A Quote by A.J. Ayer

Bertrand Russell would not have wished to be called a saint of any description; but he was a great and good man.

A.J. Ayer

Quote Topics

Any Description Good Good Man Great Man Russell Saint Wished Would

Quote Author

A.J. Ayer
English - Philosopher
October 29, 1910 - June 27, 1989

Russell's prose has been compared by T.S. Eliot to that of David Hume's. I would rank it higher, for it had more color, juice, and humor. But to be lucid, exciting and profound in the main body of one's work is a combination of virtues given to few philosophers. Bertrand Russell has achieved immortality by his philosophical writings.

Sidney Hook

Animistic savages prostrating themselves before a painted stone have always seemed to me to be nearer the truth than any Einstein or Bertrand Russell.

Malcolm Muggeridge

My perfect day would be to go on a picnic up Mt. Wilson with Christopher Isherwood, Greta Garbo, Aldous Huxley, and Bertrand Russell.

Janet Fitch

I would not say that ethical behavior is not possible for the atheist or agnostic. It is. A couple of pretty good examples are Bertrand Russell and Jean-Paul Sartre. However, I will have to say that if we take the human lot as a whole, these two men must be seen as exceptions.

Huston Smith

Whenever anybody called Nelson Mandela a saint, he would say: "If by saint you mean a sinner who is trying to be better, then I'm a saint."

Kumi Naidoo

Academic environments are generally characterised by the presence of peole who claim to understand more than in fact they do. Linguistic Philosophy has produced a great revolution, generating people who claim not to understand when in fact they do. Some achieve great virtuosity at it. Any beginner in philosophy can manage not to understand, say, Hegel, but I have heard people who were so advanced that they knew how not to understand writers of such limpid clarity as Bertrand Russell or A.J. Ayer.

Ernest Gellner

I have in later years taken to Euclid, Whitehead, Bertrand Russell, in an elemental way.

Carl Sandburg

The next time anyone asks you "What is Bertrand Russell's philosophy?" the correct answer is "What year, please?"

Sidney Hook

Bertrand Russell started off as a mathematician and then degenerated into a philosopher and finally into a humanist; he went downhill rapidly!

Gregory Chaitin

The British philosopher Bertrand Russell said that philosophy went downhill after Democritus and did not recover until the Renaissance.

Leon M. Lederman

I had a good time working with Russell Crowe, Ron Howard and Ed Harris. It was a great cast and Russell worked really hard, doing tons of research and questioning everything

Jennifer Connelly

I had a good time working with Russell Crowe, Ron Howard and Ed Harris. It was a great cast and Russell worked really hard, doing tons of research and questioning everything.

Jennifer Connelly

I'm like Albert Schweitzer and Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein in that I have a respect for life - in any form. I believe in nature, in the birds, the sea, the sky, in everything I can see or that there is real evidence for. If these things are what you mean by God, then I believe in God.

Frank Sinatra

[I] browsed far outside science in my reading and attended public lectures - Bertrand Russell, H. G. Wells, Huxley, and Shaw being my favorite speakers.