Certain characteristics of the subject are clear. To begin with, we do not in this subject deal with particular things or particular properties: we deal formally with what can be said about any thing or any property. We are prepared to say that one and one are two, but not that Socrates and Plato are two.
Bertrand RussellOrganic life, we are told, has developed gradually from the protozoon to the philosopher, and this development, we are assured, is indubitably an advance. Unfortunately it is the philosopher, not the protozoon, who gives us this assurance.
Bertrand RussellWhat we cannot think we cannot think, therefore we also cannot say what we cannot think.
Bertrand RussellThere is no nonsense so errant that it cannot be made the creed of the vast majority by adequate governmental action.
Bertrand RussellIt is in our hearts that evil lies, and it is from our hearts that it must be plucked out.
Bertrand RussellPhilosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind is also rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.
Bertrand Russell