Ottoline had a great influence upon me, which was almost wholly beneficial. … She made me less self-centred, and less self-righteous. …
Many men are afraid of being influenced by women, but as far as my experience goes, this is a foolish fear. It seems to me that men need women, and women need men, mentally as much as physically. For my part, I owe a great deal to women whom I have loved, and without them I should have been far more narrow-minded.
出典: The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell, v.１, chap. 7： Cambridge Again, 1967]
詳細情報：https://russell-j.com/beginner/AB17-050.HTM
The ideal of financial success is set before the young by most of the influences that form their minds. In the cinema they see representations of luxury, where plutocrats own marble halls and beautiful ladies in splendid dresses. The hero generally succeeds, in the end, in belonging to this successful class. Even artists come to be judged by the amount of money they make. Merit not measured in money comes to be despised. Every kind of sensitiveness, being a handicap in the struggle, is regarded as a stigma of failure.
出典： Hope and Fear, Oct. 7,1932. In Mortals and Others, v.1, 1975.]
詳細情報：https://russell-j.com/HOPEFEAR.HTM
In the modern world there is hardly any leisure, not because men work harder than they did, but because their pleasures have become as strenuous as their work. The result is that, while cleverness has increased, wisdom has decreased because no one has time for the slow thoughts out of which wisdom, drop by drop, is distilled.
出典：Mortals and Others; Bertrand Russell’s American Essays, v.1
詳細情報：https://russell-j.com/MEDITATE.HTM
(Now) there are three reasons for which you may co-operate with a man: because you love him, because you fear him, or because you hope to share the swag. These three motives are of differing importance in different regions of human co-operation: the first governs procreation, and the third governs politics.
出典：Mortals and Others; Bertrand Russell’s American Essays, v.1
詳細情報：https://russell-j.com/COWARD.HTM
Where there is delight in a process, there will be style, and the activity of production will itself have aesthetic quality. But when men assimilate themselves to machines and value only the consequences of their work, not the work itself, style disappears, to be replaced by something which to the mechanised man appears more natural, though in fact it is only more brutal.
In praise of artificiality, Sept. 9, 1931. In: Mortals and Others, v.1 (1975) https://russell-j.com/ARTIFICI.HTM
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：The Conquest of Happiness, 1930, chap. 4: boredom and excitement.
詳細情報：https://russell-j.com/beginner/HA14-030.HTM
Vanity is a motive of immense potency. Anyone who has much to do with children knows how they are constantly performing some antic, and saying “Look at me”. “Look at me” is one of the most fundamental desires of the human heart. It can take innumerable forms, from buffoonery to the pursuit of posthumous fame. There was a Renaissance Italian princeling who was asked by the priest on his deathbed if he had anything to repent of. “Yes”, he said, “there is one thing. On one occasion I had a visit from the Emperor and the Pope simultaneously. I took them to the top of my tower to see the view, and I neglected the opportunity to throw them both down, which would have given me immortal fame”. History does not relate whether the priest gave him absolution. One of the troubles about vanity is that it grows with what it feeds on.
From： Human Society in Ethics and Politics, 1954,pt.2,chap.2: Politically Important Desires (Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech) https://russell-j.com/cool/47T-020201.HTM
I began to argue with the metaphysical sycophants:
‘What you say is absurd,’ I expostulated. ‘You proclaim that non-existence is the only reality. You pretend that this black hole which you worship exists. You are trying to persuade me that the non-existent exists. But this is a contradiction: and, however hot the flames of Hell may become, I will never so degrade my logical being as to accept a contradiction.’
At this point the President of the sycophants took up the argument: ‘You go too fast, my friend,’ he said. ‘You deny that the non-existent exists? But what is this to which you deny existence? If the non-existent is nothing, any statement about it is nonsense. And so is your statement that it does not exist. I am afraid you have paid too little attention to the logical analysis of sentences, which ought to have been taught you when you were a boy. Do you not know that every sentence has a subject, and that, if the subject were nothing, the sentence would be nonsense? So, when you proclaim, with virtuous heat, that Satan – Who is the non-existent- does not exist, you are plainly contradicting yourself.’
‘You,’ I replied, ‘have no doubt been here for some time and continue to embrace somewhat antiquated doctrines. You prate of sentences having subjects, but all that sort of talk is out of date. When I say that Satan, Who is the non-existent, does not exist, I mention neither Satan nor the non-existent, but only the word ‘Satan’ and the word ‘non-existent.’ Your fallacies have revealed to me a great truth. The great truth is that the word ‘not’ is superfluous. Henceforth I will not use the word ‘not.”
出典： Nightmares of Eminent Persons and Other Stories,
illustrated by Charles W. Stewart.
