I shudder to think what would become of immense numbers of intelligent and high-minded men and women who at present earn their livelihood by advocating some reform which is very unlikely to be carried, if, by some magician’s stroke, all their various measures were to be achieved. The ranks of the unemployed would be swelled most dangerously. The motto of the secretary of a society should be ‘To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive’, for arrival spells ruin.
出典: On societies (written in June 8, 1932 and pub. in Mortals and Others, v.1, 1975.)
詳細情報：http://russell-j.com/SOCIETY.HTM
While it is undoubtedly our duty to love our neighbours, it is a duty not always easily performed, and some neighbours, it must be admitted, do nothing to make it less difficult. There are many ways in which they may be irritating, but one of the worst (to my way of thinking) is that of classifying everybody with some obvious label. People who have this unfortunate habit think that they have complete knowledge of a man or woman when they have pinned on the tag that they consider appropriate.
出典: On labelling people (written in Aug. 10, 1932 and pub. in Mortals and Others, v.1, 1975.］
詳細情報：http://russell-j.com/LABEL.HTM
Co-operativeness, as an ideal, is defective: it is right to live with reference to the community and not for oneself alone, but living for the community does not mean doing what it does. Suppose you are in a theatre which catches fire, and there is a stampede : the person who has learnt no higher morality than what is called ‘co-operation’ will join in the stampede since he will possess no inner force that would enable him to stand up against the herd. The psychology of a nation embarking on a war is at all points identical.
出典: Of co-operation (written in May 18, 1932 and pub. in Mortals and Others, v.1, 1975.］
詳細情報：http://russell-j.com/KYORYOKU.HTM
There has been a tendency to think that everything Xenophon says must be true, because he had not the wits to think of anything untrue. This is a very invalid line of argument. A stupid man’s report of what a clever man says is ★ never accurate, because he unconsciously translates what he hears into something that he can understand. I would rather be reported by my bitterest enemy among philosophers than by a friend innocent of philosophy. We cannot therefore accept what Xenophon says if it either involves any difficult point in philosophy or is part of an argument to prove that Socrates was unjustly condemned.
出典：A History of Western Philosophy, 1945, chap. 11 (Socrates), p.101(第3パラグラフ)
［寸言］
* 佐々木高政著『(新訂)英文解釈考』p.77の注： ‘never’ は,’not at all, in no way’ ではなく,’in no instance’ の意味
Those who can only do their work when upheld by self-deception had better first take a course in learning to endure the truth before
continuing their career, since sooner or later the need of being sustained by myths will cause their work to become harmful instead of beneficial. It is better to do nothing than to do harm. Half the useful work in the world consists of combating the harmful work.
A little time spent in learning to appreciate facts is not time wasted, and the work that will be done afterwards is far less likely to be harmful than the work done by those who need a continual inflation of their ego as a stimulant to their energy. A certain kind of resignation is involved in willingness to face the truth about
ourselves; this kind, though it may involve pain in the first moments,
affords ultimately a protection – indeed the only possible protection – against the disappointments and disillusionments to which the self-deceiver is liable. Nothing is more fatiguing nor, in the long run, more exasperating than the daily effort to believe things which daily become more incredible. To be done with this effort is an indispensable condition of secure and lasting happiness.
出典：The Conquest of Happiness, 1930, chap.16:Effort and
resignation.
詳細情報：http://russell-j.com/beginner/HA27-060.HTM
One of the essentials of boredom consists in the contrast between present circumstances and some other more agreeable circumstances which force themselves irresistibly upon the imagination. It is also one of the essentials of boredom that one’s faculties must not be fully occupied. Running away from enemies who are trying to take one’s life is, I imagine, unpleasant, but certainly not boring. A man would not feel bored while he was being executed, unless he had almost superhuman courage. In like manner no one has ever yawned during his maiden speech in the House of Lords, with the exception of the late Duke of Devonshire, who was reverenced by their Lordships in consequence. Boredom is essentially a thwarted desire for events, not necessarily pleasant ones, but just occurrences such as will enable the victim of ennui to know one day from another.
出典：The Conquest of Happiness, 1930, chap.4:Boredom and excitement.
詳細情報：http://russell-j.com/beginner/HA14-010.HTM
「戦争、虐殺、迫害は、すべて退屈からの逃避の一部（逃避から生まれたもの）であり、隣人とのけんかさえ、何もないよりはましだと感じられてきた（経験して知る）。それゆえ退屈は、人類の罪の少なくとも半分は退屈を恐れることに起因していることから、モラリスト（道徳家）にとってきわめて重要な問題である。」
（Wars, pogroms, and persecutions have all been part of the flight from boredom; even quarrels with neighbours have been found better than nothing. Boredom is therefore a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.）
出典：ラッセル『幸福論』第４章「退屈と興奮」
詳細情報：http://russell-j.com/beginner/HA14-030.HTM
Mass hysteria is a phenomenon not confined to human beings; it may be seen in any gregarious species. I once saw a photograph of a large herd of wild elephants in Central Africa Seeing an airplane for the first time, and all in a state of wild collective terror. The elephant, at most times, is calm and sagacious beast, but this unprecedented phenomenon of a noisy, unknown animal in the sky, had thrown the whole herd completely off its balance. Each separate animal was terrifies, and its terror communicated itself to the others, creating a vast multiplication of panic. As, however, there were no journalists among them, the terror died down when the airplane was out of sight.
