Bertrand Russell - Bertrand Russells Best (Routledge Classics)

Cover

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Bertrand Russells Best

the cream of the great mans satire, witty, pungent quotes from a variety of writings.

Evening News

pungent quotations that underlie Lord Russells views on dogmatic authority as one of the greatest obstacles to human advancement.

Times Educational Supplement

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Routledge Classics contains the very best of Routledge publishing over the past century or so, books that have, by popular consent, become established as classics in their field. Drawing on a fantastic heritage of innovative writing published by Routledge and its associated imprints, this series makes available in attractive, affordable form some of the most important works of modern times.

For a complete list of titles visit
www.routledge.com/classics

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Bertrand Russell

London and New York

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This edition first published in 1958
by George Allen & Unwin Ltd, London

First published in Routledge Classics 2009
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN

Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
270 Madison Ave, New York, NY 10016

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business

This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2009.

To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledges collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.

2009 The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation Ltd

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted
or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic,
mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter
invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the publishers.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Russell, Bertrand, 18721970.
[Selections. 2009]
Bertrand Russells best / Bertrand Russell.
p. cm.(Routledge classics)
Originally published: London : George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1958.
1. Philosophy. I. Title.
B1649.R91E4 2009
082dc22

ISBN 0-203-87545-1 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0-415-47358-6 (pbk)

ISBN13: 978-0-415-47358-3 (pbk)

ISBN10: 0-203-87545-1 (Print Edition) (ebk)

ISBN13: 978-0-203-87545-2 (Print Edition) (ebk)

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It is pleasant news that Professor Egner is publishing a revision of the book Bertrand Russells Best. The skill and the impartiality with which he made his selections, producing, thereby a volume which one may hope can be read without pain and without excessive mental exertion, seem to me admirable. I should like to reiterate, however, what I said in The Preface to the volume edited by Professor Robert E. Egner and Mr Lester E. Denonn called The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell. I said there: I should not wish to be thought in earnest only when I am solemn.

The longer I have lived, the more I have come to suspect solemnity and to see in it not always, but frequently a cloak for a humbug. What is most lacking in the modern world is genial, good-natured tolerance; and what is most hostile to this is a harsh and dogmatic morality which condemns the majority of the human race as reprobates. Against solemnity, the best weapon is wit. Most other weapons produce only another dogmatic, sectarian solemnity. I have tried to avoid this danger, though I must confess that I have not always been successful in this endeavour.

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Bertrand Russell wrote a special Preface to the first impression of this new and completely revised edition just a few weeks before he died in his 98th year. In the Preface he said: It is pleasant news that Professor Egner is publishing a revision of the book Bertrand Russells Best; and, so it is pleasant news for me, that this book has now been published in paperback. It is a unique tribute to Lord Russell that his own books well over seventy of them spanning over seven decades have not only sold millions of copies and been translated into every language of civilized societies, but that Lord Russells works reached and influenced more people than any other philosopher in modern Times. The views of most philosophers go unread by the general public, but the philosophy of Bertrand Russell was read and quoted more often since Western civilization began in Greece.

As I was close to completing this book I asked Lord Russell if I should make any reference to this volume being a definitive selection of his Best Wit, Wisdom, and Satire, and he said: I rather shrink from the word definitive chiefly on the grounds that I am

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not yet dead. He was then 97 years old. Lord Russells scope of human life and the quest for certainty was astounding. But, for him, the word, certainty, was a bad one because, as he said: Nothing deserves certainty. This book takes sharp fun on those ideas and institutions once thought to be Certain.

Prof. Robert E. Egner