詳細情報：https://russell-j.com/cool/NIGHT-M4.HTM
Every isolated passion is, in isolation, insane; sanity may be defined as a synthesis of insanities. Every dominant passion generates a dominant fear, the fear of its non-fulfilment. Every dominant fear generates a nightmare, sometimes in the form of an explicit and conscious fanaticism, sometimes in a paralysing timidity, sometimes in an unconscious or subconscious terror which finds expression only in dreams. The man who wishes to preserve sanity in a dangerous world should summon in his own mind a Parliament of fears, in which each in turn is voted absurd by all the others. …
From： Nightmares of Eminent Persons, 1945, Introduction. https://russell-j.com/cool/46E-INTR01.HTM
［寸言］ この言葉は，ラッセルの2冊めの小説『著名人の悪魔』（Nightmares of Eminent Persons, and Other Stories, 1954）の巻頭に収められたもの（序文代わりのもの）である。明らかに「狂気」とおもわれるものも少なくないが，強い感情であるために、「正気」であるのに「狂気」だと思われてしまうもの（誤解されてしまうもの）も少なくない。ラッセルの核兵器撤廃闘争もそうであった。危機感を感じてない人間にとっては，ラッセルの行動は「極端」で，一種の「狂気」に見えるかも知れないが、起こりうる危機や破局をまざまざと想像できる人間にとっては、「狂気の沙汰」ではなく「正気の沙汰」なのである。大きな戦争や、大きな人災や、大きな災害が起こって初めて、自らの思慮の足りなさに気づく人が多い。
「原発全廃」なども極端な意見だと思う人も少なくないようであるが、そういった人が、原発全廃こそが「現実的」であることに気づくのは福島に続く大きな原発事故が起こってから、それも自分や自分の家族に大きな影響が生じた時、のことであろう。
But is there not; I said, ‘a grave danger that the perusal of such literature may lead young men, ay, and young women too, into deadly sin? Can I look my fellow men in the face when I reflect that perhaps at this very moment some unwedded couple is enjoying unholy bliss as a result of acts from which I derive a pecuniary profit?’
‘Alas,’ Dr. Mal1ako replied, ‘there is, I fear, much in our holy religion that you have failed adequately to understand. Have you reflected upon the parable of the ninety-nine just men who needed no repentance, and caused less joy in Heaven than the one sinner who returned to the fold? Have you never studied the text about the Pharisee and the Publican? Have you not allowed yourself to extract the moral from the penitent thief? Have you never asked yourself what it was that was blameworthy in the Pharisees whom our Lord denounced while eating their lunch? Have you never wondered at the praise of a broken and contrite heart? Can you say honestly that your heart, before you met Mrs. Molyneux, was either broken or contrite? Has it ever occurred to you that one cannot be contrite without first sinning? Yet this is the plain teaching of the Gospels. And if you wish to lead men into the frame of mind which is pleasing to God they must first sin. Doubtless many of those who buy the literature that my friend’s publisher distributes will afterwards repent, and if we are to believe the teachings of our holy religion, they will then be more pleasing to their Maker than the impeccably righteous, among whom hitherto you have been a notable example.’
This logic confounded me, and I became perplexed in the extreme.
出典: Satan in the Suburbs, and Other Stories, 1953.
詳細情報： https://russell-j.com/cool/45T-0101.HTM
［寸言］
時々街頭で，キリスト教普及団体（「ものみの塔」など）が「信じる者は救われる」とかなんとか言っているのが耳に入ります。これはラッセルが1953年に発表した小説「郊外の悪魔」（Satan in the Suburbs）に出てくる言葉「何ひとつ懺悔をする必要のない九十九人の正しい人間が,神のふところに帰った一人の罪人よりも,天国では喜びを得ることが少ないという寓話を,よくよく考えたことがおありでしょうか？」と同じ趣旨のことを言っています。
つまり，どんなに品行方正な生活をしていてもキリスト教（神）を信じていないとあの世で救われないけれども，罪人でも死ぬ間際に「回心」してキリスト教に帰依すれば天国に行けると言っています。
馬鹿馬鹿しいですが、キリスト教徒だけでなく、多くの宗教が同じような馬鹿げたことを言っています。
オットリン（モレル夫人）は非常に大きな影響を私に与えたが,ほとんどの場合,有益なものであった。・・・。彼女は,私の自己中心的なところや,独善的なところを少なくしてくれた。・・・。彼女は,私の禁欲的（清教徒的）なところをかなりなくし,また他人に対し批判的なところ（人に難癖をつけたがるところ）を,以前よりかなりなくしてくれた。・・・。
ラッセルは，若い時に５歳年上のアリスと結婚したが，しだいに気持ちが離れていき，結局，結婚生活は失敗に終わり，長い別居期間を経て、離婚に至った。（二人の間に子供がいれば、また違った展開になったであろう。ラッセルは早く両親が病没したことによる孤独感から，子供を持つことを熱望していたが、アリスは子供が産めない身体であり、ラッセルの強い希望も立たれた。）
