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Russell was much admired by the brightest minds of his day, and he remained resolutely unrepentant in advocating contrarian views.
Russell kept at it until he was eighty, when he finally found true love, great happiness and genuine contentment with his fourth wife, the magnificent Edith Finch.
What Remains of Edith Finch?
I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous,
In view of the fact that the bulk of the public expenditure of most civilised Governments consists in payment for past wars or preparation for future wars, the man who lends his money to a Government is in the same position as the bad men in Shakespeare who hire murderers.51 The net result of the man’s economical habits is to increase the armed forces of the State to which he lends his savings. Obviously it would be better if he spent the money, even if he spent it on drink or gambling.
most people would die sooner than think
I want to say, in all seriousness, that a great deal of harm is being done in the modern world by belief in the virtuousness of work, and that the road to happiness and prosperity lies in an organised diminution of work.
“Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. To conquer fear is the beginning of wisdom.” Unpopular Essays
without a considerable amount of leisure a man is cut off from many of the best things.
in general have tried to make manual workers believe that there is some special nobility about altering the position of matter in space, just as men tried to make women believe that they derived some special nobility from their sexual enslavement.
The fact is that moving matter about, while a certain amount of it is necessary to our existence, is emphatically not one of the ends of human life.
There was formerly a capacity for light-heartedness and play which has been to some extent inhibited by the cult of efficiency. The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake.
The pleasures of urban populations have become mainly passive: seeing cinemas, watching football matches, listening to the radio, and so on. This results from the fact that their active energies are fully taken up with work; if they had more leisure, they would again enjoy pleasures in which they took an active part.
“Truth is a shining goddess, always veiled, always distant, never wholly approachable, but worthy of all the devotion of which the human spirit is capable.” Fact and Fiction [1961]
“All imitation is dangerous.” How I Write [1954]
“Do not fear to be eccentric in opinion, for every opinion now accepted was once eccentric.” A Liberal Decalogue [1954]
Russell spent virtually all of his spare time reading Shelley’s works and learning the poems by heart
“A generation that cannot endure boredom will be a generation of little men, of men unduly divorced from the slow processes of nature, of men in whom every vital impulse slowly withers, as though they were cut flowers in a vase.” The Conquest of Happiness [1930]
This then is a summary of the Russell Method of Creative Discipline: • Exhaustive research and thought to the point of complete immersion in the subject. • Attaining physical and objective distance from the project, during which further contemplation is undertaken in a state of Active Idleness. • Seeing the work or solution as a whole, and reproducing same. • Sober self-criticism and editing after the fact to ensure the creative and intellectual integrity of the project.
Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth by Apostolos Doxiadis, Christos H. Papadimitriou, Alecos Papadatos and Annie Di Donna Bloomsbury (2009)
Autobiography by Bertrand Russell Routledge Classics (2009)
A History of Western Philosophy by Bertrand Russell Simon & Schuster (2007)
Portraits from Memory and Other Essays by Bertrand Russell Spokesman Books (1995) Now you are just being greedy. This rare book is the cherry on top of another cherry, sprinkled with sugar and/or cocaine.
