Bertrand Russell Causes Quotations

Envy was one of the most potent causes of unhappiness.

Undoubtedly the desire for food has been and still is one of the main causes of political events.

Bacon not only despised the syllogism, but undervalued mathematics, presumably as insufficiently experimental. He was virulently hostile to Aristotle , but he thought very highly of Democritus , Although he did not deny that the course of nature exemplifies a Divine purpose, he objected to any admixture of teleological explanation in the actual investigation of phenomena; everything, he held, should be explained as following necessarily from efficient causes .

The typical Westerner wishes to be the cause of as many changes as possible in his environment; the typical Chinaman wishes to enjoy as much and as delicately as possible.

One of the main causes of trouble in the world is dogmatic and fanatical belief in some doctrine for which there is no adequate evidence

There is in Aristotle an almost complete absence of what may be called benevolence or philanthropy. The sufferings of mankind . . . there is no evidence that they cause him unhappiness except when the sufferers happen to be his friends.

If everything has a cause, then God must have a cause. If there can be anything without a cause, it may just be the world as God...

People are zealous for a cause when they are not quite positive that it is true.