Russell, Bertrand Arthur William (3rd Earl Russell)

English author, humanist, logician, mathematician, pacifist, and philosopher

tried to reduce mathematics to axioms

stater and eponym of Russell's paradox 1902

co-wrote "Principia Mathematica" 1903

Nobel Prize in Literature 1950

• "There is... in our day, a powerful antidote to nonsense, which hardly existed in earlier times - I mean science. Science cannot be ignored or rejected, because it is bound up with modern technique; it is essential alike to prosperity in peace and to victory in war. That is, perhaps from an intellectual point of view, the most hopeful feature of our age, and the one which makes it most likely that we shall escape complete submersion in some new or old superstition."
• "I should scorn to shiver with terror at the thought of annihilation. Happiness is nonetheless true happiness because it must come to an end, nor do thought and love lose their value because they are not everlasting."
• "If we were all given by magic the power to read each other's thoughts, I suppose the first effect would be to dissolve all friendships."
• "Patriots always talk of dying for their country and never of killing for their country."
• "Passive acceptance of the teacher's wisdom is easy to most boys and girls. It involves no effort of independent thought, and seems rational because the teacher knows more than his pupils; it is moreover the way to win the favour of the teacher unless he is a very exceptional man. Yet the habit of passive acceptance is a disastrous one in later life. It causes man to seek and to accept a leader, and to accept as a leader whoever is established in that position."