出典： To Face Danger without Hysteria .In: New York Times Magazine, 21 Jan. 1951, pp.7, 42, 44-45.)
詳細情報：http://russell-j.com/beginner/KAMI-43.HTM
While I was in Paris I had a long discussion about my plan with Frederic Joliot-Curie. He warmly welcomed the plan and approved of the statement except for one phrase: I had written, ‘It is feared that if many bombs are used there will be universal death – sudden only for a fortunate minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration’. He did not like my calling the minority ‘fortunate’. ‘To die is not fortunate’, he said. Perhaps he was right. Irony, taken internationally, is tricky. In any case, I agreed to delete it. For some time after I returned to England, I heard nothing from him. He was ill, I learned later.
出典: The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, v.2 chap. 2: At home and abroad, 1968]
詳細情報：http://russell-j.com/beginner/AB32-200.HTM
It is a commonplace that the young are influenced by imagination and reasoning while the old are guided by experience. When I myself was young I had once a remarkable illustration of this fact. I had walked from the old-world village of Clovelly, in Devonshire, to a cape called Hartland Point, from which I could see Lundy Island at the mouth of the Bristol Channel. I got into conversation with a coast guard, who told me that the distance to Clovelly was eight miles, and to Lundy Island ten miles. ‘And how far is it from Clovelly to Lundy Island ?’ I asked. The answer was twenty-two miles. At this I burst out into argument to the effect that two sides of a triangle are always greater than the third side, and that if one went by way of Hartland Point the distance would only be eighteen miles. The coast guard, however, was quite unmoved. ‘All I can say, sir,’ he replied, ‘is that I was speaking with Captain Jones the other day, and he said: “I’ve known this coast, man and boy, for thirty years, and I make it twenty-two miles.” ‘ Before the man-and-boy argument, geometry had to retire abashed.
出典: The lessons of experience (written in Sept. 23, 1931 and pub. in Mortals and Others, v.1, 1975.)]
詳細情報：http://russell-j.com/EXPERIEN.HTM
［寸言］ Google の衛星地図で実測してみると、クロヴリーからハートランド・ポイントまで約８マイル、ハートランドからランディ島まで約16マイル、クロヴリーからランディ島まで直線で約21マイルあった。ということは、ハートランド・ポイントからランディ島までの距離のみが沿岸警備隊員の誤解あるいは言い間違いということになりそうである。また,非常に長いロープを張って2点間の距離を測っているわけではなく,海には潮流があり船は流されるので、「実際に船が走行した距離」が増えても不思議ではない。潮流がはげしいところではかなり航行距離がのびるであろう。）
1939年の夏,ジョン（長男）とケイト（長女）は,学校の休暇期間中に,私たちのところにやってきた。彼らが到着して２，３日すると,第二次世界大戦が勃発した。そのため,彼らを英国に戻すことが不可能になった。そこですぐさま私は,二人のそれ以後の教育の手配をしなければならなかった。ジョンは17歳だったので,カリフォルニア大学に入学させた。しかしケイトの方はまだ15歳だったので,大学に入れるのは若すぎるように思われた。私は,ロサンゼルスでは,どの学校が一番学力水準の高い学校かということを友人たちに尋ねたところ,彼らが全部一致して推薦してくれたところが一校あった。そこでケイトをその学校に入れた。しかしその学校で教えられている科目でケイトがまだ知っていないものはたった一つしかなく,それは「資本主義制度の長所」というものであった。そのため私は,彼女は年齢が若すぎたが,大学にやらざるえなかった。 In the summer of 1939, John and Kate came to visit us for the period of the school holidays. A few days after they arrived the War broke out, and it became impossible to send them back to England. I had to provide for their further education at a moment’s notice. John was seventeen, and I entered him at the University of California, but Kate was only fifteen, and this seemed young for the University. I made enquiries among friends as to which school in Los Angeles had the highest academic standard, and there was one that they all concurred in recommending, so I sent her there. But I found that there was only one subject taught that she did not already know, and that was the virtues of the capitalist system. I was therefore compelled, in spite of her youth, to send her to the University.
出典: The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, v.2 chap. 6:America, 1968]
詳細情報：http://russell-j.com/beginner/AB26-020.HTM
当面ほとんど実行されそうもないある種の改革を唱えることで現在生計を立てている知的かつ高潔な無数の男女が,万一魔法使いの一撃で彼らの唱道する種々の施策が達成された際には,一体どういう境遇になるかを考えると身震いする。失業者数は危険なまでに増えるだろう。団体の幹事（注：’常務理事’など）のモットーは,「希望を持って旅することは,目的地に到着することよりも良いことである」とすべきである。なぜなら,’到着’は破滅を意味するからである。
I shudder to think what would become of immense numbers of intelligent and high-minded men and women who at present earn their livelihood by advocating some reform which is very unlikely to be carried, if, by some magician’s stroke, all their various measures were to be achieved. The ranks of the unemployed would be swelled most dangerously. The motto of the secretary of a society should be ‘To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive’, for arrival spells ruin.
