is virtually empty without science.

When millions of tons of angry elephant come spinning through the sky, and there was no one there to hear it, does it - philosopically speaking - make a noise

Logic doesn't apply to the real world. D. R. Hofstadter and D. C. Dennett (eds.) The Mind's I, 1981.

A paradox is only a truth standing on its head to attract attention.